Back to School 2014: The 13 best audio devices
Maybe you’re in search of a decent Bluetooth speaker for your next party, or perhaps your band is on the lookout for some new, creative gear. We’ve got you covered either way, and you’ll find even more picks at our Back to School hub.
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Watch this: the first Formula E race is tomorrow in Beijing
After a couple years of careful planning, the inaugural Formula E season is set to hit the track this weekend. Tomorrow’s race is set for 3:30 AM ET in Beijing on a circuit that’s laid out on around the iconic Bird’s Nest venue from the 2008 Olympics. Anxious at-home spectators in the US can catch the action on Fox Sports 1 while UK viewers can tune in via ITV4. The Spark-Renault cars carry McLaren 200kW electric motors, systems and transmissions that equate to 0-60 MPH (0-100 km/h) in three seconds with a top speed of 150 MPH (225 km/h). During the first season, the 10-race schedule features stops in the States, Argentina and Monaco before wrapping up with the London ePrix in June 2015.
[Photo credit: GOH CHAI HIN/AFP/Getty Images]
Filed under: Transportation
Source: Formula E
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$100K in Google Cloud Platform credit being given to eligible start-ups by Google
Google has announced a new program today at the Google for Entrepreneurs Global Partner Summit that will undoubtedly help start-ups get off the ground a little quicker. The program aims to help early stage start-ups take advantage of the cloud and quickly scale their ideas without going broke attempting to do so. In order to be eligible for a $100,000 worth of Cloud Platform credit you need to be in an approved Accelerator, Incubator or VC fund, never received Cloud Platform credit in the pat and have less than $5 million in funding with less than $500,000 in annual revenue.
This offer supports our core Google Cloud Platform philosophy: we want developers to focus on code; not worry about managing infrastructure. Starting today, startups can take advantage of this offer and begin using the same infrastructure platform we use at Google.
Not a bad way to start off your start-up. If you want further information point your browser over to the Google Cloud Platform developers page.
Source: Google Via: 9to5Google
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AT&T Executive: ‘Amazing to See the Volume’ as iPhone 6 Debut Tops 5s and 5 Launches
While Apple’s launch-day supplies for the iPhone 6 are holding up fairly well so far, the larger iPhone 6 Plus has been sold out as shipping estimates move to 3-4 weeks. Overall, demand appears to be high as many expected, with the new form factor and larger displays serving to entice new and upgrade customers.
AT&T executive Ralph de la Vega addressed the iPhone 6 launch in comments at the the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference this morning, citing “amazing” volume with hundreds of thousands of orders taken according to Fierce Wireless.
“It’s amazing to see the volume,” he said, adding that the “systems are rocking” and “everything is going well.” He said demand for the new phones is “better than last year and they’re better than the prior year [before that].”
“Every time there is a change in [iPhone] design, there’s an uptake,” he said. “I think this design is particularly good.”
Carriers are battling fiercely for iPhone 6 customers, with many touting trade-in offers to help keep customers on board or attract new ones. Carriers are also pushing hard to convert customers to newer plans that uncouple device and service pricing, financing the device over a period of 12 months or more rather than offering outright subsidies.
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Walmart and Best Buy Opt Out of ‘Apple Pay’ as Apple Leverages Required Point-of-Sale Upgrades
At its “Apple Pay” introduction earlier this week, Apple outlined a host of partners for the mobile payments initiative, ranging from credit card companies to the banks that issue the cards to retailers representing over 220,000 retail locations in the United States. Questions have remained, however, about how willing other retailers will be to sign on to the program and how quickly those that do will be able to get up and running.
In the wake of Apple’s announcement, several major retailers such as Walmart and Best Buy were in fact quick to state that they do not plan to support Apple Pay, as noted by The Wall Street Journal
Best Buy and Wal-Mart are instead backing a retailer-owned mobile technology group called Merchant Customer Exchange, which also counts Target Corp. among its members.
MCX’s payment service requires only a software download and can be used on existing iPhones and Android devices, whereas Apple’s is only for the latest generation handset.
For those retailers considering joining Apple Pay, however, it appears that Apple has timed its rollout perfectly. As highlighted by Pando Daily, Apple is taking advantage of regulatory changes that essentially require merchants to deploy new payment hardware in their retail stores over the coming year. This mass upgrade by over nine million merchants is the result of an updated credit card liability policy adopted by major credit card companies.
As of October 2015, any merchants that do not support EMV credit cards – smart cards with integrated circuits that enable point of sale authentication and help prevent fraud – will be liable for the fraudulent use of counterfeit, lost, and stolen cards. […]
These EMV cards and the resulting transactions are far more difficult to counterfeit than what Americans consider “standard” credit cards. While EMV is the norm around the world, only about 14 percent of US merchants support this technology today and very few consumers own credit cards incorporating these chips.
As a result of this change in credit card liability, merchants are upgrading their payment processing hardware to support EMV credit cards and other payment technology. With Apple now on board with NFC, a greater number of merchants who are in the middle of this decision-making process may choose NFC-capable POS hardware so they can process payments via Apple Pay.
Apple’s new Apple Pay service takes advantage of the Touch ID fingerprint sensor, stored credit cards, and a secure NFC connection to authorize payments at retailers’ physical stores and in compatible apps. Both the iPhone 6 handset lineup and the Apple Watch will support the wireless payment method.
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California will fine companies that try to silence disgruntled customers
Remember the New York hotel that imposed $500 fines for any guest who wrote disparaging reviews on sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor? The state of California does, and has decided that it wants to stop the practice of any business, including hotels and restaurants inserting “non-disparagement” clauses into their terms of business. Under the law, any outlet trying to enforce financial penalties onto upset keyboard warriors would be met with a $2,500 slap. Subsequent violations would set them back $5,000, and there’s a $10,000 bonus non-prize if a company is found to be recklessly violating the rules. Let’s hope that the trend carries over to other states, but also that some canny legislator widens the definition to cover gadget reviews for, er, no specific reason.
Filed under: Internet
Source: California Legislature
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Oculus co-founders donate $35 million to erect computer science wing at University of Maryland
New York City is a town of names: Rockefeller, Astor, Trump. Legacies of the vast wealth held by dynastic families in early 20th century New York City. America’s college campuses are littered with the same convention; wealthy alumni donate large sums to expand a university, and subsequently name that expansion after themselves. The University of Maryland, for instance, is getting a $35 million computer science wing from two of Oculus VR‘s co-founders. And what’s it named? “The Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Innovation,” apparently, after Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe. Oculus chief software architect (and co-founder) Michael Antonov is footing another $4 million.
The new facility is planned to “feature state-of-the-art maker spaces,” says UMD’s Jayanth Banavar. Iribe describes it as, “designed for hackers, makers and engineers, which will help give rise to future breakthroughs, products and startups that will transform the way we live and interact with the world around us.” More bluntly, the space is being built to educate the next generation of virtual reality and other future computing platforms. “This gift positions Maryland to be one of the leading institutions for virtual reality in the world,” Iribe says.
And yes, your guess is at least partially right: Iribe has that kind of money to throw around because the company he most recently co-founded was purchased by Facebook for $2 billion. But his gigs before Oculus were similarly lucrative. First, Iribe co-founded Scaleform with Antonov, which sold to Autodesk for $36 million in 2011. Then, he worked as chief product officer at Gaikai before it was sold to Sony for $380 million. And now he’s CEO of Oculus. Not a bad run!
So, why the University of Maryland? It’s where Iribe and Antonov met, as well as their alma mater. It’s also what Iribe calls “the beginning of a long-term commitment toward transforming education”; not the first we’ve heard from him on the subject. Iribe’s mother is even in on the donating, adding another $3 million on top of Iribe and Antonov’s $35 million to establish two leadership positions for the new computer science wing.
UMD says the center will specifically target research in “virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, robotics, computer vision and human interaction.” In so many words, it’s an attempt to build out education in burgeoning engineering fields. And that whole “getting your name on a building” thing doesn’t hurt either.
There’s a video with Iribe and UMD folks right here, if you’re into that kinda thing.
[Image credit: Oculus VR/University of Maryland (Brendan Iribe), Flickr/Matt Chan (University of Maryland)]
Filed under: Gaming, Internet, Software, HD, Mobile, Facebook
Source: University of Maryland
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Virgin Media’s giving its TiVo UI a welcome makeover
If you were one of Virgin Media’s early TiVo adopters, you won’t have noticed the user interface change much over the last four years. Well, Virgin’s decided it’s high time for a significant redesign, and it’ll begin hitting several thousand set-top boxes next week, with a wider rollout starting late October. We were treated to a preview of the update today, and the visual differences are immediately obvious. The red background has been ousted by a new “plum” colour (that’s purple, to you and me), and is joined by a new font and minimalist logo that’s part of Virgin Media’s ongoing rebrand. The whole menu system is displayed in a higher-resolution than before, too, but it’s not just a reskin, and should be quicker and slicker to navigate.
The visual refresh is accompanied by new features, which Virgin tells us are a reaction to how customers usage has changed over time. Most of these are changes to the menu tree. The layout is more or less the same, though, with a picture-in-picture of the current channel top right, and the contextual recommendation panel alongside it. This pane is still a work in progress, mind, so it looks kinda funky in the preview build. Basically, the idea behind the new menu system is to make everything accessible in fewer “clicks,” which is why catch-up and on-demand categories now have their own spots at the highest level of the tree.
The “What to Watch Now” section is a brand new way of finding what’s hot, and uses a similar “intelligent” algorithm already at work in the general search feature. It serves up recommendations based on a combo of your viewing habits and what’s popular with other Virgin viewers at the time. Right now, it only scans live TV, but will grow to include on-demand services in the future. “Suggestions,” a similar feature that pre-records content based on what you already watch, used to be buried within the general list of recordings, but now has its own spot in the menu for quicker access. Another revamp to the “My Shows & Recordings” section is a new list dedicated to partially watched programs, making it easy to find that episode of Sherlock you couldn’t stay awake to finish last night. Recommendations are getting increasingly more attention from various content providers, and they’re a big part of Sky’s recently updated program guide.
There are some behind the scenes changes to Virgin’s TiVo platform that may not be immediately obvious, too, including HTML5 support for newer apps. An extra app store, courtesy of Opera, will also be added to set-top boxes some time in early 2015, and will include video portals like Vimeo and TED talks that are currently inaccessible. Finally, a setup guide has been added for those wanting to take advantage of the upcoming “self-install” option for new or upgrading subscribers. This means if you’re comfortable plugging in a few cables and following an on-screen setup guide, you can dodge the installation fee.
To bring them in line with the new TiVo UI, Virgin’s TV Anywhere apps will receive a complimentary plum makeover, too. The iOS version is almost ready to go, and might even be updated before the UI refresh hits set-top boxes, but the Android app is still a few months from completion, as it’s being rebuilt from scratch. As mentioned previously, the TiVo update will start popping up for the majority of subscribers in late October, but with a couple million boxes across the UK to push it to, you might not see it until late December — so don’t worry if you’re still looking at a sea of red in several weeks’ time.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Source: Virgin Media
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‘Grand Theft Auto V’ coming to PS4 and Xbox One November 18th, PC version delayed until 2015
Great news next-gen (well, guess that would be “current-gen” now, wouldn’t it) console owners — you’ll be able to snag Grand Theft Auto V for either the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One on November 18th. Along with the usual slew of graphical improvements, the enhanced version of GTA will feature new weapons, vehicles, activities and mani interesting furry animals. Not to mention new songs, denser traffic and a completely new foliage system! PC players will get all the same perks, but they’ll sadly have to wait until January 27th of 2015 to get their hands on it. On the plus side, if you already own GTA V for Xbox 360 or PS3 you can easily transfer your character.
Filed under: Gaming
Via: Joystiq
Source: Take-Two
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Get ready for a ‘Football Manager’ movie
When their dreams of growing up to become a footballer don’t materialise, many Brits turn to a career in football management. Deciding not to earn their UEFA badges, gamers past and present have grabbed a copy of Sports Interactive’s Football Manager (formerly Championship Manager) in a bid to take Woking from the Conference to the Champions League in six seasons. The game’s popularity has seen its player database become a bona-fide tool for helping Premiership clubs scout future recruits, and soon it’ll make its debut on the big screen. According to Sports Interactive, An Alternative Reality: The FM Documentary is a feature length film that investigates the game’s effect on the world’s most popular sport. It’ll head to a minimum of 26 Vue cinemas throughout the UK on October 7th for one night only, after which it’ll find its way online. If you’ve always wanted to become part of Football Manager folklore, the game’s creators will add one luckily cinemagoer to the next instalment of the franchise, which launches in November.
Filed under: Gaming
Via: MVCUK
Source: Sports Interactive
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AIVAnet 