Top 10 reasons the ZenFone AR is the next big thing

The ASUS ZenFone AR is built from the ground up for augmented reality. There’s a lot to love about this cutting-edge smartphone, but let’s run down the biggest reasons why you should consider picking one up.

1. Tango Technology - Augmented Reality

Tango AR

Tango is the augmented reality system by Google which marries depth-sensing and motion-tracking camera technology. With the right apps, virtual objects can inhabit the space around you in fun, informative, and creative ways. For example, you could size up furniture for your living room, or chase monsters through your kitchen. It’s a brand new world of possibilities with augmented reality and Tango.

2. Daydream Technology - Virtual Reality

VR with Daydream view support

The ZenFone AR is the first Android phone to include both Tango and Daydream support in the same device. With the Daydream View headset, you can enjoy your own personal cinema filling your whole field of view, or dive into immersive games with the help of the included controller. The growing library of Daydream apps means you’ll always have new experiences right around the corner.

3. Next-generation camera

While the TriCam system combines every technology required for fluid virtual reality and augmented reality, the primary 23 megapixel camera can take some incredible shots. It has a large f/2.0 aperture, perfect for shooting in low-light. It can capture video in razor-sharp 4K, complete with optical and electronic image stabilization.

4.       Lightning-fast autofocus

ASUS has been carefully refining its autofocus system over the course of several generations. TriTech consists of three mechanisms working seamlessly with one another. First, there’s traditional object-tracking focus. Then, there’s laser autofocus, which can detect the distance of subjects out to 1.5 meters, even in low light. Finally, phase detection autofocus is specialized at capturing subjects in motion. All of that comes together for a lock in under 0.03 seconds.

5.       Incredible processing power

Thanks to the custom-tailored Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor, the ZenFone AR is able to construct vibrant 3D worlds on the fly. This requires not only an impressive amount of sheer processing power power, but energy efficiency, too. We are working with a smartphone, after all, which needs to be able to carry on with usual functions the rest of the day.

 6.       Mind-blowing sound

The finely tuned SonicMaster 3.0 engine produces premium audio in any circumstance. A new 5-magnet speaker design can churn out music louder than ever without distorting or damaging the hardware. Advanced signal processing by way of the NXP Smart AMP can handle audio at up to four times CD quality. Whether you’re in VR, or just relaxing with some tunes, the ZenFone AR will not disappoint.

7.       A beautiful display

When using the ZenFone AR with the Daydream View headset, the screen will be quite close to your eyes. ASUS has made this display exceptionally sharp to maximize immersion. At 5.7 inches, your full field of view will be taken over. The Super AMOLED 2560 x 1440 WQHD screen will produce details at the sharpest definition and with the deepest colors.

8.       Premium construction

The ZenFone AR pushes boundaries, and it feels built for the task. With a burnished leather rear and precision-milled metal frame, you’ll enjoy a true feeling of luxury every time you take the ZenFone AR out of your pocket. During day-to-day use, the Gorilla Glass 4 cover will amply protect the screen. Overall, the fine craftsmanship at play will ensure this phone ages gracefully.

9.       Biggest RAM ever in a smartphone

The ZenFone AR manages to pack in 8 GB of RAM. You can read more about how RAM works and why it’s important here, but the bottom line is that having 8 GB of it in the ZenFone AR ensures it will be able to handle intensive processing tasks of any kind, not just those that have to do with augmented reality and virtual reality.

10.   Cutting edge uses of AR technology

Last but not the least, the augmented reality or AR goes beyond VR in some key respects, enabling users to integrate real and virtual scenes — in effect, allowing you to try on products before you buy. Imagine buying furniture that you often have trouble visualizing in your home. Asian augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) startup iStaging lets you arrange furniture and appliances in your living space. By integrating the product images in your designated space, thus giving you a concrete visualization of potential purchases.

Bridging the gap between the virtual and physical worlds, augmented reality (AR) app enables students and teachers to visualize 3D models in the real environment, in real time, and at scale desired. AR Solar System, inspiring young kids to understanding the enormity and complexity of their universe. Anatomy 4D helps to discover a world of knowledge about your own amazing hardware. Zenfone AR opens up to plethora of opportunities for everyone irrespective of age.

The ZenFone AR is an absolute feat of engineering. Dig into more details on the ZenFone AR product page.

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ICC Women’s World Cup Final Creates a New Record on Hotstar

India's leading video on demand platform, Hotstar today announced record viewership for the ICC Women's World Cup 2017 final match played between host England and India. For some it may be surprising to hear this news but for me it is something which was expected and I have my reasons for that. Let me take you 12 years back  to 2005 when India was in Finals, Mithali Raj led the team and lost to Australia in the pen ultimate match. Next day we woke up to the news, not covered with great depth but many of  us came to know that India is represented in Women Cricket as well and not only that we have reached till finals. May be that was the only peak point of popularity at that stage. But 2017 is different, its different in many ways, the advertisements are  at the par of the men tournaments, the internet penetration is way too high and the accessibility is again one another factor. Thanks to apps like Hotstar which have made it possible to seamlessly stream live matches on the go.

Indian Women Cricket Team posing for cameras

From the very first match when India beat England by 35 runs, it was part of the discussion even though the Indian fans were just coming out the shocker of Champions Trophy defeat in Finals. The players were now being called by name, they were no longer discussed as statistics. Smriti Mandhana became national crush and Harmanpreet Kaur's 171 run made her a household name. Mithali Raj became the highest ODI scorer in women's cricket. India defeated the defending champions Australia in Semi-Finals. All this was not going to go un-noticed. 

The match peaked in the contentious 48^th over with India needing 11 runs to win off 12 balls, recording a peak concurrency of 1.9 million simultaneous viewers. This was higher than the average concurrency of many of the marquee men’s cricket tournaments on Hotstar in the last year, a feat in its own right and an inflection point in women’s sports. While Vivo IPL 2017 saw a predictable list of state-wise tune-ins, consistent with team loyalties, the Women’s World Cup saw a surprise entrant in UP, which along with Maharashtra, contributed to 25% of total viewership.

This is just the beginning, the sports has already garnered much support and recognition from local audience with this tournament we believe and wish there is more to this success story.

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Honor Band 3 Fitness Tracker with Heart Rate Sensor launched for Rs 2799, exclusively available on Amazon from today.

Huawei's digital brand Honor has announced launch of Honor Band 3 with continuous Heart Rate sensor, Water resistance of upto 50 meters, Smart Notifications, Advance Sleep tracking and a battery life claimed to be of 30 days. The band is priced very competitively at INR 2799 and will be exclusively available on Amazon India.

Honor Band 3

The minimalist design of Honor Band 3 curves to fit the wrist and follows a smooth pattern with sharp chamfered edges. The band is a first in its category to provide water resistance up to 50 meters and has customer swimming modes to track swim time, calories burned and more. Weighing just 18 grams, Honor Band 3 comes with optical heart rate monitoring technology that lets you check your statistics anytime with a twist of your wrist. For heart rate tracking, the band has five zones to help you precisely track and optimize your workouts – warm-up, fat burning, aerobic, anaerobic and extreme. The next generation heart rate algorithm coupled with M4 core technology is optimized for 10 different fitness scenarios and delivers a more accurate heart rate data.

“Focused on innovation and customer-centricity, Honor is committed to introducing meaningful products. Wearable technology is changing the world really fast as they provide us with vital information that can help us live better. The new Honor Band 3 is equipped with smart technology to help people use intelligent trackers to keep a close watch on their fitness statistics.” said Mr. P. Sanjeev, Vice President – Sales (Huawei & Honor Consumer Business).

Price and Availability

The Honor Band 3 is another Amazon excusive and will be available from July 20th in three funky colors- Dynamic Orange, Classic Navy Blue, and Carbon Black priced at INR 2,799. Honor will launch the most sort after Carbon Black color first and introduce the other two  colors in during the week of Raksha Bandhan & Independence Day celebrations.  The Band 3 will come with 12 month service warranty and backed by Honor’s best-in-class after sale facilities which no doubt will offer additional peace of mind to consumers. 

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Hotstar brings premiere of 'Game of Thrones' minutes after US telecast, sets right tone for campaign "Torrent Morghulis"

Winter has finally arrived for GOT fans on Sunday night when the premiere episode of pen-ultimate season was aired originally on HBO in US. For those who have somehow missed the GOT train, GOT stands for 'Game of Thrones' a series which is arguably most watched, downloaded, admired series of all time. We just can't stop admiring G R R Martin's brilliance in spinning up a world with 7 kingdoms, a new language known as High Valyrian. When we say that the show is most viewed in the world it also means that it is also one of the most pirated series which worries its creators a lot.

Hotstar, India’s leading video-on-demand platform, and the exclusive online destination for award-winning HBO content in India, launched the highly anticipated premiere of Game of Thrones Season 7 on Monday, 17 July. The first episode of the new season was available for audiences to view within minutes of its US telecast, under the Hotstar Premium service.

In response to the burgeoning audience for international content in India, Hotstar has partnered with the world’s largest studios, like HBO, Disney and Showtime, to bring the most celebrated international movies and shows to India.

Taking a humorous lens to this, Hotstar has launched a bold marketing campaign, intended to upend the behavior of illegal downloading. Titled ‘Torrents Morghulis’, a play on ‘Valar Morghulis’, as fans of the show will instantly recognize, the theme translates to ‘All Torrents Must Die’. The campaign lightheartedly highlights the trouble people put themselves through for finding and downloading illegal content, and how redundant these pains are in the current day and age where shows are readily available, at the user’s fingertips.

Leading with the promise of ‘Minutes after America, hours before Russia’, the campaign takes Torrents head on with 4 TV commercials, an outdoor campaign in key cities, and high impact digital activation. The films features two characters, one, who still labours through the process of procuring his content illegally, and another, who’s got a Hotstar Premium subscription and is able to enjoy the Game of Thrones experience the way it is meant to be – available to watch with the world, ad-free, unbeeped and unblurred.

Based on George R.R. Martin's best-selling 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series, Game of Thrones has run for six extremely acclaimed seasons and holds the record for the highest Emmy wins for any Primetime TV show. Watch Game of ThronesSeason 7 immediately after the US telecast, Monday 17^th July onwards, on Hotstar - http://www.hotstar.com/tv/game-of-thrones/8184

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Drop Shipping Emerging To Ease Out E-Commerce Startups: All You Need to Know

Have you ever thought of doing an E-Commerce business, are you low on budget and are you tensed with all the operations you have to take into consideration? Don’t worry at all, the newly emerging concept of drop shipping is going to ease out your way tremendously. So now you might be thinking what does drop shipping stands for, isn’t it?

To make this precise and short, Drop Shipping is a method where you take orders from your customers and delegate it to the manufacturers who then will be completely liable for the dispatch and delivery of the product on your behalf. In this arrangement, the end customer will never come to know where the products are being sourced from and who is actually selling. All you have to do is to form an online store using dropshipping websites like Oberlo and extract products you wish to sell from vivid online stores available on Oberlo to your store and start selling right way.

Though Drop Shipping can be a blessing in disguise, it has its own pros and cons which eventually should be taken care before planning to start a Drop Shipping E-commerce start-up.

Pros

• Non Maintenance of Physical Inventory
  Drop Shipping eliminates your part in which you need to maintain a physical stock hence reducing costs involved in warehousing right away.
• Low Startup Costs
  Due to the pointer no. 1 start-up costs here are eliminated to the fullest or reduced to a very high extent.
• A variety of options for products
  With such an arrangement the options for products available are vivid and manufacturers are also in large quantities for a single product line.
• Emphasis on selling
  By using Drop Shipping at your disposal you can totally eliminate the need to concentrate on operations and totally devote your time to marketing and selling the products.
• Quick and Easy Setup
  Setting up such store online is very convenient and even easy for a novice to understand & operate. Drop Shipping can be started instantly within a few minutes of setting up your stores.
• Time-Saving
  The entire process of Drop Shipping is totally time-saving as various factors like operations, inventory handling, shipments are taken care by the third party hence letting you concentrate totally on marketing & selling products.
• Elimination of middlemen
  Drop Shipping eliminates the middlemen where you actually buy products from the manufacturers and they then ship the same to your customers.
• Exploring new markets
  With Drop shipping on board, you can easily explore new products and international destinations easily without indulging into R & D initially.
• Flexible Working Hours
  Since no physical inventory is maintained and no paper work is required, you can work as and when required. Totally flexible upon your availability and requirements.

With such wonderful advantages, it's quite possible to have a few disadvantages as well. Let’s just discuss the same below.

Cons of Drop Shipping Services

• Reliable & efficient Shipper
  It is not always possible that your manufacturer isn’t serving various others like you which ultimately goes against the manufacturer where he or she may prioritize others for the same products being sold by you.
• Mistakes are obvious
  Since your manufacturers who would be your shipper as well serves a number of others as well, 100 percent efficiency in completely shipping the products with 100 percent accuracy is something never seen anywhere. When the shippers are managing a lot of orders at the same time mistakes are ought to happen.
• Delayed Shipping
  Actual shipping from the date ordered may vary between 1 to 30 days since the majority of the products are international based and customers may not choose you if your estimated delivery time is anywhere more than 10 days or even less sometimes.
• Products may vary
  When you actually let customers buy from your online store and shippers to the rest, actual product ordered and shipped will vary with color, size or even type. This is a huge cause of worry when orders are in large numbers with your shippers.
• High Competition
  Drop Shipping cannot assure you cheap products since your products might be sold by the manufacturer at various other online places as well. Making the market more competitive altogether. Large stocking retailers get better deals than you since they are buying a huge quantity which eventually will attract the manufacturer.
• Self-branding is not possible
  If you tend to attract customer with branding and better packaging, it's totally not possible since you are not packing and shipping hence the quality of products and packaging cannot be assured at the shippers level.
• Customer Satisfaction is a big headache
  Just imagine a scenario where your store shows the product is in stock but until you fulfill all the formalities your manufacturer might go out of stock and might take a bit of time to get the same in stock again which eventually results in order cancellation and you might lose a reliable and loyal customer.
• Shipping charges may vary for your customer
  Since you are not buying products from one location and the shipping charges for various products bought from your store might vary. In this case, customers tend to not look at your products and go on to select some other who may possibly rest them with better shipping deals.

Conclusion:

Now that you have gone through the probable pros and cons of choosing Drop Shipping, we are sure you can ascertain the results of the same in the case being used for a new E-Commerce start-up. Safe playing and with a lot of R&D you can literally make Drop Shipping a boon for you and your business else, it may cause worries and prove a big nightmare which might go against your brand name as well. This method may yield you with huge sales and profit but at the same time can become a cause for your worry if not implemented properly. Hence make sure you do your research and talk to a few who already are into the same. Probably a Drop Shipper who discontinued might guide you and give exact pros and cons which will be helpful to your new startup. All the best, please leave your comments below in case you need further clarifications on the above topic.

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