iHeartRadio’s new “For You” feature tries to find music you’ll love
Tired of picking your iHeartRadio stations based on whatever mood passes your fancy? Now you’ve got other options — starting with iHeartRadio’s latest update, the app will offer users a curated list of stations based on their favorite genres and listening habits. The app’s new “For You” feature is front and center in its 5.0 update, tasking users to pick out their favorite music genres to give the recommendation engine a nudge in the right direction. The app combines that feedback with your listening history, location and music you previously thumbed up to create a custom list of stations culled just for you. Cute, isn’t it? The app also sports an updated UI, but the real exciting stuff is coming in a few months: today iHeartRadio announced that Chromecast support is on the way. Check out the latest update in Google Play. On iOS? Sit tight: the update should land on the App Store in about a week.
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet
Source: Google Play
This drone made from chocolate can actually fly (video)
The drone above honestly looks a little shoddy, but there’s a good reason for that: when you make parts of a UAV out of chocolate, it’s not going to be all that sleek and shiny. No, it’s going smell good, and you’ll probably find yourself willing it to crash, so you won’t feel guilty biting through it. How does one make a working chocodrone, you ask? The video after the break gives you a peek at the process: mainly, it’s all about melting chocolate bars and reforming them into parts that can be attached to small unmanned flying vehicles. Take note that the video feels like a marketing stunt for a particular candy brand, but there’s no reason you can’t use your favorite brand should be inspired to make one. Obviously, your little masterpiece won’t be delivering groceries or be doing surveillance work — after all, it’ll probably end up in your stomach in no time.
Filed under: Robots
Via: TechCrunch, Hackaday
Tesla’s Model X SUV enters production in early 2015, clever doors intact
Worried that Tesla’s all-electric SUV, the Model X, might face yet another delay? Don’t be. Tesla is telling pre-order customers that their vehicles will roll off the line in early 2015, complete with the space-saving “falcon wing” doors from the 2012 concept. The options list should be relatively short, too, as both all-wheel drive and fold-flat seats will come standard. You will have to pony up for a third row of seats, however. Elon Musk and crew haven’t shown off the final design, although late-stage prototypes are due in the fall — if you’re still on the fence about Tesla’s upscale people carrier, you’ll have at least one more chance to see it before sales begin.
Filed under: Transportation
Via: SlashGear
Source: Tesla Motors Forums
Engadget Daily: inside the NBA finals, France scores with FIFA’s new goal-line tech and more!
Today, we go behind the scenes at the 2014 NBA Finals, learn about Earin’s truly wireless earbuds, relive France’s controversial score with FIFA’s goal-line technology and take a look at Airdog: a GoPro-equipped drone with a knack for sports action. Read on for Engadget’s news highlights from the last 24 hours.
Inside Game 5 of the 2014 NBA Finals
The 2014 NBA Finals might be over (go Spurs), but you can relive some of the glory by perusing a few of our court-side photos. With camera in hand, Edgar Alvarez tours the AT&T Center for a behind-the-scenes look at the epic sports event.
Airdog drone serves as your loyal action sports cameraman
Why film your own sports action video when a UAV could do it for you? If funded on Kickstarter, the GoPro-equipped Airdog drone could be your very own aerial cameraman. All you have to do is initiate its flight from a wrist-mounted controller.
Earin’s tiny wireless earphones recharge while they’re in your pocket
Unlike Beats’ new Powerbeats2, Earin’s wireless buds are completely cable-free — and they recharge inside your pocket. For a $170 pledge on Kickstarter, you can snag a pair sometime in January 2015, assuming the target is met.
France is the first team to benefit from goal-line tech at the World Cup
Remember when FIFA announced it would incorporate new goal-line tech into the 2014 World Cup? Well, it paid off. It was used to confirm a controversial shot from France’s Karim Benzema that bounced off the far post, landing just inside the goal.
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Filed under: Misc
What’s on your HDTV this week: World Cup, ‘Fargo’ finale, ‘True Blood’ premiere
Hockey and basketball are over, but now it’s time for the global game to take center stage. The World Cup started last week, but the USMNT is only just getting ready for its first game today against Ghana, the country that’s knocked it out in the last two tournaments. If you have cable, watching the game in the US is as easy as turning on the TV or opening ESPN’s app, but those without should keep an eye on Univision, which is streaming the action from Brazil with no login required. Also of note, the season finales of Orphan Black as well as FX’s excellent Fargo and Louie are on the schedule this week. Check after the break for a list of what’s new this week plus a few trailers, and drop a note in the comments if you see any highlights we’ve missed.
[Image credit: Alexandre Loureiro/Getty Images for adidas]
Of course, that’s not all there is, as TNT launches its new Michael Bay-produced drama The Last Ship, True Blood kicks off its final season on HBO and ABC’s Rising Star is bringing an app to stir up the usual reality TV contest format. On Blu-ray, Wes Anderson fans have The Grand Budapest Hotel to look forward to while gamers can check out EA Sports UFC on Xbox One and PS4. Syfy even has a couple of summer premieres, with the return of Defiance and the series premiere of Dominion.
Blu-ray, Streaming movies & Games
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- House of Cards (S2)
- Joe
- The Machine
- Walk of Shame
- The Lego Movie (3D)
- Picnic at Hanging Rock (Criterion)
- EA Sports UFC (Xbox One, PS4)
- How to Train Your Dragon 2 (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U)
- MotoGP 14 (PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC)
Monday
- World Cup Group G: Ghana vs. US, ESPN, 5:30PM
- Switched at Birth (summer premiere), ABC Family, 8PM
- Whose Line Is It Anyway?, CW, 8PM
- WWE Raw, USA, 8PM
- Masterchef, Fox, 8PM
- The Fosters (season premiere), ABC Family, 9PM
- 24: Live Another Day, Fox, 9PM
- Beauty and the Beast, CW, 9PM
- American Ninja Warrior, NBC, 9PM
- Major Crimes, TNT, 9PM
- Murder in the First, TNT, 10PM
- Longmire, A&E, 10PM
- Louie (season finale), FX, 10 & 10:30PM
- Mistresses, ABC, 10PM
Tuesday
- World Cup Group H: Belgium vs. Algeria, ESPN, 11:30AM
- World Cup Group A: Brazil vs. Mexico, ESPN, 2:30PM
- World Cup Group H: Russia vs. South Korea, ESPN, 5:30PM
- America’s Got Talent, NBC, 8PM
- Pretty Little Liars, ABC Family, 8PM
- Rizzoli & Isles (season premiere),
- Chasing Life, ABC Family, 9PM
- Royal Pains , USA, 9PM
- I Wanna Marry “Harry”, Fox, 9PM
- Deadliest Catch, Discovery, 9PM
- Top Gear (US), History, 9PM
- The Wil Wheaton Project, Syfy, 9PM
- Fargo (season finale), FX, 10PM
- Heroes of Cosplay, Syfy, 10PM
- Perception (season premiere), TNT, 10PM
- Playing House (season finale), USA, 10 & 10:30PM
- Awkward, MTV, 10PM
- The Night Shift, NBC, 10PM
- Freakshow, AMC, 10:30PM
- Inside Amy Schumer, Comedy Central, 10:30PM
- The Listener, ION, 11 & 11:59PM
Wednesday
- World Cup Group B: Australia vs. Netherlands, ESPN, 11:30AM
- World Cup Group B: Spain vs. Chile, ESPN, 2:30PM
- World Cup Group A: Cameroon vs. Croatia, ESPN, 5:30PM
- Rogue, DirecTV 101, 8 & 9PM
- Melissa & Joey (season finale), ABC Family, 8PM
- So You Think You Can Dance, Fox, 8PM
- Baby Daddy (season finale), ABC Family, 8:30PM
- Suits, USA, 9PM
- Dual Survival, Discovery, 9PM
- Graceland, USA, 10PM
- Motive, ABC, 10PM
- Catfish, MTV, 10PM
- The Ultimate Fighter, Fox Sports 1, 10PM
Thursday
- World Cup Group C: Colombia vs. Ivory Coast, ESPN, 11:30AM
- World Cup Group D: Uruguay vs. England, ESPN, 2:30PM
- World Cup Group C: Japan vs. Greece, ESPN, 5:30PM
- Black Box, ABC, 8PM
- 4th Anuual Critics Choice TV Awards, CW, 8PM
- Defiance (season premiere), Syfy, 8PM
- Hollywood Game Night, NBC, 8PM
- Rookie Blue (season premiere), ABC, 9PM
- Dominion (series premiere), Syfy, 9PM
- The Sixties, CNN, 9PM
- Undateable, NBC, 9 & 9:30PM
- Gang Related, Fox, 9PM
- Anger Management, FX, 9:30PM
- Last Comic Standing, NBC, 10PM
- Maron, IFC, 10PM
- Comedy Bang! Bang!, IFC, 10:30PM
Friday
- World Cup Group D: Italy vs. Costa Rica, ESPN, 11:30AM
- World Cup Group E: Switzerland vs. France, ESPN, 2:30PM
- World Cup Group E: Honduras vs. Ecuador, ESPN, 5:30PM
- WWE SmackDown, Syfy, 8PM
- Cold Justice (season premiere), TNT, 9PM
- Crossbones, NBC, 10PM
- Continuum, Syfy, 10PM
- Real Time with Bill Maher, HBO, 10PM
- The Half Hour, Comedy Central, 12 & 12:30AM
Saturday
- World Cup Group F: Argentina vs. Iran, ESPN, 11:30AM
- World Cup Group G: Ghana vs. Germany, ESPN, 2:30PM
- World Cup Group F: Nigeria vs. Bosnia-Herzegovina, ESPN, 5:30PM
- Bet On Your Baby, ABC, 8PM
- Crisis (series finale), NBC, 8 & 9PM
- The Mentor, Lifetime, 8PM
- Power, Starz, 9PM
- The Assets, ABC, 9PM
- Orphan Black (season finale), BBC America, 9PM
- Almost Royal (series premiere), BBC America, 10 & 10:30PM
Sunday
- F1 Austrian Grand Prix, NBC Sports Network, 7:30AM
- World Cup Group H: Belgium vs. Russia, ABC, 11:30AM
- World Cup Group H: South Korea vs. Algeria, ABC, 2:30PM
- NASCAR Sprint Cup Series @ Sonoma, TNT, 3PM
- World Cup Group G: USA vs. Portugal, ESPN, 5:30PM
- Enlisted (series finale), Fox, 7PM
- Wipeout (season premiere), ABC, 7 & 8PM
- Rangers/Angels, ESPN, 8PM
- Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, CNN, 9PM
- True Blood (season premiere), HBO, 9PM
- The Last Ship (series premiere), TNT, 9PM
- The Musketeers (series premiere), BBC America, 9PM
- Rising Star (series premiere), ABC, 9PM
- The Escape Artist (Part 2 of 2), PBS, 9PM
- Catching Hell, Weather Channel, 9PM
- Nurse Jackie, Showtime, 9PM
- Californication, Showtime, 9:30PM
- Falling Skies (season premiere), TNT, 10PM
- The Hunt, History, 10PM
- Halt and Catch Fire, AMC, 10PM
- Penny Dreadful, Showtime, 10PM
- Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, HBO, 11:30PM
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Facebook for iPad’s new sidebar wants you to play more games
Love Facebook, but hate your friends’ endless invitations to play Farmville? You might not like the social network’s latest iPad update. According to the Facebook developer blog, the company is testing out a new sidebar that offers users in landscape mode a sampling of trending topics, videos and other content. Most of this data is fairly personalized — consisting of upcoming birthdays, events, holidays and recently played games, but there’s also a special section reserved for advertising “popular” Facebook games. Fortunately, you aren’t guaranteed to see the latter element right away: the column’s layout is out based on individual use. If you don’t play Facebook games, you might not see advertisements for them.
According to a Facebook spokesperson, the app will always keep items like birthdays or events up top, but everything else in the column moves around based on how you use the social network. If you watch a lot of video, for instance, you’ll see a lot of trending videos on the top of the sidebar; if you’re addicted to Facebook games the column will be flush with recently played titles and recommendations. Content irrelevant to your interests might stick around though — Facebook says non-gamers can expect the “featured games” panel to live off-screen, available to users who scroll down to the bottom of the panel’s display. The update is currently only available to a small percentage of test users, but Facebook plans for the sidebar to become a permeant facet of its iPad experience.
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Source: Facebook
Playdate: Engadget plays the ‘Battlefield: Hardline’ beta on PS4!
Welcome, ladygeeks and gentlenerds, to the new era of gaming. The one where you get to watch, and comment, as other people livestream gameplay from next-gen consoles. Because games! They’re fun!
A large-scale game of cops and robbers seems like a natural fit for the Battlefield franchise, right? Like it or not, that’s what we have with the series’ latest entry, Battlefield: Hardline. Developer Visceral Games’ (Dead Space series, Dante’s Inferno) Steve Papoutsis came out during Electronic Arts’ press conference at E3 last week and announced that if you wanted to try Hardline out ahead of its launch this fall, you could download a beta that very day on the PlayStation 4. Well, that slammed the PS4 and EA servers, and actually getting the game was a hassle for some. That’s where we come in. Curious if the game lives up to the heat or if it’s more of a dog day afternoon for the series? Well, tune into the stream below at 7 pm Eastern/4 pm Pacific and find out as we make a run for the cash on Sony’s latest console.
Watch live video from Engadget on www.twitch.tv
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD
Facebook Paper adds a trending section, hopes you’ll notice it
Remember Paper? That app for reading stuff from Facebook. It sure is pretty, but certainly has some issues in the functionality department. Well, last month it added some seemingly essential features that were missing from version 1.1, like event and birthday notifications. Today, to celebrate version 1.2, Facebook is adding support for hashtags, a trending posts section and photo tagging. Paper still isn’t anywhere near ready to replace the standard Facebook app but, now that you edit your profile or cover photo, you could rely on it for slightly longer. (Perhaps even tens of minutes!) There’s even autocomplete for friends names when you’re trying to tag them in post. Basically, Paper is coming into its awkward teenage phase. We can see the promise and the appeal — there’s glimmers of maturity beneath its awkward veneer. Perhaps most impressive is the fine grained controls that have been added for crafting and sharing updates. Switching between public and friends is just a tap away, even if you’ve already posted a missive to your wall. Between Home and Paper it’s easy to get a picture for how Facebook sees users interacting with its service in the future… unfortunately that future isn’t here yet.
Filed under: Software, Mobile, Facebook
Source: Facebook
Jony Ive Speaks on Future Products, Working With New Materials
Over the weekend, The New York Times released an in-depth profile of Apple CEO Tim Cook. For that piece, the publication interviewed Jony Ive, Apple’s head of design, and now The New York Times has released a transcript of the full interview with Ive, which points towards Apple’s design philosophies, how the company has changed under Cook, and the new products that Ive is working on.
In an anecdote about Steve Jobs and the creation of small, highly focused design teams as his legacy, Ive says that Cook has continued on with Jobs’ push for innovation, nudging Ive and his team into new areas of exploration that includes all new materials.
I’ve worked for the last 15 or 20 years on the most challenging, creative parts of what we do. I would love to talk about future stuff — they’re materials we haven’t worked in before. I’ve been working on this stuff for a few years now. Tim is fundamentally involved in pushing into these new areas and into these materials.
Ive’s statement about working with new materials is incredibly vague, but rumors have suggested that Apple has been experimenting with a range of materials that have not yet seen wide usage in its devices, including sapphire crystal, which may make its way into the iWatch and the iPhone 6, Liquidmetal alloys, which the company may use for various iPhone parts, and possibly graphene, which is seen as the hot new manufacturing material.
Apple has experimented with sapphire as a cover for the home button and the camera lens on the iPhone 5s, and Liquidmetal has been used in the iPhone 3G’s SIM tool removal device, but both materials are ripe for extended usage in Apple’s future devices.
Along with hinting at future products, Ive also spoke on a recent management change that saw him taking over the software interface design team, saying that the changes made in that department are not as dramatic as one might imagine as the design teams have always worked together closely. According to Ive, titles are unimportant at Apple. “That’s not the lens through which we see our peers,” he says.
The rest of Ive’s interview can be read over at The New York Times. The full piece on Tim Cook, which has details on product development and Apple’s plans for the iWatch, is also well worth a read.
250 New Emojis Introduced Today, May See Inclusion in Future Versions of iOS
The Unicode Consortium today announced version 7.0 of the Unicode Standard, which will see the introduction of approximately 250 new emoji that could be included in future versions of the Android and iOS operating systems.
According to the Unicode Consortium, the new emoji characters are primarily derived from characters used in the Wingdings and Webdings fonts, as seen in an example image:
As noted by The Verge, Unicode member platforms like iOS and Android will need to implement support for the new standard and create pictographs to represent the emoji, which are only described by Unicode in plain text. Unicode
A full list of the new emoji names can be found on Emojipedia, which includes descriptions for each future emoji, such as “white sun behind cloud,” “man in business suit levitating,” “derelict house building,” “chipmunk,” “flying envelope,” and more.
Earlier this year, Apple began working with the Unicode Consortium to introduce more characters to its emoji offerings, adding diversity to the character set, but this update does not seem to focus on people emoji.
The Unicode update will also see the addition of new currency symbols for the Russian ruble and Azerbaijani manat, 23 lesser-used and historic scripts, plus many other symbols.
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