A quick guide to following World Cup 2014 on Google, Facebook and Twitter
Like a trio of vuvuzelas, the three big internet platforms became a significant part of the World Cup’s background noise in 2010. They have even more to offer this time around: Not just a multitude of ways to follow scores and other stats, but also places to go if you want to trumpet your opinions and listen to those of others. So, we’ve rounded up some of the best advice from Twitter, Facebook and Google on how to get the most out of the new features they’re dishing out for Brazil 2014.
If you’re already au fait with the Twittersphere’s workings, you’ll want to begin your journey at the #WorldCup2014 hashtag page. This main timeline will show you relevant tweets from celebs, teams, pundits and people in your network. On the right-hand side you’ll see quick access to a Teams page, so you can easily find and follow your home nation. There’s also a handy bar down the left that shows the latest scores and upcoming games.
Oh, and remember the three-letter hashtag for your team! Just like in 2010, using this hashtag inside a tweet will magically cause the appearance of your national flag (“hashflag”) to bring some color to your tweet. For example, it’s #URU for all of you Uruguayans.
If you’re not already on Twitter, then you’ll want to start by signing up and saying “yes” at the bit where you’re offered some extra World Cup excitement. This will take you through a couple of easy steps to choose your favorite team and set your wallpaper accordingly. If you’re a true patriot, you’ll keep that wallpaper forever. Forever, dammit.
This all starts at the Trending World Cup page, which works in a similar manner to Twitter’s hub — albeit with a bit less detail. You can view upcoming matches, but there’s no obvious shortcut to find your official team page — you just have to search for it (e.g., “U.S. Soccer“) and look for the blue tick to highlight the official site. There is, however, a “Fan Map” that shows the locations of millions of footy fans around the world and what, exactly, they’re fans of. It’s a gimmick, perhaps, but it has already proven itself useful in showing that England’s Wayne Rooney is widely detested across mainland Europe.
Compared to the other two, there’s a distinct lack of structure and effort from Google at the #WorldCup2014 page. In fact, there isn’t even one official hashtag — people are just using whatever tag comes to mind, resulting in something of a mess.
Then again, Google has other assets at its disposal that World Cup fans might find useful. Firstly, there’s a straightforward search, which will show up-to-the-minute scores and stats when you search for relevant terms like “world cup” or “world cup uruguay.” There’s also Google Trends, which shows all manner of strange observations about upcoming matches, based on what people are searching for.
If you load up Google Now on your phone or browser, you should automatically be asked if you’re interested in match update cards, and then be asked to select your favorite team(s). And finally, if you haven’t already, check out Google’s amazing Street View tours of the Brazilian stadiums that are about to play host to the angst, happiness and sporting talent of an entire planet.
[Lead image credit: AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo]
A shampoo tycoon is offering cellphone service with built-in music streaming
John Paul DeJoria has a knack for business success in areas as diverse as haircare products and tequila, and he’s now ready to dip his toes into yet another industry: cellphone service. The magnate (along with ROK Entertainment’s Johnathan Kendrick) is about to launch ROK Mobile, a US wireless carrier with music as its hook. Paying $50 per month will get you both all-unlimited phone service as well as ‘free’ streaming from a catalog of 20 million songs, saving you a lot of cash if you tend to splurge on music providers like Rdio or Spotify. DeJoria sees this as doing Americans a favor — he tells Forbes that it could save the country billions by lowering the costs of both cellular access and music in one fell swoop.
Is that hyperbolic? Absolutely. Still, ROK Mobile could be compelling even if you’re not an avid listener. Everything will be contract-free, and it’s launching with service that piggybacks on both T-Mobile’s network (as of June 16th) and Sprint’s (July 4th). There’s no guarantees that DeJoria’s effort will fare any better than Solavei, Ting and other virtual operators that are stuck with small customer bases. However, this is potentially a disruptive strategy — much like Free’s service in France, it could raise the competitive bar and force carriers to offer you a better deal.
[Image credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images for Celebrity Fight Night]
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Sprint, T-Mobile
Via: Forbes
Source: ROK Mobile
Mac Pro Ship Times Improve to 24 Hours as Some Retail Stores Begin Carrying Stock [Mac Blog]
Nearly six months post launch, base configurations of the new Mac Pro are now available to ship within 24 hours from Apple’s online store for its North American and Asia Pacific regions. Base models in other countries are still listed at 3-5 business days, but those should also move to 24 hours soon. Custom-configured models are listed as available to ship in 1 -2 weeks in most countries.
In addition to orders for shipment, base Mac Pro systems are now also available for same-day Personal Pickup in select U.S. Apple retail stores.
Apple’s latest Mac Pro model is assembled in the U.S. at an Austin, Texas facility run by Flextronics. Tim Cook and Eddy Cue recently visited the factory, which has been receiving praise for bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. The plant is approximately a mile away from Apple’s expanding Northwest Austin campus that has added more than 700 workers with the recent first expansion phase and eventually will add 3,600 employees to the previous 3,100 employee campus by the end of 2021.
Since the Mac Pro debuted at the end of 2013, Apple has been quiet on the hardware front in 2014, pushing out a small upgrade to the MacBook Air and a new 8 GB iPhone 5c for some markets. Apple is rumored to be working on a Retina MacBook Air and new iMac models, perhaps including a more affordable iMac that will address growth in foreign markets.
Synaptics to Acquire iPhone Display Chipmaker Renesas SP Drivers for $475 Million [iOS Blog]
Earlier this year, Apple was rumored to be in negotiations with chipmaker Renesas Electronics to acquire its Renesas SP Drivers division, which produces chips for smartphone displays including the iPhone. Talks between the companies reportedly “failed to make progress,” with touchpad and touchscreen maker Synaptics entering the picture as the likely acquirer. As noted by Reuters, that deal is now official, with Synaptics paying $475 million for Renesas SP Drivers.
Synaptics previously supplied the scroll wheel for the first iPod, but lost Apple as a customer when the Cupertino company decided to bring its touch technology in house. Synaptics hopes to bring back Apple as a customer now that it will be acquiring Renesas SP Drivers in a deal expected to close later this year.
“Our better opportunities are really complementary technologies to what they do internally. And at this junction I don’t believe they do any driver chips internally so that would really be an opportunity for us,” Synaptics Inc Chief Executive Rick Bergman said to Reuters.
Synaptics reportedly will use this acquisition to develop a single-chip solution that combines its touch technology with Renesas SP’s display technology. This combined chipset is projected to improve display performance and lower component cost for smartphone makers such as Apple and Samsung. Synaptics also manufactures fingerprint sensors and controls 90 percent of the market after it acquired fingerprint ID provider Validity for $255 million last year.
Small World 2 Tournament Style update brings in a lot of impressive multiplayer Features
Small World is one of the world’s most popular board games with 650,000 copies sold all over the world, spanning both its physical and digital versions which are dynamite sales in the board game world. We reviewed its digital version, Small World 2 (read the full review here), and while it had some fairly extensive multiplayer options available to it, it lacked perhaps a more competitive approach to its multiplayer modes. Thankfully though, Days of Wonder is adding a new update, the Small World 2 Tournament Style update, which adds quite a few features that board game buffs are going to really appreciate.
Chief among the updated features is the Tournament-Style multiplayer, which allows times to be set for how long players can take to make their moves. This includes a feature that allows an AI to take over for a player that runs out of time, seeing the game to completion, and although the AI may win in the person’s place, does not count as a win for that player. This is a really neat feature as it means that games cannot be ruined by people giving up or simply leaving the game, something that has typically plagued digital board games.
The update also includes several new modes, including Single and Multi Session games, Online Arena, which features a real-time chat lobby and other community focused features, and quite a few chat options have been added at player’s request, in particular persistent chat windows being available while in-game. It’s a pretty extensive update, one which Days of Wonder is hoping will foster the same kind of community that has taken shape over at its other popular digital board game, Ticket to Ride.
If you want to take advantage of the new Small World 2 update, you can pick up the game from the Play Store at the links below. And for more details about the update, take a look at the Press Release below.
Press Release
About Small World:
- Small World 2, the digital follow-up to the best-selling Days of Wonder digital fantasy board game, is officially expanding from iPad to Steam and Android platforms.
- The Small World franchise (physical game, expansions and digital game combined) has generated more than $20 million global sales
- The physical Small World board game has sold more than 650,000 copies worldwide across its digital and physical versions.
- To put that number into context: a “hit” independent/hobby board game typically sells between 5,000-10,000 copies.
- Small World 2 does something no other digital board game can: it allows players to challenge friends to a real-time game across iPad, Android tablets (including Amazon’s Kindle Fire), and PC’s via both Steam and Days of Wonder Online.
- Players can even start a game on one platform, and continue on another and challenge friends on any platform.
Download links:New Features – Small World 2 Tournament Style
- Full-featured Lobby (called “Online Arena”) with real-time chat, list of connected players, game creation and list of open games to join. This will help building a thriving community just like what happened with Ticket to Ride.
- Two types of games : “Single Session” games and “Multi Session” games.
- The single session game is real-time gaming à la Ticket to Ride, with AI taking over if a player quits the game. This will allow players to play quick real-time games and be sure to finish them even if a player “rage-quits”.
- Multi session games are the asynchronous gaming that already existed, but with the new system described below.
- Tournament-Style Multi-player – This is the big new feature. The player creating a game decides in advance how much time will be allocated to each player for the entire game.
- This includes a mechanism that works much like a Multiplayer Chess Clock, with the difference that if a player runs out of time, a AI takes over for that player until game end. The player that runs out of time loses no matter what (i.e. even if the Bot that steps in her shoes to complete the game wins the game), but the other players can finish the game to completion and see how they fared against each other.
- Bad players won’t be able to spoil the other players’ experience by dragging their feet when they lose.
- Allows for different styles of play, from “quick fix” to “deep strategy” games.
- Also sets proper expectations right from the start in terms of how fast or slow a player wants to play a game.
- Finally it paves the way for some future major features, such as tournaments.
- A Player Clock will govern both style of plays, albeit with different preset durations.
- Player Clock duration is adjustable to the minute, with a number of preset durations available for tournament play as well as more leisurely games.
- Additional improvements in the online gaming area. This implements the most important requests of players:
- Ranking, private games, karma filtering, starting player selection when creating a game,
- Persistent in-game chat,
- Chat at the final score screen, with possibility to add the other players as Buddies right away,
- An improved invitation system for “games with friends”.
- A detailed statistics screen at the end of each game to analyze how each player performed with the various race/power combinations
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Taiwanese Star Jimmy Lin Gaining Attention for iPhone 6 Mockup Photos
Taiwanese media star and race car driver Jimmy Lin has once again surfaced showing what he seems to be passing off as a legitimate iPhone 6, although the device is more likely to be one of many physical mockups seen in recent months.
Lin has a history of such postings, having shared what he claimed was a mini iPad back in 2010 two years before the real iPad mini debuted, what was clearly an iPhone 5 mockup, and what appears to have been a knockoff iPhone 5c shell or dummy unit based on accurate design specs that were circulating ahead of the device’s release last year.
In his latest “iPhone 6″ photos, Lin shows the device next to the iPhone 5 and 5s, comparisons that have been seen in a number of different settings already. Among the suspect aspects of his unit are what appears to be a nonfunctional yellow blank in place of the rear flash, a larger than expected FaceTime camera hole, and a lack of any photos with the unit turned on.
Lin’s unit appears very similar to one we’ve seen in photos sent by a supplier to screen protector and stylus firm Halo-Direct, although this unit lacks the Apple logo seen on Lin’s.
The 4.7-inch iPhone 6 is expected to debut around the September timeframe, with an even larger 5.5-inch model reportedly also in the works. It is unclear, however, where that larger model will debut alongside or up to several months later than the smaller version.
Your Chromebook now sends photos to Google+ in the background
To date, Chrome OS has only backed up photos to the cloud as long as you left the Google+ Photos app open; that’s a hassle on the frequently limited screen real estate of a Chromebook. You won’t have that headache if you grab the updated Photos app, however. The new version automatically uploads snapshots from your SD card in the background, even if the app is closed; you can move on to email knowing that all those vacation pictures will be safe. It’s a simple addition, but it should make a big difference if you’re planning to go on photo safaris this summer.
Filed under: Laptops, Internet, Software, Google
Via: The Next Web
Source: Chrome Web Store, Oren Blasberg (Google+)
Here are Nintendo’s new ‘Super Smash Bros.’ Amiibo toys for Wii U
Toy-based gaming is not only alive and well, it’s expanding to more franchises. This time it’s Nintendo’s turn: Following the footsteps of games like Skylanders and Disney Infinity, Nintendo announced the Amiibo, which are plastic figurines that you scan into your Wii U by holding them on the gamepad. As soon as the toy is scanned, its corresponding character — Mario is a primary example — appears in the game with its own unique score, experience points and skills. The point of doing this is so you can either partner with or fight against these virtual characters. Additionally, the more the Amiibo fights, the better it will become. The toys, which were shown off for the first time at E3, will initially be available for (and compatible with) Super Smash Bros. this holiday season, but more games will be compatible later on, such as Mario Kart 8 and Mario Party 10.
The Amiibo’s secret sauce is Near-Field Communications (NFC), the same short-length wireless communications standard used for mobile payments and Bluetooth pairing. Each action figure — which is just a hair taller than the average human finger — is embedded with crucial stats that gets transferred into the game as soon as you pair it with your gamepad; conversely, once you’re done playing, any new experience points, tactics or abilities you received during gameplay will be saved onto the Amiibo. These enhancements to your Amiibo’s profile can come either through battle or training, and thanks to the large number of customized moves and skills that you can rack up, you won’t have to worry about two Mario Amiibo figures being exactly alike.
There are a few different ways an Amiibo can be used in battle. You can have them fight other characters, team up with them, use them to take on your friends or go up against the Amiibo yourself. And according to Nintendo, going head-to-head against an Amiibo in Smash Bros. is more challenging and rewarding than if you were to fight the regular computer, since they’ll level up faster.
No prices have been announced, nor has Nintendo released details on how the figures will be utilized in upcoming games. For the holiday season, however, keep an eye out for Mario, Link, Princess Peach, Pikachu, Samus Aran and around five other characters who will be available at launch, with more planned for later. Nintendo also plans to come out with a NFC peripheral pad next year that will make it possible to use Amiibo with a 3DS.
Amazon stops taking DVD pre-orders in price row with Warner
Amazon’s quest for better deals and cheaper prices has seen it squeeze publishers, but it isn’t limiting itself to just books. The New York Times reports that the retailer is refusing to list DVD pre-orders for upcoming launch of many Warner Home Video movies. We’re not talking small releases either: The Lego Movie, 300: Rise of an Empire and Winter’s Tale are just three titles launching in the coming days that Amazon lists but isn’t allowing customers to order. Last month, the company admitted it was limiting orders for new Hachette books, including JK Rowling’s forthcoming release The Silkworm, in an attempt to gain cheaper pricing for e-books. Now it’s stuck stalemate with suppliers that are unwilling to acquiesce to its demands — a risky situation that is already pushing some Amazon customers to shop elsewhere.
Filed under: Amazon
Source: New York Times
Researchers write comedy rulebook for joke-telling robots
Imagine if, at some point in the future, groups of humans were force-marched down to their local theater to watch Jerry Seindroid or Stewbot Lee say “Hey, so what’s the deal with humans, eh?” How would our robotic overloads know what zingy one-liners to crack, in order to keep us amused and distracted? As it turns out, the team behind the KOBIAN Emotional Humanoid robot has spent the last few months writing down the rulebook for robotic comedians. Volunteers were wired up to sensors that monitored their reactions to joke-telling, and the team has concluded that dirty jokes, exaggeration and imitation are some of the more effective way to get a laugh. There’s a video showing some of the highlights of KOBIAN’s bits, but we should warn you that, thanks to the language barrier, you might not find the jokes funny in the way that they’re intended. (Actually, no, they’re hilarious.)
Filed under: Robots
Source: Spectrum.ieee
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