Xbox 360 update makes the digital transition easier
It turns out that support for bigger external hard drives isn’t all that the latest Xbox 360 preview’s packing. The surprise features aren’t huge by any means but they’re pretty self explanatory and as of now should make using the console a bit easier, regardless. Let’s dig in. First up we have a view for recent purchases followed by a password reset function, network statistics information and the ability to see your Microsoft account balance right from the system dashboard. Like I said, nothing earth-shattering on a piece-by-piece basis, but taken as a whole they offer a pretty clear explanation for why Redmond is updating the console in the first place: making it easier to go from discs to downloadable gaming. As a reminder, Microsoft’s Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb says that if you have any other feature suggestions for the almost decade-old console be sure to hit the Xbox feedback website.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Microsoft
Source: Major Nelson
By teaming up with Three, Huawei’s Honor brand goes mainstream
Chinese firm Huawei is no stranger to the UK. Unbeknownst to many, it’s an important provider of cellular infrastructure, and just a couple of weeks ago, it held its new flagship smartphone launch in London. Over the years, some of Huawei’s top handsets have been ranged by major UK carriers, but these days you’re more likely to see its name attached to low-cost, pay-as-you-go devices. Towards the end of last year, Huawei debuted its Honor smartphone brand in the UK and Europe, hoping this range of reasonably priced devices would find success in these parts. Perhaps to its detriment, Huawei went to great lengths to mask its ownership of Honor, instead introducing the brand as a new, pro-consumer smartphone manufacturer. Employing an online-only sales model, however, meant the name slid quickly into obscurity, but that changes in the UK today with Honor’s first carrier partnership since the brand launched just over six months ago.
It’s found a friend in Three, which has just added the Honor 6+ to its contract smartphone line-up. The handset is now available on contracts starting at £24 per month (with a £19 upfront payment), or for £300 on pay-as-you-go, which is the same price you’ll pay for the device on Amazon. By far the most advanced smartphone in the Honor range thus far, the 6+ has a 5.5-inch, 1080p display, 3GB of RAM, a 1.8GHz octa-core processor, and several other components that deserve a respectful nod. The key selling point, however, is undoubtedly the handset’s dual 8-megapixel cameras, which let you refocus and adjust the aperture of snaps after the fact, much like HTC’s Duo Camera feature.
The success of the device is now in the hands of consumers, but Huawei is more than entitled to celebrate a victory already. Regardless of how the 6+ performs commercially, the Honor brand name is now out there, in the public consciousness. It’s early days, of course, but with a presence in Three’s online and bricks-and-mortar stores, Honor’s gone mainstream. And that’s sure to attract a few envious stares. The direct-to-consumer, online sales model is a risky one. Not only do companies like Karbonn, Blu et al. have to compete with each other, they have to compete in the UK market where consumers traditionally visit carriers when in search of a new handset. With limited marketing, these firms also have to hope that punters effectively stumble across their websites or Amazon listings.
Honor, however, has managed to break away from this peer group. Partnering with Three on the launch of the 6+ means the network provider now shoulders the responsibility of putting the device in front of consumers, and the Honor brand as a whole can only benefit from this increased exposure. Though Huawei distances itself from the Honor name, it undoubtedly had a hand in arranging the deal with Three that other online-only smartphone sellers can only hope to replicate. The launch of the Honor 6+ with a major carrier doesn’t necessarily mean the brand is about to become a serious player in the UK, though. No question that would be the preferred outcome, but take a look at Alcatel. Plenty of its devices are and have been ranged by major UK carriers, but say that name in public, and we guarantee you’ll be met by more than a few blank stares.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Source: Three
3 atom thick material breakthrough could lead to ultra-thin processors
Researchers from Cornell University have announced a breakthrough in transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) production that could lead to much thinner transistors, the building block for faster, smaller and more power efficient processors.
TMDs are promising materials for future semi-conductors, solar cell and light detector technologies as they are incredibly thin. This is especially important as integrated circuit and processor producers look to push the boundaries of silicon below the 10nm processes. New materials will be needed if manufacturers wish to extend Moore’s Law. This technology may sound familiar to graphene, and both can be used to produce very thin film layers for electronics. Highly conductive TMD films can be produced which measure just three atoms thick, but the issue is that they are easy to break and suffer from high failure rates.
“Our work pushes TMDs to the technologically relevant scale, showing the promise of making devices on that scale,”… “In principle there is no barrier toward [commercial viability].” – Saien Xie, paper author
This is where the breakthrough comes in, as researchers from Cornell have managed to produce a new industrial technique known as “metal organic chemical vapor deposition (or MOCVD). The technique mixes iethylsulfide and a metal hexacarbonyl compound atop a silicon wafer and then bakes them at 550 degrees for 26 hours in hydrogen gas. This method has been tested on a batch of 200 wafers and only two of them were faulty, which is a 99 percent success rate and a promising sign for this process.
However, a larger sample size is needed before the technique can be confirmed as consistent and the temperature of production is too high for other components at the moment. There’s still more research to be done and this technology is still a number of years away from commercial viability, but it’s very promising nonetheless. The video below is quite insightful if you want to know more about TMDs.
Samsung and Marvel present the “Battle for the Avengers Tower” in 360-degree video on YouTube for Android
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YouTube‘s 360-degree viewing experience on Android is pretty cool, but do you know what’s cooler? A 360-degree video on YouTube for Android featuring everybody’s favourite superheroes, the Avengers. Released by Samsung and Marvel today, the “Battle for the Avengers Tower” video puts you in the middle of a battle with the Avengers bashing heads all round you, and you’ll be able to take advantage of the 360-degree feature to watch whatever part of the battle takes your fancy. Check it out below, or hit this link here to open it on your Android device:
In case you were wondering, Samsung has quite a few products featuring in the new Marvel movie, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, so it’s natural the two would do some kind of collaborative marketing, and it’s probably going to end up paying off for Samsung, as it all too often does. Samsung and Marvel even have a separate set of ads which features a whole number of celebrities including soccer superstar, Lionel Messi, assuming the role of everyday Avengers:
Always make good use of your opportunities, they say. Let’s see what else this partnership comes up with in the coming weeks.
What do you think about Samsung and Marvel’s marketing together so far? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: YouTube
The post Samsung and Marvel present the “Battle for the Avengers Tower” in 360-degree video on YouTube for Android appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Sony kills its head-mounted video display to go all-in on VR
For those with long-ish memories, Sony’s HMZ series of head-mounted displays were a very rudimentary way to catch movies on a “750-inch screen.” Of course, strapping one to your face wasn’t a very social way to spend an evening, so you can understand that the device’s appeal was a bit limited. So limited, in fact, that the company is now sending the project down the Shinano river on a longboat piled high with firewood. According to Japanese news outfit AV Watch, Sony bosses have decided to devote all of its resources to improving Morpheus, the PlayStation-branded virtual reality headset, as well as the company’s take on Google Glass.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, Wearables, HD, Sony
Source: AV Watch
Did you say free? Get the Fleksy keyboard for free this week, now with GIF keyboard
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There are a long list of keyboards out there on the Play Store, and each of them offer their own quirks and neat features. Fleksy, one of the more popular keyboards around, has just added a new feature to its line-up and it says it’s the first of its kind. That feature is a GIF keyboard, which will allow you to find and send GIFs all from within the keyboard. I know quite a few people who will love this new feature, and to make it even sweeter, you can get the Fleksy keyboard for free this week. If you redeem it this week, looks like you’ll be able to keep use of the paid version, which normally costs $2.48, from now on.
All you need to do is download the Free version (link is below), and from there you’ll be able to activate the full version. Fleksy has had a pretty impressive run this past year, now boasting support for 42 languages, multiple layouts and themes as well to customize it for your personal use. Sound like a pretty good deal? Only one way to find out.
What do you think about Fleksy? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: OzBargain
The post Did you say free? Get the Fleksy keyboard for free this week, now with GIF keyboard appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Microsoft bought ‘Minecraft’ because it’s perfect for HoloLens
Microsoft surprised many when it announced it had acquired Mojang, maker of the hit game Minecraft for $2.5 billion. What could a company specializing in operating systems and business software possibly want with a sandbox game primarily enjoyed by children? The game’s creator, Markus “Notch” Persson, certainly had something to do with it, but Microsoft had something else in its arsenal that was also perfectly suited: HoloLens.
“Let’s have a game that, in fact, will fundamentally help us change new categories,” Nadella told the New York Times in an interview. “HoloLens was very much in the works then, and we knew it.” Already, we’ve had a taste of what Microsoft might be planning with the game. In our brief time with HoloLens, we played Holobuilder, a game inspired by Minecraft that let us build a virtual world in the demonstration room and blow a (virtual) hole in the wall. During HoloLens’ surprise January unveiling, Microsoft included Minecraft in its demonstration video, hinting that the game would be the perfect showcase for the capabilities of its upcoming headset.
Obviously, Microsoft isn’t new to gaming, but with rivals moving into different categories like virtual reality, the company has taken a different approach with HoloLens. Headsets like the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Samsung Gear VR work by tricking your eyes, but Microsoft’s hoping that holograms, or more specifically augmented reality, will wow consumers by overlaying digital objects on a real world canvas. It’s already received a lot of publicity, but Nadella knows that he has his work cut out: “I don’t want to overhype it like Google Glass and say this is the next,” he said. “I want us to be deliberate about what it is.”
Filed under: Gaming, HD, Microsoft
Source: New York Times
Google Nexus 10 is receiving Android 5.1.1 via OTA update
We only just announced that Google has made available the Android 5.1.1 Lollipop factory images for you to flash to your 2012 or 2013 Nexus 7 tablet and for your Nexus 10 Android tablet, but some Nexus 10 users are already receiving the OTA update on their devices.
The OTA, or Over The Air, update is a small one, with users reporting just 13.9 MB to download.
The update, which should bring your device to build# LMY47V, is slowly rolling out for all users, but our Nexus 10 has not seen it yet, at least at the time of writing. We are still awaiting the full changelog of updates in Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, for now we are expecting little more than performance and stability improvements, and a smattering of bug squashes, which is exactly what the update page captured below states.
Google’s Nexus 10 was a welcome tablet in its time, and still holds its own for day to day tasks. It is almost scary to think that it is a nearly three year old Android tablet, we hope yours has served you well, and with this update, we hope it continues to have a place in your life.
This OTA marks the Nexus 10 as one of the first Nexus devices to receive Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. With the other factory images available, we expect to see the update hit other Nexus devices soon. However, with some still awaiting the Android 5.1 release, like all the Nexus 9 owners out there, I wouldn’t advise mashing on the Check for Update button just yet.
Any Nexus 10 owners out there seeing the Android 5.1.1 Lollipop update already?
Russia launches its third ‘world’s quietest’ submarine
Russian defense contractor Admiralty Shipyards launched the latest of its ultra-modern Varshavyanka-class diesel-electric submarines earlier this week. Dubbed the Krasnodar, this sub is the third of six its class. These vessels are primarily designed to hunt surface ships and other subs in littoral waters. They can’t dive as deep or stay submerged as long as either modern nuclear subs or the Kilo-class submarines they’re meant to replace. However, the Varshavyankas are armed to the gills with 18 torpedoes and eight surface-to-air Club missiles, according to reports from Russia Today. What’s more, when running silent, the Krasnodar and its ilk are nearly impossible to detect acoustically, hence their NATO callsign “Black Hole.” The first two Varshavyanka-class submarines, the Novorossiysk and the Rostov-on-Don, are currently undergoing deep-water testing and are expected to begin service to the Black Sea Fleet by the end of the year. There are currently no public estimates as to when the Krasnodar will join them.
[Image credit: Admiralty Shipyards]
Filed under: Transportation
Via: Business Insider, The National Interest
Source: Admiralty Shipyards
Grooveshark’s illegal music streaming service is extinct
Death’s icy grip hit more than just Secret this week; Grooveshark is shutting down too. Last year, judges found the music streaming service guilty of mass copyright infringement for hosting illegal uploads of songs from Jay-Z, Madonna and others. As Recode notes, however, something a little more recent was the reason behind the actual closure. Escape Media (Grooveshark’s owner) had a few options in court with Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music Group last week: either pay a possible maximum of $736 million in fines or accept a settlement with record labels to hand over its website, apps and patents.
Should Grooveshark violate this settlement, it’ll owe the labels $75 million. As a mea culpa Grooveshark took to its website and suggested using Deezer, Google Play or Spotify among others in its stead. Curiously absent? Tidal. Regardless, it offers the following:
If you love music and respect the artists, songwriters and everyone else ho makes great music possible, use a licensed service that compensates artists and other rights holders.
In case you were wondering, yes, this means Broadcasts isn’t going to happen.
[Image credit: Getty Images]
Filed under: Home Entertainment
Via: Recode
Source: Grooveshark
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