Citizen journalism game will show how your photos change the story
As the Ferguson protests made exceedingly clear, citizen journalism is both a blessing and a curse; while it can expose police brutality and censorship, it’s also prone to misinformation. But how do you illustrate the complexity of the subject for the general public? If you’re developer Nicky Case, who has a history of tackling difficult subjects, you build a game around it. His as yet unnamed title will have your character trying to gain Twitter followers (that is, score points) by taking photos at controversial events like protests. The trick will be to accurately capture what’s happening without polarizing any group more than necessary. You may want to photograph police corruption, but the cops could block you from certain areas if you antagonize them too quickly; at the same time, you don’t want to take extreme shots that turn peaceful protests into riots.
The game is a long way from completion, but it’s likely to remain topical so long as people on social networks can tell stories that won’t necessarily show up in the mainstream media… in other words, for quite a while. Even if the effort doesn’t capture widespread attention, though, Case sees it as a commentary on the game industry’s inability to take some subjects seriously. He believes that Battlefield Hardline glorifies police militarization, for example, while Watch Dogs doesn’t do much to address concerns about unchecked government surveillance. As far as Case is concerned, his project will succeed so long as it makes you question whether or not games and news outlets are telling you the full story.
[Image credit: Thomas Hawk, Flickr]
Filed under: Gaming
Source: The Atlantic, Nicky Case (Twitter)
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Apple Partnering With American Express on iPhone Mobile Payments Initiative
Apple’s rumored mobile payments initiative appears to be coming closer to launch, with Re/code reporting the company has reached a deal to partner with American Express.
Apple has reached an agreement with American Express to work together on its new iPhone payments system, according to sources familiar with the talks. American Express is one of several partners Apple will need to sign up before it can launch its new payments plan, which sources say it plans to announce at its September 9 product event.
Apple was previously reported to have been in negotiations with Visa over the effort, which is said to leverage the upcoming iPhone 6. Just days ago, a logic board leak revealed the near field communications (NFC) chip destined for the iPhone 6 and which will presumably play an important role in enabling the mobile payments functionality.
EasyPay mobile payments concept by Ricardo Del Toro
With Apple’s extensive database of credit card numbers linked to iTunes Store accounts and new security technology such as Touch ID built into the iPhone, the company is strongly positioned to leverage those assets for widespread adoption of mobile payments. The effort naturally requires partnerships with credit card processors and retailers, but the pieces do appear to be falling into place just ahead of next week’s media event.
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Don’t forget to enter our Back to School 2014 sweepstakes!
Most college students are already settling into the fall semester, but it’s not too late to nab some updated gear. Our Back to School 2014 guide has plenty of recommendations for laptops, tablets, accessories and more, and our giveaway rounds up some of our favorite tech for 15 lucky winners. Enter the raffle below for a chance to score a custom Timbuk2 bag packed with more than $3,000 worth of goodies. One raffle winner will be selected from each of 15 eligible posts — to see the complete list, go here. Entries will close at 11:59PM ET on September 13th, so get to it!
Filed under: Announcements
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Inhabitat’s Week in Green: biofuel, supersonic submarine and a 3D-printed home
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.
Mobile technology continues to expand and evolve, but until we develop a way to charge our devices on the go, we’ll continue to jockey for outlets at airports and coffee shops. Enter Angelo Casimiro, a 15-year-old who has developed a shoe that harnesses the power of footsteps to charge your phone. The youth of today continue to be at the forefront of renewable energy innovation; a 14-year-old named Gregory Martin recently made a major biofuel breakthrough with a technique that boosts the amount of lipids in algae by over 500 percent.
On the green transportation front, rumors are swirling that Ford and Hyundai are currently developing brand-new hybrid models that will compete with Toyota’s top-selling Prius. Chinese scientists have drawn up plans for a supersonic submarine that could travel from Shanghai to San Francisco in just two hours. The submarine would be enveloped in an air bubble, thus cutting down on friction, enabling it to travel at a blistering 3,600MPH. An electrical engineer from Bangalore recently created a solar-powered tuk tuk, which he plans to drive from India to London to showcase the power of clean energy. School is now in session — and to encourage students to have a green academic year, Inhabitat launched a contest where you can win a brand-new $574 Public Bike or one of three solar backpacks, worth $129 each!
The world’s largest tidal energy project got an $83 million shot in the arm last week, as Atlantis Resources secured funding for a massive underwater energy plant off the coast of Scotland. Dubbed the MeyGen project, the tidal energy farm will produce enough juice to power 175,000 homes. In other clean energy news, scientists in India have figured out a way to generate energy from elements found in silk moth cocoons. And a Spanish design firm recently floated plans for an ambitious project that would create a vast hydroponic food belt spanning 1.5 million square miles of desert in the Arabian Peninsula.
It’s said that 3D printing is the next frontier in architecture and design, and architect Adam Kushner is taking it to a whole new level by 3D printing an entire 2,400-square-foot home in Upstate New York. Kushner will use a large 3D printer that produces stone-like objects from sand or other materials mixed with a magnesium-based binder. In other green architecture news, Mexico-based Studio Cachoua Torres Camilletti recently designed a set of undulating skyscrapers that are topped with rice paddy terraces. The Australian design firm studio505 completed work on Phoenix Valley, a massive green-roofed arts complex that received China’s highest sustainability rating. The Buckminster Fuller Institute announced its 20 semifinalists for the 2014 Buckminster Fuller Challenge, one of the world’s top annual design contests, and Inhabitat rounded up some of its favorite entries. In wearable technology news Ralph Lauren launched a high-tech T-shirt that monitors its wearer’s vitals, and a team of undergraduates invented a nail polish that detects date-rape drugs. And in sustainable food news, scientists have figured out a way to use yeast to create real cheese that is 100 percent vegan — and they’ve just launched a fundraising campaign to bring it to market.
Filed under: Misc
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Apple is reportedly teaming up with American Express on iPhone payments
Those longstanding rumors of Apple building a mobile payment service may be coming true sooner than you think. Recode‘s sources claim that the folks in Cupertino have struck a deal with American Express to work on an iPhone payment system, hot on the heels of The Information‘s report of a similar agreement with Visa. Details of the system aren’t clear beyond a tie-in with the next iPhone (and likely your iTunes account), but Apple is supposedly ready to spill the beans at its September 9th event — if the leak is accurate, you’re going to get the full story pretty quickly.
We wouldn’t bet on a launch when Apple is known to occasionally change its mind (or face delays) at the last minute. However, the payment tech would certainly make sense in light of many rumors that Apple is finally incorporating NFC into its devices. While you can use NFC for accessory pairing and local file transfers, it’s more of a nice-to-have feature in those areas. It’s more important when you’re shopping, since tapping a payment terminal is typically easier and more secure than sending your banking details over Bluetooth or WiFi.
[Image credit: The.Comedian, Flickr]
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple
Source: Recode
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The Sony SmartWatch 3 will run Android Wear, ‘SmartBand Talk’ name gets dropped too
This one’s a doozy. After hearing assertions a few weeks ago that Sony‘s latest wearable would not be running the Android Wear operating system, we’re today hearing that the Sony SmartWatch 3 will run Android Wear. This rumour comes to us via 9to5Google, who also revealed some specs about the device, including a 1.68-inch display and IP58 rating. The rumour also talks about a device named the “SmartBand Talk“, allegedly the successor to the SmartBand SWR10.
We’re finding this news more than a little surprising since it was Sony itself that said it would be wasted resources not to continue developing their own Android smartwatch operating system, particularly as it has already seen two iterations. However, while it is surprising, we can’t say it would be out of the realm of possibility. We’ve seen manufacturers go back on their word before, and an opportunity to invest effort into what looks like the wearable operating system of the future is probably a better use of Sony’s time. Then again, with the watch rumoured to be making an appearance at IFA 2014, perhaps we will find out then what kind of watch it is.
What do you think about this information? Do you think the SmartWatch 3 will really run Android Wear? Let us know your thoughts.
Source: 9to5Google via XperiaBlog
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Watch a remote-controlled fighter jet evade a missile
Existing drone aircraft are useful for many things, but they make for lousy target practice when you’re testing missiles; they’re rarely as maneuverable as modern fighter jets. Boeing and one of its customers have just shown that there’s a better way, however, by firing a surface-to-air missile at a remote-controlled QF-16. As you’ll see in the video below, the unmanned aircraft is much nimbler than either a purpose-built vehicle or an aging conversion like the QF-4, and gives weapons a real workout. It even managed to dodge the projectile, although you can’t really say that the shooters missed. The missile was tuned to avoid hitting its target — sensors on both the missile and QF-16 confirmed that the weapon was on track without having to blow up expensive equipment. It’ll be a while longer before the airplane is regularly serving as an aerial punching bag, but this test proves that it’s up to the job.
Filed under: Robots
Via: Gizmodo
Source: Boeing (YouTube)
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Flaw lets hackers break your WiFi router’s security with one guess
Typically, attacks against your WiFi router require a lengthy attempt to guess any codes and passwords. Not if you use 0xcite’s new technique, however; the research firm has detailed a flaw in some router chipsets that lets hackers bypass the push-button security of WiFi Protected Setup (WPS) almost instantly. Instead of trying to guess a hotspot’s PIN code, which can take hours, you simply take a single shot based on a series of offline calculations. Once you’re ready to attack, it takes roughly “one second” to get in.
The vulnerability isn’t present in every router, but 0xcite believes that it’s in relatively common chipsets from both Broadcom and another, unnamed company that’s scrambling to implement a fix. The Wi-Fi Alliance, for its part, tells Ars Technica that the flaw likely stems from how companies implement wireless networking, rather than anything inherent to how the technology works. Whatever the root cause may be, the easiest way to protect against this exploit right now is to turn WPS off — not a big problem if you’re comfortable with a router setup page, but probably more of a hassle than you’d like.
Filed under: Networking
Via: Ars Technica
Source: 0xcite (SlideShare)
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Openmix: a tiny mobile accessory that lets you play pretend DJ
This teeny-tiny device called Openmix might be the solution you need for those times when you’re raring to be the DJ of the party, but another aspiring disc jockey just won’t back down (ugh!). It lets you mix tunes from several devices at once (whether it’s an iPhone, an Android phone or tablet, a random media player or a laptop) and blast them out loud in real time by connecting speakers through one of its ports. Its tiny size has probably cued you in on its simplicity — it can only really fade tracks for seamless transition. But, you can connect it to a device loaded with a third-party DJ app to add extra sound effects, if you’re seriously into it. Since Openmix is a Kickstarter project, there’s a chance you’ll never actually see one. If you want take a chance, though, you’ll have to pledge at least $29 to get a unit if it does come out in January 2015.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile
Via: Gizmodo, Boing Boing
Source: Openmix, Kickstarter
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[Labor Day Deal] Take an additional 10% off the already low prices on StackSocial
We have been watching StackSocial like a hawk lately. Mainly because they seem to have some of the best deals happening constantly. It also doesn’t hurt that the deals last more than 24 hours. While we do love the flash sales, sometimes people miss out for a number of reasons. This weekend could be your lucky weekend if there is something you have been eyeing though. Stack Social is offering up an additional 10% of everything side wide with a special promo code.
Whether you want the nifty Limefuel Lite 15,000 mAh battery bank, the 3-years of VPN Unlimited service, or to learn the basics of Android development. It is available at pretty great price to begin with. There are plenty of other deals on Stack Social that might interest you beyond the Android offerings too. Might be a good time to poke around and pick a few things up. When you do check out though, make sure you use the promo code LDW10 so you get that little extra savings. You better hurry though, the promo code is only valid through Monday 9/1 at 11:59pm PST.
Bounce on into Stack Social and take a gander at all the offerings.
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AIVAnet 