Cortana for Android beta set to launch in July
Microsoft earlier announced that its digital assistant, Cortana, would be coming to Android and iOS platforms. Now, the Redmond-based company has revealed a timeline for when the Cortana beta for Android will begin.
In July, Microsoft will launch the Cortana digital assistant beta for Android. But, we’re not exactly sure when in July, though we’re leaning towards the day when the company officially launches its Windows 10 operating system on July 29.
Keep in mind that the digital assistant won’t have nearly as many features as it does on Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 10. Aside from that, and similar to the Hound digital assistant, probably the most impressive thing about Cortana is being able to talk to the digital assistant in natural language over weird technical commands. Microsoft says:
“On your Android phone you can ask Cortana to remind you to walk the dog at 8pm in the evening, and then when you’re watching a movie your Xbox will interrupt playback to let you know it’s time to take the dog out.”
Microsoft is working hard to focus on Windows 10 as a service, and the quote above demonstrates that its trying to accomplish that across all of its services, even on products it doesn’t own, such as Android and iOS.
Are you trying out the Cortana beta come July? I know I am. Sound off in the comments!
source: Microsoft
Come comment on this article: Cortana for Android beta set to launch in July
Square Enix announces Lara Croft GO, launching later this year
Square Enix announced adventure puzzler Lara Croft GO today at E3 2015. Mobile seems to have taken the stage at E3 this year, and Lara Croft GO seems to be just as impressive as all the other titles we’ve seen come to fruition.
Interestingly enough, Lara Croft GO takes on a similar naming convention as Square Enix’s hit game, Hitman GO, which launched last year around this time.
We haven’t seen much gameplay just yet, but graphics seem to be impressive, which has been evident in most mobile titles announced at E3 this time around.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Square Enix hasn’t revealed any exact details about availability and pricing yet, but you can probably expect to shell out a couple bucks. As for a launch date, you can expect to see this turn-based puzzler later this year.
Be sure to check out the rest of our E3 2015 content here.
source: Square Enix
Come comment on this article: Square Enix announces Lara Croft GO, launching later this year
Apple Watch Now Available for Purchase in Apple Retail Stores in Australia
We reported this morning that Apple Watch shipments had begun arriving at Apple Stores in the United States ahead of the imminent launch of in-store availability, and it now appears that in-stores sales of the Apple Watch will indeed begin tomorrow, on June 17.
It’s now after 10:00 a.m. on June 17 in some parts of Australia, and Apple Stores in the country have begun offering in-store Apple Watch reservations and pickups. In the Australian online Apple Store, when selecting a watch, there’s now an option that says “Interested in buying in-store?” with a link that allows buyers to check reservation availability.
After choosing to select a reservation, there’s a drop down menu that shows nearby Apple Stores, letting users see whether a particular Apple Watch is in stock. If a watch is in stock, the site displays a green checkmark and the next available reservation time. Making a reservation requires a phone number to be entered, allowing Apple to text a unique registration code. After receiving a code, buyers have 30 minutes to complete a reservation.
Apple Watches that are not in stock are listed as unavailable for in-store pick-up, with Apple providing instructions to check stock levels again at 8:00 a.m. each morning, when inventory for the day is updated.
With the Apple Watch now available in-store in Australia, it’s likely that all first wave launch countries will be seeing in-store sales starting as June 17 rolls around in each location. The reservation process will likely be the same as the process that’s currently available in Australia, so potential Apple Watch buyers in the United States should check stock levels right at 8:00 a.m. local time.
Stock levels of each watch remain unclear, but in Australia, many stores appear to have a mix of Sport and Stainless Steel Apple Watches available. Many of the more limited Apple Watches, including those in Space Gray and Space Black, are not currently available, nor are those with limited bands like the Modern Buckle and the Link Bracelet. It’s likely that stock levels in the United States will be similar.
(Thanks, Ian!)
CloudPlayer can play your music straight from Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive
Still on the search for the perfect cloud music streaming service? The new DoubleTwist app CloudPlayer may be the right one for many of you. At least I know I fell in love with it right away, as it’s not really a cloud service in and of itself. It harnesses the power of other cloud storage services like Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive to bring one of the most flexible and full-featured music apps around.
As its name entails, CloudPlayer allows you to play music straight from the cloud. It just needs to access one or more of the services mentioned above and scan your library. I downloaded it and it’s crazy easy. I was literally up and running in like a minute, with all my music ready to play.
The feature to sync with your cloud storage service definitely closes the deal, but CloudPlayer is not going to stop surprising us there. I meant it when I said this is one of the most flexible and full-featured music apps out there. CloudPlayer supports both Chromecast and AirPlay. It can also play your high-quality tunes, as it is compatible with FLAC and ALAC. It’s all DRM-free and DropBox users can grant music library access to one family member. You can even download the cache for your music and play it offline!
I can’t think of a music application that doesn’t fall behind when compared to CloudPlayer… at least in terms of cloud features and wireless support. In fact, I will start using it over Google Play Music. I am a huge Google Drive fan and pretty much my whole PC is synced to it. There’s really no need to upload my music to both Google Play Music and Google Drive. In fact, I never knew why Google needs to keep them separated.
If you are like me, there’s no need to worry anymore. CloudPlayer is one hell of an app!
So the service is great, but what about the app?
I have not been using this app for an extended period of time, so I can’t give you an elaborated opinion just yet. What I can tell you is that I have encountered no issues so far. It is also super easy to navigate and understand. Simply slide your menu out from the left and all your categories will be there. From here you can also opt to turn off online access to save data, after which only your local and downloaded songs will show up.
There’s also a search button to find your music and albums are displayed with well-sized icons. It manages to look good and stay simple. That’s all an app needs in order to be a winner by my book.
Access the settings and you can sync/scan your cloud services, choose album art settings, reset the app and more.
Price?!
To good to be true? Well, it would be if the app was completely free… but it’s not. You can download it and test its premium features for 7 days, but access will be limited after that trial period. DoubleTwist is charging $4.99 to unlock premium features like cloud streaming, an awesome equalizer and Chromecast/Airplay support. Then again, these are really the features that make CloudPlayer stand out, so if you are signing up you should pay up.
It’s definitely no cheap application, but I can’t think of a better way to spend $4.99 right now. Are you guys as excited about CloudPlayer as me? Hit the comments and let us know how you feel about it!
Vessel brings its YouTube-like subscription service to Android
Vessel launched as a YouTube alternative with exclusive early access to ad-free content for $3 a month. Beginning today, it’s available for Android in beta form. The service launched in March for iOS with videos from A&E, Rheet & Link, Unbox Therapy, Warner Music Group and others. While most of the content is available for free, subscribers get early access to select videos and an ad-free experience. To help it become a destination for impatient video fans, the company has been attempting to lure YouTube stars away from the Google-owned video site. Now it just needs to lure eyeballs away.
Filed under: Handhelds, Internet, Mobile
Source: Vessel
‘Deus Ex: Mankind Divided’ has something new: female combatants
Among the upgraded abilities, new weapons and winding metal passageways in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, there’s one important, yet subtle, change to the series: women in combat roles. There were of course women in the previous game, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, but they were largely removed from battles, producer Olivier Proulx tells Engadget at E3.
“They had some social functions in the game world, but actually going into stealth and playing against them in combat, you didn’t see that,” he says. “It was just guys all the way through.”
Mankind Divided changes this. Women in Human Revolution had a strictly “social” role, Proulx explains. When Mankind Divided launches in early 2016, women will be on the front lines.
It was really important to have females in the Deus Ex world.
“Basically, now when you explore the environments it’s not only, like, males everywhere,” Proulx says. “We have females as well, female characters that you can interact with. In a Deus Ex game, you don’t have to kill everyone — so we call them ‘combatants’ but we could say they’re just NPCs in the environment. We have a much more — sort of mix of different characters. For us, it was really important to have females in our world, in the Deus Ex world.”
Mankind Divided isn’t alone in emphasizing the role of women in games: Minecraft recently revealed its first free female character, FIFA 16 will feature women players for the first time and The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment in California recently highlighted the accomplishments of women in game development. There’s a big conversation about diversity bubbling beneath the gaming industry right now and it appears the creators of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided are happy to be a part of it.
Check here for everything happening at E3 2015!
The many Amiibo collectors can look forward to not collecting
This one goes out to all the Amiibo collectors. Here’s Nintendo’s delectable and drool-making spread of upcoming, sure-to-be sold out Amiibo on display at its E3 booth. There’s really nothing more to say other than click through the gallery and gaze longingly at a figurine you’ll likely never get your hands on.This ultra-efficient robot walks just like people do
You don’t have to worry about robots rising up against humanity anytime soon — the bipedal ones, at least. When they aren’t constantly falling down, two-legged robots are running down their power supplies due to inefficient gaits and wasted motion. During a recent DARPA competition, teams from Sandia National Labs and SRI International squared off to see whose robot could walk the furthest. SRI’s robot, dubbed the “DURUS,” won out by walking 2.05 kilometers in just over two and a half hours while using just 350 watts of power. For those of us who aren’t electrical engineers, that’s a really impressive feat. In fact, the DURUS uses up to 30 times less power than the ATLAS robot employed in the DARPA challenge.
In standardized terms, the DURUS offers a cost of transport — how the rate of energy efficient in moving from point A to point B — of 1.5. It’s magnitudes higher than a human’s cost of transport of .2 or the DARPA cheetah-bot’s .5 rating but it’s a massive improvement over the ATLAS whose cost of transport is around 20. Sandia labs researchers accomplished this impressive feat by systematically improving every mechanical component’s energy efficiency — from the motors and actuators to the wiring itself. They even improved the robot’s gait to make it more fluid like a human’s, rather wobbling back and forth like a wind-up Godzilla toy. With some minor tuning, the Sandia team hopes to get the DURUS’ cost of transport under 1, which could give it a range of up to 10km using its existing 2.2 kWh lithium-polymer battery.
Filed under: Science
Via: Spectrum IEEE
Source: SRI
Titan Quest will fight its way to Android sometime this year, courtesy of DotEmu
Originally released for the PC in 2006, popular action role playing game Titan Quest found itself to be a fan favorite among the hack and slash crowd. THQ ended up releasing an expansion called Immortal Throne the next year, along with the game’s release on Steam. Fans of the original game will now be happy to hear that at E3 2015, DotEmu has just announced its plans to bring the game to Android devices sometime this year.
DotEmu is a video game company that specializes in revamping retro games and re-releasing them to modern consoles. Taking into account the company’s past work, I’d say the mobile release of Titan Quest will most likely impress fans of the original.
If you’re unfamiliar with Titan Quest, you play as a warrior in Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt and throughout various regions in Asia, trying to save the world overrun by ancient mythological creatures that are terrorizing just about everywhere you look. The game features iconic beasts such as harpies, centaurs and even giant scorpions, as well as numerous gods such as Prometheus and Hades. The game is quite lengthy, and features both single and multiplayer modes.
Check out the video review below for a quick overview of the original Titan Quest game for PC.
No specific release date has been given, but we should expect the title to come to the Google Play Store sometime in late 2015.
CBS releases the Colbr app for Android ahead of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show debut
Although Stephen Colbert’s wonderful show on Comedy Central is no more, that doesn’t mean he’s going away forever. He’s decided to take over David Letterman’s spot on The Late Show, which will air with the new host for the first time on September 8th. And to give us a sneak peek at what’s to come, CBS has just released the new Colbr app for Android.
Colbr: the best way to follow Stephen Colbert without risking a restraining order.
The app aims to deliver a slew of early content to fans of the new Late Show host. According to the description in the Play Store, it features “full-color comedy videos, medium-fidelity behind-the-scenes podcasts, and several other things!” CBS is constantly adding more content to the app, and will continue to until the show’s debut.
There’s already a good amount of content available so far, which should help tide fans over until The Late Show comes back on. It should also be noted that the app is only available for folks in the United States. If you’re interested, Colbr is now available for free in the Google Play Store.
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