Samsung to demo three cinematic Gear VR experiences at Sundance Film Festival
To paraphrase the folks at Oculus, virtual reality could end up having an equally, if not bigger impact on films than it will on games. Samsung also seems to share similar visions for VR, as it has announced three new virtual reality experiences scheduled for this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Samsung’s new cinematic VR experiences have been developed by Felix & Paul Studios and were created using live action 3D 360 degree recording technology. Each of these short films will be shown off through Samsung’s Gear VR headset at the festival’s New Frontier exhibition from January 23rd to February 1st.
Here’s a brief summary about each of the short films, taken from the press release:
- The World Première of Herders – Mongolian pastoral herders are one of the world’s last remaining nomadic cultures. For millennia they have lived on the steppes, grazing their livestock on the grasslands. Through a series of virtual reality experiences, the viewer is invited into the reality of a nomadic family of yak herders. (7 minutes)
- Wild – The Experience – Fox Searchlight and the Fox Innovation Lab present this virtual reality experience drawing from the film Wild. Viewers enter a fully immersive media environment to join an intimate moment on the Pacific Crest Trail between a woman, Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon), and her mother, Bobbi (Laura Dern), a vision from the afterlife. (3 minutes)
- Strangers with Patrick Watson – Viewers are invited to spend an intimate moment with the musician in his Montréal studio on a winter’s day. (5 minutes)
Virtual reality may still in its infancy as an artistic medium, but there is plenty of potential to create new and interesting interactive experiences, through both games and film. We could certainly see more of this type of experience in the future, as VR continues to grow.
As part of this year’s exhibition, taking place from January 23 – February 1, attendees will find themselves immersed in the three cinematic virtual reality experiences created by Felix & Paul Studios, using Samsung’s Gear VR technology:
· The World Première of Herders – Mongolian pastoral herders are one of the world’s last remaining nomadic cultures. For millennia they have lived on the steppes, grazing their livestock on the grasslands. Through a series of virtual reality experiences, the viewer is invited into the reality of a nomadic family of yak herders. (7 minutes)
· Wild – The Experience – Fox Searchlight and the Fox Innovation Lab present this virtual reality experience drawing from the film Wild. Viewers enter a fully immersive media environment to join an intimate moment on the Pacific Crest Trail between a woman, Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon), and her mother, Bobbi (Laura Dern), a vision from the afterlife. (3 minutes)
· Strangers with Patrick Watson – Viewers are invited to spend an intimate moment with the musician in his Montréal studio on a winter’s day. (5 minutes)
Felix & Paul Studios is currently focused on the development of original narrative and non-narrative virtual reality experiences in collaboration with a range of leaders in the entertainment and virtual reality industries. The program will be available to experience at New Frontier, located on the top two floors of the historic Claim Jumper, at 573 Main Street in Park City. Admission to all New Frontier installations is free.
Winklevoss twins want to make Bitcoin legit with US-based exchange
One of the biggest draws of using Bitcoin as a method of exchange is the lack of any form of regulation. Unfortunately, that’s left the cryptocurrency with a reputation problem, which is why countries like India, China and Russia are trying to shut it down. The Winklevoss Twins, however, feel that embracing the warm hand of government regulations may be enough to take Bitcoin into the mainstream. That’s why the pair are about to launch Gemini, a US-based Bitcoin exchange that, crucially, has the backing of both a New York-based bank and is likely to get the blessing of Governmental types, too.
The Winklevosses have been building a team of engineers and compliance experts over the last year, pulled from various successful hedge funds and other existing financial institutions. In an attempt to ensure legitimacy for Gemini, the outfit has also managed to team up with a proper, albeit unnamed, New York bank. In addition to the obvious promotional gains, the partnership means that your money won’t leave the country and is also eligible for federal deposit insurance – so users can trust their cash is safe. Gemini won’t launch until Ben Lawsky, the figure in charge of NYC’s financial services market, gives his blessing, but users can sign up from today to register their interest.
For the twins, however, a lot of this is personal, since they invested a reported $11 million into the currency back in 2012. By the end of 2013, the stake would have been worth significantly more, but Bitcoin’s value has fallen from as much as $1,200 at that time down to $226 today. By bringing the digital money out from the wilderness, it’s easy to assume that they hope to see the value begin to climb once again. The pair has flip-flopped on the subject of regulations before, however, claiming to be for them in 2013, before testifying that the “existing federal regulations are sufficient” at a hearing in 2014. Funny how things change, eh?
[Image Credit: Craig Ruttle / AP]
Filed under: Internet
Via: TNW
Source: Gemini, Gemini Blog
No smartwatch from HTC at Mobile World Congress, but there will be a fitness tracker
It has been rumored that HTC will unveil a smartwatch at Mobile Work Congress in early March, but Forbes is reporting that’s a no go. If you remember, HTC announced their partnership with Under Armour at CES for fitness bands that would be compatible with UA Record. Since that announcement was made, it’s more than likely they would show a product out of that partnership rather than an Android Wear smartwatch.
HTC could still show an Android Wear smartwatch, but it’s unlikely at this point. You can expect a heavy does of Under Armour marketing for both this new fitness band as well as with the new One (M9). I would imagine new UA Record software will be present on the phone as well.
Let’s hope that HTC doesn’t make this band only compatible with HTC phones because that would be a major mistake.
source: Forbes
Come comment on this article: No smartwatch from HTC at Mobile World Congress, but there will be a fitness tracker
AnTuTu reports most popular smartphones of 2014
AnTuTu, one of the most trusted and stable benchmarking app recently released a report on the top most popular smartphones of 2014. What can be a better way to bid adieu to 2014 than knowing how smartphones performed against each other? We got to see some new names in this year and though being new, they too didn’t fail to amaze.
So, we will kick off with how smartphones are ranked globally first. Xiaomi, currently in the lead, snatched the global market share by 16.90% with its Mi4. Last to last year that is in 2013, Xiaomi was in second place and so, indeed it has progressed since then. Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy S5 being the second and third in the list also got a market share of 15.69% and 15.55% respectively. Not bad Samsung. Some notable runner ups were the Asus Zenfone 5, Meizu MX4 and OnePlus One.
Comparing 2013 with 2014, we see that only Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and Google Nexus 5 are the ones which really progressed. On taking a deeper look at the smartphone rankings country-wise, it was the newest OnePlus One that has managed to capture global interest more than Xiaomi. Xiaomi’s large global market share is mostly because of its popularity in Mainland China. It also stands to prove that China is growing to become a big smartphone market.
Keeping these statistics in mind, I noticed a new trend. That is the rise of Chinese OEMs. Definitely, if we group all the Chinese firms together, they will form a large market share. Also, Samsung held the largest global market share with four of its devices in the top 10. And where the hell are you? Sony? LG? HTC? I don’t see them anywhere on the global list. They sure need to pump out some serious efforts or else this year will also go in vain.
Source: AnTuTu
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Tetris-Like Puzzle Game ‘Shades’ Named Apple’s Free App of the Week [iOS Blog]
The “super simple, surprisingly challenging” puzzle game Shades, by developer UOVO, has been named by Apple as this week’s App of the Week. Launched last year, and also featured in the App Store’s “Best New Games” section, the game usually costs $1.99 to download.
The game takes inspiration from Tetris, with falling blocks of varying color hues – instead of shapes – needing to be slotted into the correct position by the player. Matching hues make darker colors, resulting in chain moves that can knock out entire rows of blocks.
A mesmerizing, calming, zen-like experience that quickly evolves into a devilishly challenging puzzler. Meditation + Panic. It’s a fantastic combo.
A very simple game that will challenge you to think very fast.
“Surprisingly difficult!” ~ The guys who made it.
Features:
– Simple rules
– Intuitive gameplay
– Difficult to master
– 3 modes of play. Easy. Medium. Hard.
– Beautiful, colorful, minimalist design.
– Sound design by ONBC
The longer players spend in the game and the better they become, the quicker the game evolves into a frantic rush to slot blocks into the correct position as they fall faster and faster.
The game currently sits at a solid 4.5 star rating in the App Store, with one review calling it “Tetris meets 2048” and many others praising its addictiveness alongside the challenging nature the game slowly builds up to. Shades: A Simple Puzzle Game can be downloaded for free for the next week from the App Store. [Direct Link]
Accessory of the Day: Jarv NMotion Bluetooth headphones, $29.99
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Also worth checking out:
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Samsung + Blackberry: pros and cons
The persistent rumors about the possibility of Samsung buying BlackBerry have become a permanent fixture in the tech press over the last couple of years. Long before BlackBerry officially went up for sale in 2013, there was speculation about possible suitors. It’s only natural that talk turned to the largest, cash-rich, smartphone manufacturer on the scene in Samsung. But companies like Microsoft, Dell, and IBM were also mentioned.
As it turned out no-one was interested. There was to be no tech giant in white armor to ride to the rescue. In September 2013, BlackBerry announced losses around $1 billion and plans to cut its workforce by 40 percent. At this low point, shareholder Fairfax, with 10 percent of the company, announced plans to acquire the rest for $4.7 billion. The deal later fell through when Fairfax couldn’t raise the cash.
Is Samsung interested?
Back in the summer of 2012 Samsung denied it was interested in acquiring BlackBerry (still RIM at the time) or licensing its new BlackBerry 10 platform. What has changed since then?
If you believe Samsung’s mobile CEO, J.K. Shin, the company still isn’t interested. He was quoted by the Wall Street Journal on Monday.
“We want to work with BlackBerry and develop this partnership, not acquire the company.”
It’s worth mentioning that BlackBerry’s share price soars on the back of rumors like this, so even if Samsung was interested it wouldn’t want that to be public knowledge. Though you do have to wonder about the timing. Samsung could have swooped just over a year ago and acquired the company far more cheaply than the $7 to $8 billion price that’s being touted now.
To complicate things, Canada’s Financial Post reported this week that, despite the public rebuttals of both Samsung and BlackBerry, the Korean company is still very much interested in acquiring BB.
Samsung’s Knox secure environment is no match for BlackBerry’s products
What’s in it for Samsung?
There are two credible reasons that Samsung might want to acquire or partner more closely with BlackBerry.
- Patents – BlackBerry has 44,000 patents covering things like wireless communications and encryption technologies, which could obviously be useful for Samsung.
- Enterprise – The foundations of the BlackBerry brand are built on enterprise customers. It’s a market we know that Samsung is interested in.
If the patent portfolio was enough motivation on its own, then you get the feeling Samsung would have looked to do the deal when the patent war was still at its height. It feels as though the litigation is slowing down, but there’s still little doubt that BlackBerry’s patents would be valuable to Samsung.
Samsung’s attempts to break into the enterprise with Knox have not been wildly successful. The perception of Android and Samsung devices in terms of security is not especially good. Samsung’s biggest competitor, Apple, has been making real inroads into the enterprise market and threatening to steal away BlackBerry’s share. Samsung could definitely use some of BlackBerry’s know-how and reputation in the enterprise, and it has a vested interest in halting Apple’s progress.
What about BlackBerry?
The prospect is much more straightforward for BlackBerry. Shareholders might be glad to take above market price right now if they don’t have faith in a comeback. Even if BlackBerry can turn things around, it would seem like a smart idea to align itself with the biggest smartphone player around. If software and services is truly the future of BlackBerry then a close partnership with Samsung could really help it back into the game.
In fact this is already happening. A partnership was announced in November. It brings BlackBerry’s BES12 enterprise mobility management software and Samsung’s Knox for Android together. There’s no way BlackBerry is going to be able to build back a significant share of the market with hardware, so it has to get its software onto more devices.
BlackBerry CEO, John Chen, said of the deal “We’re not about phones this time – we’re about software.”
CEO John Chen managed to stabilize BlackBerry, but is he considering an exit?
Why buy the cow?
One other reason we’ve seen offered that Samsung might want BlackBerry is the software. It would be fair to say that software development is seen as a weak spot for Samsung and a strength for BlackBerry. If Samsung wanted help developing a new operating system or building on Tizen it could do worse than look to BlackBerry. There’s also the potential of QNX for embedded systems as the Internet of Things gathers pace.
Ultimately, the idea that Samsung would sink a large sum of cash into acquiring BlackBerry right now seems fanciful. Samsung can get all the potential benefits by working on some kind of partnership deal instead. With all the talk about declining profits for Samsung, the last thing it needs is to acquire a company that’s still losing money.
For BlackBerry’s part an acquisition also seems unlikely. It looks as though the company may be over the worst. The restructuring could bear fruit given time. Shareholders may be prepared to give Chen a fair crack of the whip. The company has enough going for it that we wouldn’t bet against a healthy software-driven revenue within a couple of years.
Mutually beneficial
What we can agree on is that a partnership would be mutually beneficial, and that’s no doubt why it’s already happening. Samsung gets security software and a touch of BlackBerry’s enterprise reputation. BlackBerry gets its software onto loads of Android devices and provides support for the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. It’s an obvious win-win.
Could the partnership go further? BlackBerry services underpinning Samsung’s hardware. A merging of software that would see BlackBerry apps pre-installed on Samsung devices? A joint smartphone project for a Samsung-built BlackBerry phone? Maybe, maybe not. Let’s give it some time. The two rivals are still getting used to working together.
BBM remains one of BlackBerry’s best assets
Turning things around
In the middle of 2008 RIM was worth $77 billion based on the share price. It continued to claim a dominant market share into 2010. A lethargic reaction to its changing fortunes was what delivered the killer blow, but the decline has been slow and it hasn’t proven fatal. The hardware heights are gone, but BlackBerry could recover in a new form.
Samsung is fresh onto the downward slide from its peak. Talk of the company being in trouble still feels overblown right now, but Samsung has a tough year ahead. There are plenty of reasons that a similarly sharp decline is unlikely for the South Korean conglomerate, not least diversification, but there’s a lesson for everyone in what happened to BlackBerry.
It would be interesting if a partnership between the two, once fierce rivals, is what turns both their fortunes around.
Three UK set to purchase O2 network for £10 billion
Reports had been circulating in the past few days that Three UK was in the processes of making a bid to purchase rival network O2 from Telefonica. Today, Three UK’s parent company, Hutchison Whampoa Limited, has confirmed that is has entered into exclusive negotiations to purchase the network.
The deal is set to cost a total of £10.25 billion, £9.25 billion which would be paid at closing and a further £1 billion to be paid after the deal has completed. Of course, this potential agreement still has to pass through corporate and regulatory approvals, so the negotiations may not necessarily end up in a final deal.
Three UK, announced that it has entered into exclusive negotiations with Telefónica, S.A. over a period of several weeks for the potential acquisition of Telefónica, S.A.’s UK subsidiary, O2 UK, for an indicative price in cash of £9.25 billion which would be paid at closing, and deferred upside interest sharing payments of up to a further £1 billion in the aggregate payable after the cumulative cash flow of the combined businesses of Hutchison 3G UK Limited and O2 UK has reached an agreed threshold.
O2, Vodafone, EE, and Three make up the UK’s dominant players in the mobile market, so the purchase of O2 would go a long way to turning Hutchison Whampoa into a controlling market player. The combined carrier’s customer based would grow from Three’s 7.5 million customers to 31.5 million with the addition of O2, placing it ahead of both EE and Vodafone. As this acquisition would reduce the UK’s major operators from four to three, it is likely to attract the attention of competition regulators in both the UK and EU.
Telefonica appears to have been trying to sell off O2 for a little while. A deal with British Telecom fell through late last year and Sky was also reportedly interested in the company. BT now looks to be interested in acquiring EE instead, which is the leading 4G network provider in the UK.
If this purchase goes through, the UK mobile market will be looking at a major carrier shake-up.
Dungeoneers- fantasy treasure hunting and monster fighting from your Windows Phone
If you like Dungeons and Dragons styled games, the Windows Phone game Dungeoneers might be something of interest.
The game is a dungeon exploration game where you create a party of four adventurers from a handful of unique classes . Dungeoneers has tons of monsters to defeat, plenty of gold to fill your pouches and a few treasure chests to plunder. The game is available for low-memory devices and while I enjoyed playing Dungeoneers, it may take you a little time to get used to the interface and dark graphics.
HTC One M7 gets an unofficial Lollipop ROM
LlabTooFeR, a recognized contributer at XDA has recently developed a new custom ROM based off of Lollipop with Sense 6.0 named MaximusHD. The dev is widely known for making mods, tweaks and software developments especially for HTC devices. This time around it was HTC One M7’s turn to get the lollipop flavour.
MaximusHD has a nice overall outlook and almost identical resemblance to the stock HTC’s Lollipop update. It includes all the stock features as well as some “extra features”. Some notable ones being the ability to remove unneeded apps, ability to install additional mods and improved audio/video capabilities. The ROM is also pre-rooted so that you can start restoring your app backups almost instantly. It comes with enhanced battery management at the core based on Google’s Project ‘Volta’ so that you won’t need to be power-conscious all the time.
Updated Kernel and OEM apps are also some of the highlights. Although it has been announced that the M7 will be getting an official lollipop update from HTC, but for those who just can’t wait, here you go. For further info on how to install this ROM please be sure to check out the XDA thread which states all the required steps and prerequisites in a very crystal clear way.
As always, be sure to back everything up including your ROM before you start messing around with your phone just so if anything goes wrong, you can always roll back to stock.
Source: LlabTooFeR
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