Twitch wants to be the conduit for professional eSports
What do you do after Amazon purchases your start-up for almost $1 billion? If you’re Twitch CEO Emmett Shear, you stay the course. “Amazon has a very specific track record of retaining founding teams for a long time,” he told The Information in a recent interview. “The idea is that we get to operate in San Francisco independently.” Shear has said it again and again since the acquisition: Twitch chose Amazon for autonomy, the freedom to control its own destiny. Shear seems optimistic about the company’s future — it’s experimenting with music broadcasting, and sees e-sports as an area ripe for expansion. More than anything, Shear seems to want the company to become the community’s go-to provider for streaming content.
“We’re not really a content producer,” he says. “I hope that we can provide more the equivalent of the Comcast of gaming.” Launching off a prompt from The Information, Shear explains that he wants to be the provider to professional eSports content, like Comcast to ESPN. If Twitch became a creator of content, it would be competing with its best content providers — Shear would rather be the conduit of great entertainment in gaming than its author. The young CEO expands on the idea in an interview with Bloomberg. “There’s potential for eSports to be listed in that same pantheon as football and baseball in the states.”
“I hope that we can provide more the equivalent of the Comcast of gaming.” – Emmett Shear, Twitch CEO
It’s a natural expansion for the game streaming company, but its pursuing new avenues of entertainment as well. Just last month, Twitch steamed its first live concert: a set from DJ Steve Aoki. Shear says the experiment was met with “phenomenal” response, and other artists have started looking to Twitch as a music streaming platform. Still, Twitch is expanding its horizons with caution.
“The last thing you want to do is take your eye off what customers really want,” Shear told The Information. “It’s certainly a thing we’re thinking about, but not if it comes at the cost of gaming.” Shear’s biggest concern is losing focus — being too strategic and making a decision that alienates the customers that made Twitch what it is today. “That’s when things go wrong,” he says. “Are we producing stuff that’s awesome still?” He says he turns to Reddit AMAs to find out. The CEO wouldn’t say what his next experiments for Twitch are, but suggests that Amazon understands his vision. The company’s promised autonomy might pay off in the long run. His biggest fear, post-acquisition? “To look back in five years and say, ‘Damn, I sold way too early.’”
[Image credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images]
Source: The Information, Bloomberg
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Rdio update expands its free radio offerings with more music than the rest
Rdio has offered radio-like shuffle listening for quite sometime, but with its latest update, the service looks to be tops in free internet streaming. Across Android, iOS and desktop apps, the tune-minded outfit packs in new features that will help do just that, and it’ll lend subscribers a hand with easily tracking down what they’re after — whether it’s Stations, playlists, full albums or a single song. The free “Stations-first” option claims to offer a library that’s 15 times larger than others with channels for selections based on genres and artists. What’s more, there are also streams based on emotion or activity curated by folks at Rdio, and some handpicked by “tastemakers” (Snoop Dogg was offered as an example). There’s a station that’s unique to each user, too — Billy FM is mine, for example — learning from your listening habits to provide a mix to suit your favorites and yet another that’s populated with tracks from your Collection.
Once you pick a station, you can adjust a slider at points between popular, familiar or favorites on one end and adventurous on the other to further tweak what Rdio will send your way. As you’ve probably guessed by now, Rdio is working alongside Cumulus to provide the free listening via advertising on both mobile and the web. There will also be branded stations where promotional partners control the playlist and the ad content. Macy’s and Home Depot have already signed on, so you can look forward to those two, with many more to come, we’d surmise. Both the curated playlists and an app that continually learns from your habits may sound familiar. Beats Music has collections that are compiled by the likes of Pitchfork, Rolling Stone and others, asking about your music tastes along the way to fill out its Just For You listings.
In addition to the big push for its free streaming option, there’s a revamped Home section that constantly updates with new “stories” based on listening preferences, activity from those tastemakers, what your friends are up to and recommendations from Rdio experts. You can think of “stories” as the “what’s happening” feed that allows you to pick up right where you left off, see what’s trending amongst your mates, peruse comments and more. In the side menu, Trending replaces Heavy Rotation and Top Charts for what’s getting most of the plays across all of Rdio or within your circle of pals. There’s a new Browse option as well, providing easy access to those genre, mood and other themed stations. All of the new features and expanded free radio are rolling out to Android, iOS and web users right now, so you should be able to try for yourself shortly.
Filed under: Software
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Galaxy Note 4 and Note Edge are Official! Samsung Gear VR will Hopefully Blow Our Minds! – ManDroid Daily
IFA 2014 has kicked off, and a lot of goodies came out today. The Galaxy Note 4 was finally made official, as well as the Galaxy Note Edge. Samsung also showed off the Gear VR, that will bring quite an experience to your home theater experience. If you want to hear most of the things that came out of IFA today, check out the Daily below, or hit the links provided as well.
Android News
Galaxy Note 4 and Note Edge
Samsung Gear VR
Who is getting the new Samsung devices?
ASUS ZenWatch
SOny SMartwatch 3 and Smartband
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How and where to sell your electronics scrap in Greenville, MS
Green living should come easy to the residents of Greenville. The town has “green” in its name afterall. Jokes apart, it seems the city does take green living rather seriously. That’s why the town with a population of mere 34,400 has so many programs to keep itself clean and green ranging from annual clean-up days to litterbug reporting.
One of the more important aspects of green living is recycling and the city offers three permanent drop-off locations accessible to residents 24 hours a day where they can bring their recyclables with the focus being on paper waste such as newspapers, magazines, cereal and pizza boxes, etc.
But what about other types of waste more specifically electronic waste? Where does Greenville dispose its e-waste?
The city has a partnership with private recycler Sims Metal Management and conducts special drives during which the company accepts old and unwanted electronics like computers, laptops, servers, cell phones, gaming consoles, DVD players, VCRs, CD players, stereo components, set top boxes and circuit boards from its residents.
Why e-cycling is important?
Recycling electronic waste has various benefits. Aside from the obvious benefit that it diverts waste away from landfills, a lot of components of electronic equipment are a rich source of valuable and at times rare metals.
For example, one metric ton of circuit boards can contain 40 to 800 times the amount of gold and 30 to 40 times the amount of copper mined from one metric ton of ore in the US, according to the U.S. Environment Protection Agency.
Not only does electronic recycling end up conserving natural resources, but it also helps reduce greenhouse gas emission and prevent air and water pollution. Additionally, e-recycling helps save energy required to mine and manufacture products from virgin materials. Recycling one million laptops saves the energy required to power 3,657 U.S. homes in a year.
What kind of e-waste can be recycled?
From cell phones to old computers, from coffee machines to blenders, and from printers to fax machines – all electronic items can potentially be recycled.
However, how they’re recycled may vary. For example, household appliances and electronic items that contain hazardous components or refrigerants have a different waste management process and need to be disposed accordingly.
You can even recycle your old CDs and DVDs even though they’re not e-waste per say. However, they contain a lot of valuable materials including precious metals like gold and silver, non-ferrous metals like aluminum and nickel, high grade plastic, and glass.
How and where can I recycle e-waste?
One of the most important things to remember when disposing your e-waste is data security. Make sure you’ve deleted all your personal information and sensitive data from your computer before sending it for recycling. The same is true for your cell phone. Terminate your service, remove all the data, reset the phone, and shred your SIM card.
As to where you can recycle your e-waste in Greenville, one option is to wait for the Sims Metal Management’s collection drive.
But if you don’t want to wait for the drive, the company has a scrap yard in Greenville that will purchase electronic waste from the residents round the year. It’s even possible to get an online quote from them before you bring your e-waste to their Harbor Front Rd Greenville scrap yard.
You can also sell electronic scrap to other Greenvillee-recyclers. However, residents are advised to seek recyclers that are third-party certified to an accredited electronics recycler certification program. This is to make sure that they follow the EPA-certified standards of safety and environmental sustainability.
Also, a lot of nondescript e-recyclers send the e-waste they procure overseas to countries like China and India where these often hazardous items are processed using unregulated practices that pose a danger to their soil and water resources as well as human health.
Sell your electronic scrap to an upright and conscientious e-recycler and you stand to gain both profit and peace of mind that your waste is not polluting someone else’s home!
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Fox Sports Go will stream some football games live — if you have cable
Got cable? If so, there’s a good chance that you can stream some live football this season. For the first time, Fox Sports Go is offering live internet access to regular NFL games. So long as you’re using an eligible TV provider, you’ll have access to 97 standard match-ups along with four NFC playoff rounds that include the conference championship. That should be convenient if you’re away from your TV when a big game rolls around, although you can’t go too far. Fox warns that the league won’t let it offer games on smartphones, so you’ll still have to catch the action on a larger screen unless you’re on Verizon. Still, that beats having to settle for the occasional score update.
[Image credit: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images]
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD
Source: Fox Sports (PDF)
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Baidu’s new headset and chopsticks record, ID and judge the food you eat
Chinese search giant Baidu has formally launched its answer to Google Glass, but unlike Mountain View’s creation, it doesn’t actually come with a display. The headset, called Baidu Eye, wraps behind your head instead. It recognizes voice and gesture commands, including being able to look up anything you want like plants, bags or clothes just by encircling any object in the Eye’s line of sight with your finger. The system then sends the results to your smartphone in the absence of a display. That’s not the only thing the company showcased at its recent annual developers’ conference in Beijing, though: it has also debuted its new smart chopsticks, which originally began as an April Fools’ joke.
The high-tech utensils can be used not only to eat, but also to detect the quality of oil used in your food — its light indicator glows red if it’s unsafe for consumption, and blue if it’s safe. Since Chinese food typically requires huge amounts of oil, the chopsticks can make sure you’re ingesting fresh oil, not something that’s been recycled numerous times. We’re not even talking about cooking oil restaurants use over and over; we’re talking about “gutter oil,” which is literally something scooped up from sewers. The gutter oil industry is big in China, with the police cracking down on “recyclers” for years, as the material can contain a fungus that increases risk of liver cancer and developmental disabilities in kids. Baidu CEO Robin Li didn’t mention any price or release date for either device, but he promised that the chopsticks will also be able to detect PH levels and, more importantly for the health conscious, calories in food in the future.
Filed under: Peripherals
Source: The Wall Street Journal, South China Morning Post
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Broadcom Launches New 650Mbps 802.11ac Wi-Fi Chip for Mobile Devices
Communications chip maker Broadcom today announced a new 5G 802.11ac Wi-Fi chip designed for smartphones.
Capable of data throughput speeds of up to 650 Mbps, the BC4358 is Broadcom’s second chip to use 2×2 MIMO (multiple input multiple output), bringing up to twice the Wi-Fi performance with 25 percent more power efficiency than 1×1 MIMO chips.
MIMO is a technology that utilizes multiple antennas for both the transmitter and receiver to improve communication performance. Apple has adopted MIMO technology in the iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display.
Today’s content-centric consumer spends an average of 4–5 hours a day on Wi-Fi1. With 650 Mbps Wi-Fi data throughput and 50 percent better coexistence performance with Bluetooth, consumers can download content two times faster, stream videos with less buffering and connect to multiple Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices concurrently (e.g. listen to music while playing a game) without interference issues.
According to Broadcom, the new chips are already in production and will begin shipping in smartphones during the third quarter of 2014, which means the timing could possibly be right for inclusion in the iPhone 6.
According to Broadcom, its BCM4358 chip includes improved location accuracy that’s accurate “down to one meter” for better indoor location-based services, which aligns with Apple’s own indoor mapping aspirations. It’s also the first chip that enables Angle-of-Arrival direction finding technology, another feature Apple could make use of. Rumors have suggested Apple is working on indoor mapping features for a future iOS 8 update.
It isn’t known if Apple’s iPhone 6 will use this specific chip, but Broadcom is one of Apple’s partners, supplying chips for both its desktop and mobile devices. Apple uses Broadcom chips in its line of Macs that support 802.11ac, including the MacBook Air, Retina MacBook Pro, and iMac.
Rumors have suggested that the iPhone 6 will likely support 802.11ac, which has been included in Apple’s Macs since 2013. 802.11ac, or “Gigabit” Wi-Fi is designed to offer speeds up to three times as fast as existing 802.11n wireless networks.
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Mobee Debuts Discreet ‘Magic Hub’ for iMac/Apple Display With 4 USB 3.0 Ports [Mac Blog]
Mobee, a company that makes a range of chargers for Apple’s peripherals, today unveiled its new Magic Hub at Berlin’s IFA trade show. The Magic Hub is designed to attach to the back of an iMac or Apple Thunderbolt Display, housing four separate USB 3.0 hubs.
The Magic Hub, which matches the finish of Apple’s own products, does not require an external wall adapter because it gets its power from the main power cord of the iMac or Apple Display. It’s also able to recharge devices through USB when the iMac or display is powered off.
The Magic Hub features:
– 4 Ports USB 3.0 Hub.
– 2.1 Amps power output on each USB port.
– Directly powered by the Apple iMac or Apple monitor, doesn’t require any additional wall adaptor.
– Remains powered while your Apple iMac or Apple monitor is turned off.
– Matches perfectly with the design and finish of Apple products.
– Doesn’t restrict the swivel of your Apple display.
The Magic Hub will retail for €50, which is just over $65. The product is expected to ship in October, and should be listed for pre-order on the Mobee website shortly.
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Jony Ive On iWatch: Switzerland is in Trouble
Ahead of Apple’s September 9 event, in which the company is expected to finally show off the much-rumored iWatch, an Apple designer told the New York Times (via 9to5Mac), in a larger piece about fashion and technology, that Jony Ive is bragging that the iWatch could endanger traditional watchmakers.
According to a designer who works at Apple, Jonathan Ive, Apple’s design chief, in bragging about how cool he thought the iWatch was shaping up to be, gleefully said Switzerland is in trouble — though he chose a much bolder term for “trouble” to express how he thought the watchmaking nation might be in a tough predicament when Apple’s watch comes out.
While part leaks for the device have been nonexistent and solid information about the device’s capabilities have been hard to come by, rumors have indicated the wearable may have NFC capabilities, tight integration with iOS 8, features related to health and fitness and that it would serve as an accessory device to the iPhone.
Rumors have suggested the iWatch will be introduced at Apple’s September 9 event and will likely launch in early 2015.
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OnePlus compares the OnePlus One v Samsung Galaxy Note 4, offers a device and 100 invites to win
Today, the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 was finally announced after months of speculation and it is clear that it is still the undisputed king of phablet devices. Direct competitor, OnePlus, naturally thinks differently and has today put up a comparison of its OnePlus One v Samsung Galaxy Note 4. Furthermore, OnePlus is offering up one 64GB OnePlus One for someone to win as well as 100 invites up for grabs.
While OnePlus is well known for its controversial and generally ineffectual marketing campaigns, this one is probably one of their better ones (though we can’t say that’s saying much). While OnePlus’ agenda is to prove that the OnePlus One is cheaper and is a more streamlined device with more support, it unfortunately also makes a comparison of everything that is inferior about their device too. After all, why would you need to mention that the OnePlus One has a slower processor than the Note 4 and lacks a S-Pen, one of the Galaxy Note family’s most celebrated features?
In the end, we see what OnePlus was trying to achieve and is a step in the right direction, but probably still needs a little fine tuning. Still, there is a device and invites to win, so hit the source link below to enter the contest if you’re interested. What do you think about OnePlus’ latest marketing stunt?
Source: Facebook via Phone Arena
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AIVAnet 