Honor 10 unveiled in China with dual-camera and notch on display

Another day, another smartphone with a dual-camera and an iPhone X notch. This time, however, we are seeing an iridiscent Twilight finish on the Honor 10, which is from Huawei's sub-brand. Coming to the Chinese market. An interesting about the Honor 10's colour scheme is that it is prismatic and varies in colour between shades of blue, purple and pink. Color as a differentiator when camera and processor specs are more or less the same is catching on.

While one can argue that Huawei and, by extension Honor, have copied some very visible aspects of other popular phones, they are actually leading the industry with this color treatment and on a new smartphone, not a model that was released last year and sprayed with a new coat of paint.

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Intel shuts down its smart glasses initiative

You may or may not have heard of Intel’s smart glasses project but what you need to know about it now is that it won’t be around anymore. The company is shutting down its New Devices Group and will stop development of the Vaunt. This closure might also result in “some layoffs” from the team which reportedly has around 200 people. It wasn’t clear what how Intel intended to bring the augmented reality glasses to the market but sources claim Intel wanted to partner with a company with retail expertise to get this off the ground. As Vaunt lead Jerry Bautista told The Verge, the company was “working with key ecosystem hardware providers—whether they’re frames or lenses and things like that. Because we believe there’s a whole channel to people who wear glasses that’s already there.” But it might be the company wasn’t able to find a suitable partner for this, thus resulting in the closure.

Here is Intel’s statement on the matter: “Intel is continuously working on new technologies and experiences. Not all of these develop into a product we choose to take to market. The Superlight [the codename for Vaunt] project is a great example where Intel developed truly differentiated, consumer augmented reality glasses. We are going to take a disciplined approach as we keep inventing and exploring new technologies, which will sometimes require tough choices when market dynamics don’t support further investment.”

Facebook's looking to develop its own chips

New job listings from Facebook suggest the company is looking to be a bit more self-reliant. Under the infrastructure category, the social media company is looking to hire a manager who will assemble “end-to-end SoC/ASIC, firmware, and driver organization.” With the listing filed under infrastructure, it could be Facebook is looking to build a team for its artificial intelligence servers, which are currently NVIDIA-powered. One of the job listing references says it needs “expertise to build custom solutions targeted at multiple verticals including AI/ML,” which broadens the focus a bit but also shows the company looking to develop its AI capabilities further. Also, who knows if the company might want to use it to power any hardware it might release in the future, including things like future Oculus virtual reality headsets.

Source: The Verge

‘M.A.S.K.’ to get a live action movie

It’s been rumoured before that Hasbro planned to create a movie based on the Kenner toyline M.A.S.K. but it was reportedly scrapped. Now, it seems the project is back on with Fate of the Furious director F. Gary Gray supposedly helming the film. Deadline reports that he’s closed a deal with Paramount and Hasbro to bring this multimedia franchise to the big screen. MASK is an acronym for Mobile Armored Strike Kommand, which is a task force led by Matt Trakker who works to take down criminal organization VENOM.

Source: Deadline