Stroll through modern Paris as the voice of Gollum narrates its bloody past
Should you want to take a virtual stroll through Paris before neck-stabbing your way around the City of Love in Assassin’s Creed: Unity, the game’s publisher Ubisoft has you covered. With the Project Widow web app, you can explore La Ville-Lumière in a Google Street-View-esque fashion, picking up tidbits of trivia and watching game-themed rap videos (seriously) along the way. The disembodied voice of mo-cap master Andy Serkis cropping up, however, is the real treat. As noted by Joystiq, his in-character accounts of the Bastille and Marquis de Sade’s The 120 Days of Sodom from the view of a French Revolutionary are pretty great stuff. Maybe, just maybe, if the voice of Gollum had taught my world history class I wouldn’t need a video game to help me catch up on Louis the XVI’s excesses.
The app’s UI will be familiar for those who’ve played the games but it should be intuitive enough for just about anyone who doesn’t mind clicking around for a history lesson, too. Like the Destiny map tool before it, though, the purpose this serves more than anything else is to start the hype engine leading into AC:U‘s November 11th release date.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, Internet, HD
Via: Joystiq
Source: Project Widow
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TfL wants to make sure you’ll never get caught short on the Tube
You know how it is. You’re traversing the Jubilee Line, nearing Waterloo and feel the need for a number two. Does Waterloo provide toilet facilities? Unless you’ve got encyclopaedic knowledge of TfL’s toilet facilities, or have access to its trusty PDF map, you run the risk of being caught short (Waterloo is fully equipped by the way). Luckily, the city’s travel authority now believes such information is important enough to be made available to app developers. How’s that likely to affect you? Well, it means that travel apps (like CityMapper) can now fold in the locations of TfL’s public facilities if they choose to. Could be great news for that next night out in Clapham, when you don’t make a trip to the bathroom before embarking on the journey home.
[Image credit: Sarah, Flickr]
Filed under: Transportation, Internet, Software
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Korean smartphone also-ran Pantech goes up for sale
If we asked you to think about a (South) Korean tech company, it’s highly likely that the names “Samsung” or “LG” would be the first to spring to mind. That’s one of the reasons that Pantech, the country’s third biggest manufacturer, is putting itself up for sale. Being sat behind two of the world’s biggest smartphone outfits has hurt the comparatively small business, which has recorded losses for six consecutive quarters. According to ZDNet Korea, the company decided to put itself up for sale because it’s worth a lot more as a going concern than it is being broken up and sold-off for scrap. Ouch.
As we reported a few years ago, Korea’s mobile market is fiercely patriotic, with consumers opting for a homegrown handset around 90 percent of the time. CNET believes that mobile manufacturers from China and India could all buy the struggling business as an easy way into the country’s highly valued, but closed-off market. Unfortunately, given that Pantech’s biggest owners are Korea’s state-owned bank, Samsung, and Qualcomm, it’s not particularly likely that an outside rival would be given a fair shake. ZDNet Korea believes that the most likely buyer is national carrier SK Telecom, although whoever did make a splash would have to deal with Pantech’s biggest issue: warehouse upon warehouse full of unsold smartphones.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung, LG
Via: CNET
Source: ZDNet Korea (Translated), (2)
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Accessory of the Day: iOttie one touch universal windshield/dash mount $19.99
No more fumbling around with your phone while trying to input your navigation route or choosing a song on Spotify. The iOttie car mount safely secures just about any Android device with its extra-large suction cup. Fully adjustable, 360-degree rotation, allows you to orient the screen for a customized cockpit experience. This 5-star rated, #1 best seller, can be added to your vehicle for just $19.99 (Prime eligible).
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The post Accessory of the Day: iOttie one touch universal windshield/dash mount $19.99 appeared first on AndroidGuys.
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Apple Once Again Allowing HealthKit-Capable Apps in iOS App Store
Just before the public launch of iOS 8 earlier this month, Apple removed all HealthKit-enabled apps from the iOS App Store due to an last-minute issue with the service. Addressing the issue, Apple promised it was working on a fix with the goal to “have HealthKit apps available by the end of the month”. As spotted by 9to5Mac, Apple is now allowing apps with HealthKit features back into the iOS App Store.
One of the first apps to debut with HealthKit today is FitPort [Direct Link], a replacement for the iOS 8 Health app. The fitness dashboard allows users both to view health stats pulled from Apple’s Health database and to enter new data manually. Now that Apple is approving these apps, there should be a deluge of new HealthKit-capable apps appearing in the App Store in the coming days.
Apple planned to fix the HealthKit issue with iOS 8.0.1, but problems with cellular connectivity and Touch ID functionality on iPhone 6 and 6 Plus devices forced Apple to pull the update shortly after release. The company fixed these iOS problems and updated HealthKit in iOS 8.0.2, which was released late Thursday.
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BlackBerry inches towards safety despite smartphone slump
From the looks of BlackBerry’s newest earnings report, it looks as if CEO Jon Chen’s plan to transform the company into a software-and-services company might actually be working. The company posted a quarterly net loss of $207 million, pocket change compared to the $950 million that the other guy lost in the same period the year before. The reason for the healthier spreadsheet is thanks to growth in the company’s services arm, which managed to sell 3.4 million licenses of its BlackBerry Enterprise Service in three months – nearly three times the amount sold during the previous three months.
BlackBerry’s quiet revolution comes at the expense of its smartphone business, however, where sales dipped down to 2.1 million for the quarter, down from 2.6 million in June. The way the business is split now, it’s a near 50-50 split between devices and services, although we imagine that balance to tip in favor of the latter over time. That is, unless the company’s new hip-to-be-square Passport phone rejuvenates BlackBerry’s standing with the business community. There’s even good news to be found in the corporate piggy-bank, since the cash and investment balance increased, albeit only by $11 million. Still, given that investors were expecting BlackBerry to post a loss-per-share of $0.16, the fact that the actual figure was $0.02 shows that some (small) celebration is in order. It’s also a sign that the company is still on course to actually start making money at some point next year.
Filed under: Cellphones, Blackberry
Source: BlackBerry (MarketWatch)
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Intel plots a mobile makeover with $1.5 billion investment in Chinese chipmakers
While Intel is prominent in the mobile world, it’s often playing catch-up with the undisputed king of the market, ARM (and as a result, Qualcomm). But that doesn’t mean it’s not willing to spend money to reverse that trend. The company has announced that it’s paid $1.5 billion for a 20 percent share in two of China’s biggest mobile chipmakers, Spreadtrum Communications and RDA Microelectronics. The deal will see Spreadtrum jointly create and sell a range of Intel-based system-on-chips (SoCs), which Intel says will power devices from the middle of next year. It gives Intel the boost it needs to begin competing against its more established rivals, but also offers the chance of cracking the world’s biggest smartphone market (where Qualcomm is currently facing an antitrust probe). While Spreadtrum is known for low-cost chips that power Mozilla’s Firefox OS smartphones, there’s every chance this deal could see Intel make more of a splash in the booming Android market.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Intel
Via: Recode
Source: Intel
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Even San Francisco is thinking about cracking down on Uber
The world’s authorities must have something of a love/hate relationship with ridesharing companies. On one hand, it’s a disruptive new technology that encourages competition, which they love, but it’s also a regulatory nightmare for all involved. After all, someone has to think about the unwitting customers who expect that these cars have the same rules and regulations as a licensed taxi, which isn’t often the case. That’s what prompted the district attorneys of both San Francisco and Los Angeles to write a letter to Uber, Lyft and Sidecar to warn them that if they don’t change their business practices, they could face some serious consequences.
In the same way that Berlin banned Uber for using “unverified drivers in unlicensed vehicles,” an Uber driver in San Francisco was recently charged with punching a passenger. While this driver had passed the company’s own background check, authorities found that they’d been previously convicted of both violent crimes and drug offenses. SF Gate is reporting that further investigation by authorities has found that the companies pledges to screen out offenders with DUIs, driving and sexual assault convictions is “patently untrue.”
In order to avoid a crackdown, San Francisco DA George Gascón, the man behind the smartphone kill-switch, wants the companies to remove their claims that they run background checks on their drivers. The letter also accuses Uber and Lyft of violating state law with their ride-sharing fee calculations, and by not securing the right permits in order to pick up passengers at airports.
The only company that’s responded so far is Sidecar, with CEO Sunil Paul claiming that Gascón’s letter is “shocking and baffling.” Paul has also launched a Change.org petition to stop what he describes as “overzealous regulators,” influenced by “big taxi companies” from shutting his company down. In the meantime, Uber, Lyft and Sidecar have until October 8th to sit down with the DA’s representatives to try and hammer out a solution. If not, then we might expect to see plenty more stories with the words “Uber,” “Fined” and/or “Banned” in the headline.
Filed under: Transportation, Internet, Software
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Online dating leads to more break-ups than meeting in real life
Online dating has reached the point where it isn’t weird to say you met someone via the internet anymore. Tinder is another story, but that’s a digression for a different day. However, while sites like eHarmony and Match are quick to espouse their success rates (the former claims that 438 members marry every day) it turns out their data, much like OKCupid, might not be telling the whole truth. A recent joint-study (PDF) conducted by Michigan State University and Stanford found that people who met online weren’t as likely to stay together for the long haul as their offline-matched counterparts. The separation and divorce rates for folks who’d paired up online was much higher than their offline compatriots, and more online-founded relationships tended to end within a year after the survey. Is Online Better Than Offline For Meeting Partners? states that those who met on the web were more likely to date than actually marry compared to people that’d met IRL, too — by more than double.
As Playboy noticed, the paper states that perhaps the lack of thought that goes into online relationships is what has a malignant effect on them. Need a feel-good aspect to this story? The research also states that the keys to lasting relationships and marriages differs differ quite a bit. The trick to a long marriage, it says, is having a higher relationship quality, meaning, according to the paper, it’s fulfilling and gratifying, irrespective of how long the relationship has existed. For daters, the success factor wasn’t entirely surprising: partners being able to spend more time together to develop a relationship were less likely to call it quits. Maybe staying in with your significant other tonight instead of going out with your buddies could have long-term benefits — call it a hunch.
[Image credit: Thomas Hawk/Flickr]
Filed under: Internet
Via: Playboy
Source: Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking (PDF)
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Texting on Google Glass is just as dangerous as on a phone
You’d think hands-free texting on Google Glass while driving would be a lot safer, but apparently, that’s not the case. A team of University of Central Florida researchers got 40 subjects in their 20s to drive a simulator while texting a math problem using voice transcription on Google Glass. In particular, the researchers observed how fast the drivers slammed on their brakes when a car suddenly stops in front of them during the simulation. The result? In the words of team leader Ben Sawyer, they “didn’t find a statistically significant difference between Google Glass and smartphones,” as the testers who wore the eyewear were just as distracted.
The Glass users did recover from the event faster than their smartphone-toting peers, but the testers who used smartphones were a lot more careful after the near-collision, putting more space between their cars and the ones ahead. Sawyer hopes Glass can eventually lead to a technology that can deliver info while you’re on the road without distracting you. For now, it’s all just a matter of ignoring text messages while driving — especially if it’s asking you to solve trig and algebra problems.
Filed under: Wearables, Mobile, Google
Source: Reuters, University of Central Florida
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AIVAnet 