No More Snooping: HP’s New Laptops Come with Private Screens

HP has come up with a new integrated privacy screen designed in partnership with the company 3M. It will help stop what HP calls, “visual hacking” or in other words, people looking over on to your laptop’s screen. Dubbed the “Sure View screen”, it will be available with HP’s Elitebook 840 and Elitebook 1040 notebooks.

For Those who Value Their Privacy in Public

Privacy filters are what people mostly use on their laptops to avoid unapproved peeks on their work. The filters are often cumbersome and annoying. They cost about $30-$80 per filter and damaging one requires a complete replacement.

For people who like to watch “videos” privately, HP’s Sure View will be very useful.

The privacy filter is also pretty easy to activate. You only need to press Fn+F2 to turn it on or off.

If you look at the screen from any other angle except for straight on, the screen dims progressively depending on what angle you look it from.

You can see it for yourself below:

Potential Usage Scenarios

This can help when you are at an airport, coffee shop or a restaurant and don’t want others to peek at what you’re doing. Especially, if its sensitive financial information of your company or presentations you don’t want leaked.

This can be a problem often times as generally people just look at anyone’s laptop nonchalantly as there is nothing wrong with what they’re doing.

Sure View won’t prevent people from looking but at least its better than nothing and others can’t view your screen unless they are standing right over your head.

Prices are still not announced, but we expect the price of Sure View screen privacy tech to come bundled for higher end configurations of the Elitebook 840 and 1040, which cost $1,249 and $1,499. For the lower end notebooks, it could cost an extra $60-$80 from the base price.

The touchscreen versions will receive the new tech in September while non-touch versions will get it in October

Lenovo Announces its Latest Generation Gaming PC - All in One

Gaming PCs have been one of the best-looking things you can buy right now and Lenovo has only carried that notion forward. Its newest gaming PCs then, no surprises, look other-worldly and have enough power too.

IdeaCentre Y710 Cube

The IdeaCentre Y710 Cube, following the philosophy of Mac G4 Cube, is a system which is easy-to-carry and has a handle on top. It weighs just 7.4 kilograms and has multiple LEDs on the front.

Under the hood, you get a 6th-generation Intel Core i7 processor, up to a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080, and up to 32 GB of RAM. You also get a storage of up to a 256 GB SSD, or a 2 TB hard drive. Lenovo says this should be enough for 4K gaming, VR and high-quality streaming.

You also get Dolby Audio, 4 USB ports and Killer DoubleShot Pro Wi-Fi. There is also an option to buy it together with Lenovo’s mechanical keyboard and precision mouse. Pricing starts at $1299 for the version with GTX 1070 though we know where most of the cost in going.

IdeaCentre AIO Y910

The second machine Lenovo announced was the all-in-one IdeaCentre AIO Y910. This one comes with a 27-inch borderless display on the front with QHD (2560 x 1440) resolution.

The hardware is the same at a 6th generation Intel Core i7, up to a GTX 1080 GPU and 32 GB of RAM.

Pricing starts at $1799. Both these systems will be available in October.

INTEL's view on USB Type-C : Future Industry Standard

If you need convincing on why you should give up on that nostalgic headphone jack, Intel may have something under its bag to convince you.

While Apple is likely to nix the audio jack in favor of Lightning port, Intel is providing reasons why you should embrace the Type-C standard instead which you’ll see in way more phones than Lightning.

To be clear, the most surprising thing I find is how quickly people tend to forgot when the headphone jack came in your run-of-the-mill smartphone.

It wasn’t always there. It wasn’t there when Apple first outed its revolutionary touchscreen phone in 2007. Yes, that’s right, it only came next year. The first mainstream phone to get it was the venerable Nokia N95 after which we got an explosion of these devices, all with the 3.5mm jack.

After that, everyone simply started taking these tools for granted and more than a billion and a half phones later, they are everywhere. And arguably, it is that mainstream acceptance which is coming to bite makers now.

In the beginning it seemed like a simple standard. But a decade later it is no way near as sophisticated as the rest of the phone. That is certainly not an unexpected phenomenon, as we’ve seen elsewhere with Windows 7 and the 30-pin connector.

Consumers hate change, especially when it makes you spend more. We always do, particularly when the gains are minimal. But at least in this case, they are not.

Why USB Type-C

For once, the Type-C standard brings much more sophistication in audio. Features like noise-cancelling and bass boosting will be more accessible, making accessories even cheaper.

It also helps with power management, allowing the phone to shut off the connector if the user isn’t using it for a period of time, saving useful amounts of battery. It will also be used for authenticating a user’s device.

Going Type-C won’t require analog-to-digital circuitry in phones any longer, meaning even more slim designs. Finally, Intel is also unveiling a new video format for the Type-C connection, which is not really meant to be a replacement for HDMI but will be good enough for movies or productivity (though, not for gaming).

Lastly, there is the hard fact that the headphone jack is plain dumb and ill-suited for a smartphone as high-end as, say, the Galaxy Note7. Manufacturers have been trying to shrink components (like the SIM card) or replace them with newer technology in this digital age to bring much more efficiency and innovation.

Yet the audio jack stands out as the lone single-purpose device which, if not for its mass usage, could’ve likely been among the first components to get the axe.

Of course, you can argue that you will require a new dongle (which is somewhat absurd as you can simply leave it plugged to your headphones) and can only either charge the phone or get your media at the once (you can always go wireless).

But at this point, for someone like Apple or Intel, points like these don’t matter because that technology is simply archaic and is hindering the arrival of more sophisticated technology. The only point of slight contention are the various standards for Type-C connections, meaning the port on your phone may not be as capable as the one on your laptop.

China Launches World's 1st Hack-Proof Quantum Communication Satellite

China has taken one more step forward towards achieving success in Quantum communication technology.

China has launched the world's first quantum communications satellite into orbit aboard a Long March-2D rocket earlier today in order to test the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics at space.

'Hack-Proof' Communications System

The satellite, dubbed Quantum Science Satellite, is designed to develop a 'Hack-Proof' communications system in this age of global electronic surveillance and cyber attacks by transmitting uncrackable encryption keys from space to the ground.

The 600-plus-kilogram Quantum Science Satellite, better known as Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) satellite, took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gobi Desert at 1:40 AM local time on a 2-year mission on Tuesday.

The QUESS satellite will help China perform unprecedented levels of experiments in quantum communication by sending entangled photons from the satellite to relay stations in China and Europe, which is separated by about 1,200 kilometers (746 miles).

The pioneering experiment is to test if the spooky property of quantum entanglement can work at long distances as well.

The satellite's payloads include:

• Quantum key communicator
• Quantum entanglement emitter
• Quantum entanglement source
• Quantum experiment controller
• Processor
• Laser communicator

The payloads, designed to operate for two years, were developed by the National Space Science Center in Beijing under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The QUESS satellite will also test the possibilities of communication via quantum 'teleportation,' using an entangled pair of photons.

If the satellite is able to successfully transmit quantum information securely between two ground stations, it could have huge implications for encryption and cryptography.

China has largely been ambitious to realize the importance of Quantum technology. From past two decades, Quantum technology has been a top strategic focus in the country's 5-year economic development plan.

While the United States invested about $200 Million a year in quantum research, China spent $101 Billion in quantum physics in 2015, up from $1.9 Billion in 2005.

China Invests Billions of Dollars in Quantum Technology

Quantum communication encryption is secure against any kind of interception because information is encoded in a quantum particle in such a way that it will be destroyed as soon as the system detects any intrusion attempts.

For example, when two people share an encrypted quantum message and a third person intercepts it, the message will change in an unpredictable way.

Quantum researchers have recently experimented the use of photons to successfully communicate securely over short distances on earth.

But if successful, the QUESS satellite would vastly expand the range of unhackable communication to long distances as well.

"The newly-launched satellite marks a transition in China's role - from a follower in classic information technology development to one of the leaders guiding future achievements," Pan Jianwei, the scientist who is leading the project, told the official Xinhua news agency.

If successful, the QUESS satellite would be the world's first transcontinental quantum key distribution network of its kind and China hopes to erect a global quantum communications network in 2030.

"If China is going to send more quantum communication satellites into orbit, we can expect a global network of quantum communications to be set up around 2030," Pan added.

Apple to Debut 3 New iPad Models in 2017 : Reports

The last earnings report from Apple indicated how important the tablet business still is for Apple. The last quarter saw Apple selling 9-percent less iPads, yet the revenue grew 7 percent thanks to a higher selling price. Now, it seems it could be bringing new models to attain whatever market share’s left in the tablets space.

A new report, courtesy of MacRumors via noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, indicates that three new iPads could be coming in 2017, including the first ever 10.5-inch iPad that can occupy the middle ground between the larger models. Other variants include a new, cheaper 9.7-inch model and a 12.9-inch model to sit either side.

There is no word given for the iPad Mini as he thinks the arrival of the larger iPhones could have quashed the demand of the smaller tablet, altogether.

More-important, however, are the big changes that Apple has planned for 2018. The year could see the company revealing a “revolutionary” AMOLED iPad model with a flexible display and “radical” design changes. No further details were given for the same.

As for the near future, Ming-Chi Kui lowered his expectations of the current line-up’s shipments, shunning it from 45-50 million to just 35-40 million tablets, given the lack of models which are to be expected this year.

The market for tablets has for long been considered to be fairly stagnant, but it now appears that we could be headed towards some exciting announcements finally. Or perhaps it could be the final hurrah for the market? Only time will tell.