Apple Now Inviting Apple Watch Customers to ‘Just Walk In’ for Try-Ons [iOS Blog]
Apple today shifted its messaging concerning Apple Watch try-on appointments, which were required in the early days following the wearable’s launch to be able to interact with and size the various models of the Watch. The messaging of try-on appointments has now largely vanished from the Apple Watch’s online storefront, with a notification encouraging customers to visit their local Apple Watch store for workshops on the device or “just walk in to try Apple Watch on.”
In reality, walk-in customers have generally been able to arrange immediate try-on sessions for some time now as the crowds have significantly lessened following the initial surge. With Apple gearing up to begin in-store sales of the Apple Watch in just a few weeks, however, the company is already changing its customer guidance to omit the recommendation of making an appointment.
Even though the messaging is pivoting away from scheduled appointments, it should be noted that retail stores are still accepting try-on appointments for customers wanting to ensure their time with the Apple Watch. Try-on sessions may become a bit busier once in-store sales begin, so at that point appointments may become more advisable.
Apple Store No Longer Sells iPhone With 2-Year Contract on AT&T
Apple overnight removed the option to purchase a new iPhone on a two-year contract with AT&T on the Apple Online Store, eliminating the ability for customers to purchase an iPhone for a subsidized price of $199 or $299 through the carrier. Apple now sells iPhones on AT&T exclusively through the AT&T Next carrier financing program, while two-year contracts remain available through Verizon and Sprint.
AT&T Next allows a customer to purchase a new iPhone for $0 down and make equal payments for 12, 18 or 24 months until the full price of the smartphone has been paid, at which point the device can be traded in for a new iPhone. The full price breakdown for each iPhone model on AT&T Next, available through both the Apple Online Store and Apple Retail Store, is listed below.
iPhone 6
– 16GB: From $21.64/month
– 64GB: From $24.97/month
– 128GB: From $28.30/month
iPhone 6 Plus
– 16GB: From $24.97/month
– 64GB: From $28.30/month
– 128GB: From $31.64/month
The shift away from two-year contracts does not appear to be specific to Apple or iPhone, but rather part of a larger move by AT&T. Droid-Life reported last month that AT&T would begin moving away from two-year contracts on June 1, although the report claims that the option will remain available through AT&T’s website, company-owned retail stores and customer service.
Guess who’s (kinda) keeping ‘Rock Band 4’ from PCs
Rock Band 4 arrives on the PC-like Xbox One and PS4, so it made sense for Eurogamer to ask if the game would ever make its way onto the real thing. Unfortunately, PC gamers won’t be getting a version of their own, and it looks as if the music labels’ heavy-handed demands for anti-piracy measures are to blame. In an interview, Harmonix project director Daniel Sussman explained that the two consoles have various secure tools that make it hard for users to get at the assets inside each game. PCs, in his words, are more of an “open platform,” which would put the onus on Harmonix to protect the “licensed music” that’s featured in the title. Squint hard enough and those lines roughly translate to: we could, but labels want us to lock their music up so tight that it’d be impossible to achieve on the PC.
It’s not the only objection to the idea of launching a third version of the music game, as executives are worried that there isn’t enough of an audience to sustain a release. After all, nobody has done it before, and you know how risk-averse these types can be. Sussman did leave the door open for a PC version further down the line, saying that nothing is “unsolvable,” but given the costs of making a PC game secure enough for a picky studio head, we’re not optimistic. Oh, and if you are the head of a major music label, just remember that people can listen to all of the title’s tracks on YouTube, you know, for free. Look, we can even embed some right here:
Filed under: Gaming
Source: Eurogamer
Nubia’s bezel-free Z9 smartphone is coming to the US
If I had a nickel for every “ugh, too much bezel!” comment, I’d have… well, a few bucks anyway. That’s why it’s good news that Nubia’s borderless 5.2-inch Z9 smartphone is coming to the US next quarter at a rather tempting price. We already previewed the Z9 when it came to China last month, but here are the Cliff notes. First off, it’s a bezel-hater’s dream — there’s nothing there but a slim metal frame, which actually does double-duty as a touch surface. By gripping it in various ways, you can do tasks like unlock the home screen, adjust the brightness and even flip it to single-hand mode.
It has an optically stabilized 16-megapixel f/2.0 rear camera (8-megapixel front camera) with Sony’s latest IMX234 CMOS sensor that we first saw (and liked) on LG’s G4. The 5.2-inch screen is 1080p and not Quad HD, but we’re quite okay with that. The rest of the specs are also pretty nice: a Snapdragon 810 CPU, Android 5.0 Lollipop and a 2,900mAh battery. For all that, the price seems pretty fair. It’ll arrive in the US for $564 with 3GB of RAM and 32GB storage, $645 with 4GB RAM/64GB storage, and $725 with a fingerprint reader. It’s also nice to see a high-end smartphone from a Chinese manufacturer you can actually buy here — it’ll be available at “select retailers,” or online in Q3 2015.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Source: Nubia
How an astronaut shook hands with someone on Earth from space
NASA astronaut Terry Virts is part of the current ISS crew, while ESA telerobotics specialist André Schiele is in the Netherlands. Thanks to two special joysticks with force feedback in both locations, though, they were able to “shake hands” during a recent demo of the first space-to-ground remote control. They took turns to move their respective joysticks, while the other felt the movement through theirs. Schiele said “[i]t felt as though Terry was extending his arm down from space to shake [his] hand.” This is the first time the technology was tested between two people — astronaut Butch Wilmore tried it alone in the past — and it seemed to work great even if the ISS was in orbit, flying over 3,000 miles away from the Netherlands at that moment.
The European Space Agency plans to use to the technology for future rover missions. See, it takes 12 minutes for a command from Earth to reach a Mars rover, and it would take a lot longer if the rover’s perched on a farther planet or moon. So instead of sending commands to a rover from Earth, the ESA wants an astronaut aboard a spacecraft orbiting the target celestial body to control it. During Virts’ and Schiele’s test, they only experienced a 0.8 second lag — that’s pretty much negligible when you consider the fact that the signals traveled through Houston mission control, across the vast Atlantic Ocean and to/from outer space.
It’s worth noting that Virts had a real time video of the ground, superimposed with augmented reality elements, telling him the direction and force he needs to exert on the joystick. Those elements might be incorporated into a rover’s control system in the future. Before the technology can be put in charge of billion-dollar space machines, though, it has to be tested further. For the next round, ESA plans to conduct blind tests using different objects made of foam to determine if astronauts can detect an item’s hardness remotely. That could become an important feature when picking up sample rocks, dust, ice, et cetera from extraterrestrial lands.
Source: ESA
Doom 3: BFG Edition beautifully remasters classics for Shield devices
If you’re looking for an excellent action game for your new NVIDIA Shield Tablet or Shield Android TV, Doom 3 BFG Edition is now available on Google Play.
Doom 3 BFG puts you in the center of the action at a research plant on Mars, searching for lost comrades. As every video game or Hollywood movie goes, something goes awfully wrong, and now you’re fighting off hordes of the undead.
The game is only available for Shield devices, and can be purchased from the Google Play Store for $9.99. It’s a steep price, but it’s packed full of content, as classics Doom and Doom II are included in this new edition.
If you’re ready to smash some demons in this first-person shooter, scan the QR code or hit the download link below!
Come comment on this article: Doom 3: BFG Edition beautifully remasters classics for Shield devices
Skype rolls out ‘Click to Call’ for desktop and Android devices
There’s a fine line between convenience, and laziness, and often we confuse the two, intentionally or not. Skype has introduced a new tool for us to help differentiate, or further confuse the two. This week, the folks over at Skype have released a tool that will works in parallel with your browser, and allows users to quickly call companies that have been found via search.
There are only two or three prerequisites that must be met before we can go ahead and start calling to order pizza, or to check availability of something before heading out to the store. You must have a Skype account and be logged into either your computer, or your phone.
What makes this tool cool, is that if you already have Skype on your device, you can simply tap the “Click to Call” and the number will be dialed for you and the call will be directed to the Skype app on your phone. Most phone plans have unlimited minutes, but there are plans still out there that have limited minutes, so this can help out and make sure that your minutes don’t get burned through.
Imagine you’re tracking a parcel on your computer and you need to call the delivery company. Simply find their number online, which Skype Click to Call will have highlighted for you, then select Call from mobile and the number will be sent to Skype on your mobile. Just pick up your mobile, swipe and start the call without ever having to type in any numbers.x
After the Add-On is installed, while users are searching, users will see the phone number associated with whatever company they are researching. From here, you should see a small Skype icon, and when the number is selected, a drop-down menu appears. From the drop-down menu, you will either be able to Call using your desktop Skype client, Call from Mobile, or Add to Skype.
Currently, the ability to Call from Mobile is only available for Android users, but it is expected to roll out to other platforms later this year. It will be interesting to see if this catches on, and turns into more than just a “convenience” tool. In regards to the cost, most companies absorb the cost that would normally be attached to this, so most calls can be made for free, without having to purchase any Skype credits or minutes.
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HP abandons futuristic tech for its futuristic supercomputer
HP has abruptly changed course on its ‘Machine,’ a new type of memory-driven computer it thinks will radically alter large-scale data processing. When the company first launched it last year, the plan was to use a new kind of memory chip called the “memristor,” which is as fast as DRAM but can permanently store data. The problem is that the tech, which HP expected to commercialize with Hynix in 2013, still isn’t ready. Rather than giving up, though, HP has decided to take it in another direction by using both conventional RAM and phase change memory.
HP figured the Machine would replace data server farms with a computer the size of refrigerator using a fraction of the power. To do that, it would compute using specialized core clusters, photonic circuits and a huge pool of unified memory. For the latter, it depended heavily on the memristors — which store data with no power — and company researchers insisted that any other technology just wouldn’t do. It has scaled that ambition back, however, and chief technology officer Martin Fink now says that for now, it’ll be a “memory-driven” Linux computer based on DRAM. “We way over-associated this with the memristor,” he told the New York Times.
Mechanical mockup of new ‘node board’ for HP’s Machine
Running the Machine on DRAM would make it impractical, but HP says it would still be a radical shift from computers today with a whopping 320TB of memory. The idea is to develop a RAM-based prototype to attract developers to the technology, then introduce a version with phase change memory later. The final product would run on memristors once they’re market-ready.
HP — which recently split its business and consumer divisions — is betting big on The Machine tech and plans on investing a half a billion dollars in it. The company thinks it could eventually be shrunk to smartphone size, giving users Google Now-like AI capability without external servers. Researchers have already shown that similar technology using can already perform chores like image recognition. But critics wonder how much of a game-changer the Machine can be without memristors, and HP itself has now stopped making any predictions as to when it’ll finally arrive.
Filed under: Desktops, Science, HP
Via: New York Times
Source: HP (YouTube)
NASA to hold competition for autonomous rock-collecting robots
DARPA isn’t the only government agency holding a robotics competition this June. NASA’s fourth Sample Return Robot Challenge will take place on June 8th to 13th, though with fewer contenders — mostly universities and small businesses — compared to DARPA’s and a smaller prize pot worth $1.5 million. That’s the contest’s name, because it will be testing the competitors’ ability to autonomously locate and pick up rock, dust and other geologic samples in varied landscapes. The agency says the contest aims to spur the development of new technologies related to autonomous navigation and robotic manipulation. NASA didn’t exactly get into specifics, but based on the contest’s specifications, any innovation that comes out of it could be used for the agency’s future, sample-collecting, selfie-taking rovers. The event will be held at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, but you can watch it live online via the agency’s Ustream channel.
[Image credit: NASA]
Filed under: Robots
Source: NASA
Wild UI concept uses paper to interact with projected displays
A simple table can be a profound tool for collaboration, so it’s particularly disappointing that we haven’t yet solved the puzzle of how to effectively digitize that experience. Microsoft’s original Surface table was cool, but expensive, and newer options like Lenovo’s Horizon PC still haven’t taken off. But Tokyo-based design firm Takram has one idea that might help us achieve interactive digital tables (and other surfaces): Just use paper. Last year it developed a concept called “On the Fly Paper” for Intel’s Collaboration Center in Japan, which uses an infrared sensor and specially formatted pieces of paper to manipulate a projected computer display. Basically, the paper acts as an input device: As soon as you place it on the table, the projected image changes both on the table and the paper itself. You can also manipulate things by moving the paper around and covering physical holes. What’s truly remarkable is that your interactions with it register almost as quickly as a touch screen. Check out a brief demonstration below.
Intel brought the demo to its new Taipei concept store at the Syntrend tech mall, which also happens to be its public debut. Previously, only Intel engineers and special guests to its Japanese Collaboration Center were able to see it. Takram has developed five special cards for the demo so far, including one that lets you interact with the periodic table of the elements, one that displays photos and another that plays movies.
To be clear, On the Fly Paper doesn’t require a table: It can work anywhere an image can be projected, so it could conceivably be used right alongside standard business presentations. It’s just a concept right now, but since it doesn’t rely on much specialized hardware it shouldn’t be tough for Takram to release it as an actual product (or, more likely, license it to someone else).
