Android Pay is now available in Hong Kong in over 5,000 stores.

During this year, Google has released Android Pay, the company’s contactless payment system, in various regions and countries like the UK and Australia. Now it’s time for Android users in Hong Kong to enjoy the benefits of this feature.

Residents of China’s special administrative region, Hong Kong, are now able to make contactless payments in over 5,000 stores across the city. Any user with an Android 4.4 KitKat or higher smartphone that supports Near-Field Communication (NFC) technology is able to download the Android Pay app from the Google Play Store.

Users who meet the above criteria that also have a Visa or Mastercard credit card issued by six banks in the city such as the Bank of East Asia, Dah Sing Bank, Standard Chartered, Hang Seng bank and HSBC, can link their cards with the Android Pay app. Only after this process is complete can they start using the new feature.

There are various types of stores and outlets that have the necessary technology. From fast food restaurants like Pacific Coffee, KFC, and McDonalds, to 7-Eleven convenience stores and even pharmacies like Watsons and Mannings.

The Android Pay app doesn’t limit the number of credit cards you can link to your account. Additionally, the app even allows users to store their gift and loyalty cards as well as any special offers and promotions.

One other benefit of using Android Pay, besides the great credit card management options it provides, is that it simplifies the process of buying new apps and helps users with in-app purchases like credits for a game. Apps that are currently compatible with the NFC payment system are Deliveroo, Kaligo, Boutir Collect, Snaptee, and Klook. Although the list is very limited, it only at the start of the service as Google is already planning to make Android Pay compatible with a lot more apps in the future, including popular services like Uber.

Android Pay is already more successful than the company’s previous attempt at a mobile payment system called Google Wallet. They decided to implement the service in Hong Kong because 80 percent of the city’s residents have smartphones. It also seeks to maintain its competition with Apple and their Apple Pay service which is already available in the region.

The new Samsung Chromebook has been leaked.

A new Samsung Chromebook Pro Convertible laptop has just been leaked. The new information shows the design of the laptop, its features, price tag, and even the release date.

During the summer there were rumors of a new Samsung Chromebook internally called ‘Kevin’. Thanks to ChromeUnboxed we finally got our first look at this new convertible laptop. The device was spotted on the pages of retailers B&H and Adorama. ChromeUnboxed managed to get as much information as they could before the pages were taken down.

According to them, the Samsung Chromebook will be released on October 24^th at the price of $499. In regards to its technical specs, the leak shows that it will feature a 12.3-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 2400 x 1600. Being a convertible laptop it will include a 360-degree hinge so that it can easily be used a tablet when plied back.

The Samsung Chromebook will have 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage capacity, an unspecified hexacore ARMv8 CPU. Most likely it will be the Rockchip RK3399 processor. Other features include the 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a webcam.

One of the most unusual features for a Chromebook is Samsung’s decision to equip its device with a digital pen input. It will allow users to draw, paint and easily take notes. Another interesting aspect is the decision to use Chrome OS instead of Android, which runs on almost of all Samsung’s devices. Nonetheless, Android apps will be compatible with the Samsung Chromebook.

In regards to the design of the convertible laptop, it features a full silver colored metal exterior, with an edge-to-edge 3:2 aspect ratio display. The laptop is more compact than you’d expect, as it measures 11”x8.7”x0.55” and only weighs 2.38 pounds.

According to the leaked information, Samsung advertises that the laptop’s battery will last up to 10 hours per charge. Despite the fact that you can’t remove the battery, the Battery life Extender feature will allow i to maintain a decent autonomy of seven hours even after three years.

The last features of the Samsung Chromebook is that it will include various promotional software. As of yet, there is no mention if and how easily you can uninstall them if they’re not to your liking. However, the buyers will also get a one-year subscription to AirDroid, to facilitate the interaction with an Android device.

Image source: ChromeUnboxed

Google will release a new update for Chrome to improve RAM performance.

Google has recently announced a new update for its popular Chrome browsers. They claim it will help reduce the amount of RAM memory the browser uses when you access a JavaScript heavy website. This will lead to a better performance for users who like to have multiple websites open at the same time.

Chrome is considered one of the best browsers around. However, one downside to its performance it that it requires more RAM than other browsers in order to function that well. This has become a notorious features of Chrome, one that led many users with low-end PCs to avoid the browser.

A new update called Chrome 55 promises to address this issue by using an upgrade JavaScript engine. This will significantly reduce the memory requirement of the browser on websites that include a heavy use of JavaScript. According to the development team, their tests on various websites like New York Times, Reddit, YouTube have resulted in 50 per cent less RAM usage on average.

The only downside of the new update for Chrome is that will become available starting with December 6^th. It will first become available on desktop platforms then gradually on other platforms such as phones and tablets. You can experience the update earlier if you’re willing to run the pre-release code on Chrome.

It’s important to know that you will only notice an improvement only if your computer has a low performance already so that the RAM used by Chrome matters. Otherwise, on a high-end PC with a lot of RAM, the amount of memory Chrome uses before and after the update won’t be noticeable.

The Chrome development team has promised even more improvements in the future. They are keen on reducing the load time for devices that have under 1GB of RAM. In the meantime, if you are using Chrome and suffer from low performance, we recommend having only one tab opened at a time. You can of course, open multiple sites without impacting performance as long they are not JavaScript heavy.

The new performance update for Chrome will most likely be useful to gamers, who are always trying to get as much performance as they can from their PCs. RAM has always been a very sought-over resource by many applications, games most of all.

Do you have RAM troubles when running Chrome?

Image source: Wikimedia

This demonstration was a new record for the distance that a photon could be teleported.

An elementary particle of light, also known as a photon, was teleported 6 kilometers using The City of Calgary’s fiber optic cable infrastructure.

This project was made with the collaboration between The City of Calgary, University of Calgary and a group of U.S physicists. The professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Calgary, Wolfgang Tittel, was the one that led this project.

A group of Chinese researchers also made a similar demonstration and it was published back-to-back with this project in the Nature Photonics journal.

This demonstration was a new record for the distance that a quantum state could be teleported on.

“Being entangled means that the two photons that form an entangled pair have properties that are linked regardless of how far the two are separated,” explains Tittel. “When one of the photons was sent over to City Hall, it remained entangled with the photon that stayed at the University of Calgary.”

This research was possible only because the City of Calgary had the advanced technology consisting of dark fiber. This type of cable does not interfere with the photon.

The challenge was even bigger because the scientists wanted the photons to meet at the same time, or with a difference of ten picoseconds. This was hard because the temperature changed over the day and the scientists needed some time before they had all the data necessary.

The entangled particles are so connected that they affect one another when they are separated from each other. Einstein said that these types of particles are “spooky action at a distance.”

This demonstration could be the first step in building a quantum Internet, which is the future goal for the scientists.

This demonstration was also possible because of the Urban Alliance. It is a strategic partnership between the University of Calgary and the City of Calgary and it has research and beneficial purposes.

The study is a great discovery that could change the computers we use now because it could make quantum computing and it could lead to a more secure internet. This could also be a step in developing actual teleportation for people, not only photons.

What is your opinion about the teleportation of the photon? Do you think that in the distant future people could use teleportation too?

Image source:Wikipedia

California could encounter many centuries of drought

A new study of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) mentioned that California could encounter many centuries of drought. Glen MacDonald, a professor at the UCLA, believes that the severe dry that California has faced for the last several years is associated with the alterations in the sea-surface temperature of the Pacific Ocean.

The researchers linked the long lasting dryness in California to the Pacific Ocean’s variations in temperature. For this study, specialists have analyzed 8000 years of data regarding the water and climate changes in the Sierra Nevada. They have then utilized this information to cross-reference it upon the records of Pacific through the marine deposit.

According to the UCLA team, the warming of the seas is usually caused by radiative forcing. The warming has lead to a dangerous extension of the drought period and severe climate change. Currently, the greenhouse gasses are also influencing the increase in temperatures.

A specialist on climate change and drought, MacDonald, mentioned that radiative forcing has had a severe effect on the extended period of drought in the past years. He also mentioned that when an arid period persists for more than 60 days like we have encountered in the 12th century or for millennia like in 6,000 to 1,000 B.C, this cannot be called a simple drought.

It’s believed that the California millennia was influenced by the planet’s orbit which extended the solar energy that was directed to the Northern Hemisphere. So, with the increasing number of greenhouse gasses, California could be preparing for many centuries of drought.

Other investigations of ancient tree stumps sunk in Sierra lakes and tree rings have also reported many centuries of droughts.

A research specialist with the Atmospheric Administration and National Oceanic, Martin Hoerling, linked the West’s warm and arid medieval time to the conditions of the tropical ocean, particularly a cool east Pacific. He mentioned that when the eastern Pacific is cold in comparison to the other tropical waters, the American West is inclined to have reduced quantities of rain.

MacDonald concluded that the temperatures in California are expected to increase, the lakes would get shallower while snowfall and rainfall would significantly decrease.

Image source: Wikipedia

The wild red wolf population is highly decreasing

The wild red wolf population is significantly reducing which is the reason why the animals will have to leave the nearly 2 million acres in eastern North Carolina that they wander on for the public areas in Dare County.

The territories they can be found on are highly dangerous and could get them shot by private landowners who considered them a mixed-breed inconvenience. Moreover, the wild red wolves could mate with coyotes, and this activity could lead to the extinction of the population.

The Fish and Wildlife Service shared their conclusion on Monday. It followed a study of the species that lasted two years and involved divided public input.

In 1980, the wild red wolf was declared extinct. In 1987 four captive-born partners were exhibited in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. However, scientists have different opinions when it comes to the species being specified in the Endangered Species Act and its origins.

Because the red wolf has breed since then with coyotes it now preys on small pets and livestock and landowners have usually shot them by accident when mistaken with coyotes.

Wildlife groups criticize the statement on Monday praising te effort to include the animals in the wild which lasted around 30 years.

There are now just around 45 wild red wolves including 29 which are carefully examined by biologists. According to a statement from the Fish and Wildlife Service, only three pairs are still among the studied animals.

In 2012, five eastern North Carolina counties had more than 100 wolves subsisting in 1.7 million acres of mostly private land.

The regional manager of Fish and Wildlife Service, Cindy Dohner, mentioned few steps needed to save the red wolf species. Among the measures, she suggested that managing the current wild population in the 152,000 acres Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge and 46,000 acres, Dare County is highly advised.

Moreover, the number of captive red wolves must reach at least 400. Scientists think that a comprehensive analysis must be created of the red wolf species, and new sites must be identified for the population. All of these measures could guarantee the success of the species’ evolution.

Conservation groups mention that the national administration has already prohibited practices that helped increase the population of wolves such as sterilizing coyotes that seldom interbreed with the red wolf population and freeing pups born in captivity in the wild.

Image source: Wikipedia