Google launches My Account for security and privacy controls
While Google’s ATAP team is working on Project Abacus, which aims to bring more security with less hassle, Google has introduced a new feature to their privacy and security settings. My Account will give you access to both the settings and tools for your Privacy and Security settings for any of your Google accounts.
From the My Account page, you can easily access your Security settings, Personal Info & Privacy settings, and your overall Account Preferences. When you log into the My Account page for the first time, you are prompted to perform a Privacy checkup and a Security checkup.
The Privacy checkup within the My Account page, basically just asks you a few panels of questions, which allow to fine tune how much information you actually want to be seen by the world. For example, you can select which profile tabs are visible to visitors on Google+, or you can choose to show your subscriptions and such via YouTube.
The Security checkup also found in the My Account page, gives you all different types of information about the devices and apps that have been connected to your account. You will be able to edit and change your recovery information, such as your recovery phone number, recovery email, and your Security question for password resets. You will also be able to view all of the recent devices that have been connected to your Google account, along with the location where the device was connected from.
The Account Permissions section, shows you all the different applications that you have linked to your Google account. Literally to the T. If some of them look suspicious, or are from a service/app that you no longer use, you can simply tap the “Remove” button and that application will no longer have access to use your Google credentials.
Finally, you can check your App Passwords, and your 2-step verification settings. This is extremely helpful to be able to go through your Google account with a fine tooth comb, and make sure that everything looks up to snuff. You can learn a lot about your account from this checklist, just by seeing all the different types of apps and services that you may or may not have linked up.
Going forward, the My Account page will be definitely useful to keep an eye on the comings and goings of my Google Account, to ensure that nothing suspicious is going on. Be sure to take some time, check this out, and make sure that all your information is what you think or expect it to be. If something looks odd, definitely get rid of it or contact Google for support.
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Nintendo’s NX console will be powered by Android – Nikkei report
Nintendo’s upcoming “NX” console will run a version of Android, according to a report from Japan’s respected Nikkei.
Nikkei is Japan’s most respected newspaper and the outlet published several accurate scoops on Nintendo in the past. With that said, this is, for now, just a rumor, albeit a plausible one.
Nintendo vowed to keep details of its next console under wraps until next year, but if the Nikkei report is accurate, a crucial detail just leaked. The publication cites an insider claiming that the NX’s operating system is “loaded with Android,” without providing any clarification on what that means.
NX is “loaded with Android”
The move, said the source, is meant to spur the adoption of the NX platform; developers have largely shunned the Wii U, but an Android-based OS could be much easier to develop for. Using Android would also give Nintendo a powerful and versatile operating system, coming after the sluggish OS it developed in-house for the Wii U.
Nintendo promised “a dedicated game platform with a brand-new concept,” but at this point, we don’t even know if the NX will be a handheld or a home console. So it’s hard to predict what form Nintendo’s Android OS will take. It’s possible though that Nintendo will try to tap into the Android ecosystem without ceding control over the platform. To do so, the company would need to fork Android, but that shouldn’t be difficult, given that a gaming platform doesn’t need Google’s apps anyway.
In potentially related news, Nintendo last month announced it would launch five new Android games over the next three years, with the first one due in 2015.
Would it be wise for Nintendo to adopt Android? Let us know your thoughts.
Google introduces new controls to help keep your sensitive information safe and private
Being able to control your privacy and security is becoming increasingly important, especially with all of the sensitive information constantly being traded around the web. That’s why today Google is rolling out two big improvements to its privacy and security tools that will help users better manage the information most important to them.
Google’s new My Account tool acts as a central hub for controlling your personal data and information, giving you access to settings that will help you safeguard your data, keep your privacy protected, and give you more control over what info is used to make Google services work better for you. Here are a few more important features My Account provides:
- Manage the information that can be used from Search, Maps, YouTube and other products to enhance your experience on Google. For example, you can turn on and off settings such as Web and App Activity, which gets you more relevant, faster search results, or Location History, which enables Google Maps and Now to give you tips for a faster commute back home.
- Use the Ads Settings tool to control ads based on your interests and the searches you’ve done.
- Control which apps and sites are connected to your account.
If you’d like to check out your My Account page, head on over to myaccount.google.com.
Additionally, Google is rolling out an informative website that will help answer common security questions that many users have been asking. By heading to privacy.google.com, users will hopefully get a better idea as to how their data affects their experience on Google, what types of data Google collects, and much more.
It seems like Google has been particularly focused on user security as of late, especially following the recent announcement that granular app permissions control is coming to Android M.
Volvo’s working on an Android Wear app that will let you control your car from your wrist
Swedish automaker Volvo has just announced that it’s now applying the finishing touches to its On Call app for Android Wear and Apple Watch.
Both applications will enable Volvo owners to remotely lock/unlock their car, switch on their heater/air conditioner and check fuel/mileage. There’s even a feature on board that can be used to locate your car in a busy parking lot.
Volvo aims to have On Call available to download on both the App and Play Store by the end of June.
Do you own a Volvo? If so, is this an app you’d like to get your hands on? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Source: Volvo
Come comment on this article: Volvo’s working on an Android Wear app that will let you control your car from your wrist
ASUS announces the ZenWatch 2 Android Wear smartwatch, comes in two sizes and three color choices
ASUS has already announced the ZenWatch 2, only 9 months after the original was unveiled. It doesn’t look all that much different, but there are some subtle differences.
The first is that you will notice a button on the side. This is actually a good thing because you now won’t always have to tap on the screen to wake it. It also provides you a quick way to get to the settings (long press) or put the watch into Theater Mode (double press).
Next up is that ASUS will offer two sizes. With most people complaining that smartwatches are too big for those with smaller wrists, this is a good move. Apple is already doing this, so it’s no surprise that one of the Android Wear manufacturers would offer the same. The larger one will measure 49 x 41 mm and will match with 22 mm bands, while the smaller one will measure 45 x 37 mm and gets paired with 18 mm bands. Speaking of bands, ASUS will offer a variety of bands consisting or rubber, leather and metal. Considering that the watch itself will be available in either Silver, Rose Gold, or Gunmetal, ASUS says there will be 18 different combinations of material and colored straps.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Another positive change is the charger, which is now magnetic, much like what LG offers for their smartwatches. Recharging time is also supposed to be much faster. Now everyone wants more battery life so they are offering something called a Chargeback battery case, which it sits under the watch to provide more battery life. This will only be available for the larger model.
Lastly, the ZenWatch 2 is more dust and waterproof than it’s predecessor. It’s now rated at IP67.
As far as the actual specs of the watch, ASUS didn’t go into much at all. It does have an AMOLED display along with 2.5D curved Gorilla Glass 3. It will have a Snapdragon processor, but we aren’t sure which one. They also didn’t show off the software since it hasn’t been finalized yet. It’s obviously Android Wear, but they will offer some enhancements that will center around their own wellness apps.
If you have your eye the ZenWatch 2, don’t pull out your wallet just yet. This one won’t get released until quarter 3, which will more than likely mean September. No pricing was mentioned, but the larger one will probably be priced about the same as the current model, which is $199.
Full Press Release:
ASUS Announces ZenWatch 2
Computex, Taipei, Taiwan (1st June, 2015) — ASUS today announced ZenWatch 2, a stylish and personalized wearable device powered by Android Wear and produced in partnership with Google. Crafted with absolute attention to detail using high-quality materials, ZenWatch 2 is a precision watch that serves as a smart companion to Android smartphones, providing wearers with timely information at a glance and letting them get things done with a simple touch or voice command.
ZenWatch 2 is designed to be a truly personal device that wearers can customize even further to express their unique sense of style. Available in two sizes and three stainless-steel case colors, with 18 different strap material and color combinations, and instantly-changeable and customized watch faces along with an app that lets wearers design their own, there is truly a ZenWatch 2 for everyone.
ZenWatch 2 builds upon the original ZenWatch, offering an even more refined design, an improved user experience, and the introduction of completely new functionality. ZenWatch 2 now includes a metal watch crown, enhancing the user experience by a providing new way to interact with the watch. It also comes with an all-new magnetic charger that features effortless attachment and dramatically improved battery recharge times.
Combining sophisticated sensors with all-day comfort, ZenWatch 2 works together with the all-new Wellness smartphone app to serve as a personal activity and fitness manager to help users keep their lives in balance and achieve personal fitness goals.
Fine watch craftsmanship
ASUS ZenWatch 2 continues the tradition of fine watch craftsmanship with its impeccable, detail-focused design and high-quality construction. ZenWatch 2 features a durable stainless-steel case available in two sizes —— and attractive Silver, Gunmetal and Rose Gold colors to comfortably fit anyone’s wrist and sense of style. A metal crown adorns the case, echoing traditional watch styling and providing a convenient new way to interact with ZenWatch 2. The watch crystal is designed with a gentle curve for an elegant look and improved usability by providing a smooth surface for easy and responsive swiping gestures. It is made from tough Corning® Gorilla® Glass 3 for protection against scratches and damage.
ZenWatch 2 is available with a wide-range of straps in a variety of materials and colors for further personalization. A tough yet supple rubber strap comes in Blue, Orange, Red, and Taupe colors, and is the perfect choice for athletes, people with active lifestyles, or those who like a more casual look. A soft, premium leather strap is available in Khaki, Brown, Gray, Blue, and Orange colors, providing an elegant look that fits any situation. A stainless-steel link bracelet comes in Silver, Gunmetal or Rose Gold colors to perfectly match ZenWatch 2’s case colors for a bold, luxury watch look and feel. ASUS has also partnered with Swarovski® Professional to produce a gorgeous leather strap with an embossed diamond pattern and tastefully accented with Swarovski crystals.
Complementing its physical design, ZenWatch 2 comes with instantly-changeable software watch faces. The variety of available designs lets users easily customize their watch to fit any style, mood, or occasion, such as using a traditional, elegant watch face for work or a night out, or changing to a more playful design for use during leisure time. Wearers can even create their own custom watch faces in the new Watch Face Land app for a truly personal and unique ZenWatch 2 experience.
Smart companion
ASUS ZenWatch 2 is powered by the latest version of Android Wear and serves as a smart companion for Android phones by extending functionality and providing wearers with a convenient window to view incoming calls, messages, notifications, and other important information, without having to remove their phone from their pocket or bag. ASUS ZenWatch introduced many exclusive features including deep ASUS ZenUI integration, FoneHelper, activity and fitness tracking, and Remote Camera. ASUS ZenWatch 2 improves upon every aspect of the original ZenWatch experience and offers completely new functionality that takes the wearable experience to the next level.
Enhanced Remote Camera — one of the most popular features of ZenWatch — lets wearers display their smartphone’s camera viewfinder remotely right on their wrist. This frees them to take photos from creative angles where the viewfinder would be difficult to see, such as when holding the phone overhead at a concert or other crowded event. Remote Camera is also useful for group photos, letting the photographer compose the photo, release the shutter, and check the final result while being included in the shot. Remote Camera has been improved for ZenWatch 2, offering faster performance, more range, the ability to switch between the phone’s front and rear cameras, and zoom capability.
In addition to software improvements, ZenWatch 2 has numerous hardware design improvements that enhance functionality and provide a more convenient user experience. With an IP67 water-resistance rating, ZenWatch 2 is designed to be worn all day, everyday, even in the shower or during exercise. An all-new magnetic charger effortlessly attaches to ZenWatch 2 and offers dramatically improved battery recharge times.
Next-gen Wellness app
Comfortable to wear all day and built with sophisticated sensors, ASUS ZenWatch 2 works together with the completely redesigned Wellness smartphone app to provide a comprehensive solution for managing fitness and overall wellness.
ZenWatch 2 is a full-featured activity tracker that provides additional tracking functionality tailored for activities such as running and cycling.
The next-gen Wellness app lets ZenWatch 2 wearers view all of their activity information in one convenient location. It displays progress towards goals as well as activity summaries with attractive graphs that are easy to interpret and analyze, and can be used to set future fitness goals.
Come comment on this article: ASUS announces the ZenWatch 2 Android Wear smartwatch, comes in two sizes and three color choices
Asus announces ZenPad S 8.0 and three other tablets at Computex 2015
Today at Computex, ASUS announced the ZenPad S 8.0, along with three other tablet solutions. Today is a big day for Taiwanese manufacturer, already revealing the ZenWatch 2 this morning.
Asus’ Zen line has seen quite a bit of popularity, whether it be in their smartphones, laptops or smartwatches. Now, the company is capitalizing off of that popularity and creating a new tablet brand, the ZenPad line, which will include 7-inch, 8-inch, and 10.1-inch solutions. Not only that, but each of the four announced tablets will have their own LTE model.
ZenPad S 8.0 (Z580CA)
The 8-inch tablet (pictured above) is a high-end solution, featuring a gorgeous 2,048 x 1,536 (324-ppi) IPS display. As you might see in a lot of Asus’ recent devices, packed inside the ZenPad 8.0 S is a 64-bit Intel Atom Z3580, paired with 4GB of RAM. Between the display and the performance-grade hardware, users should experience nothing but speed and efficiency with this new solution from Asus.
Some other bits and pieces you can find in this particular tablet are a 8-megapixel snapper on the back, a 5-megapixel solution on the front, 16GB or 32GB base storage options, a USB-C slot, and a 15.2Wh battery. The inclusion of USB-C will be interesting to see down the road with Android M’s USB Type-C features. In the meantime, the ZenPad S 8.0 is running Android 5.0 Lollipop with Asus’ standard Zen UI.
ZenPad 8.0 (Z380)
Asus’ ZenPad 8.0 is largely a budget solution, touting a sub-par 8.0″ 1280×800 IPS LCD panel, an Intel Atom x3 processor, 1 or 2GB RAM options, 8GB or 16GB base storage options, a 5-megapixel rear camera, a 15.2Wh battery, and Android 5.0 Lollipop.
The ZenPad 8.0 does feature an array of accessories that not only look nice, but also add some much needed features. Asus says the Zen Case will be available in “five sleek or vivid colors and features a fine leather texture.” Users wanting more protection will want to opt for the Zen Clutch, a “sophisticated carrying and protection solution for ZenPad 8.” There’s also the Audio Cover and Power Case, adding 5.1-channel surround speakers and an extra 15 hours of battery life, respectively.
ASUS hasn’t mentioned anything about pricing or availability just yet, so it’ll certainly be awhile before we see any of their tablets in stores, much like how long it took users to get their hands on the ZenFone 2, especially in the US.
You can check out the rest of Asus’ announced tablets in the press release by hitting the source link below. What do you think of this new line of tablets from Asus? It’s exciting to see them offering solutions all over the spectrum–from high-end to low-end. There’s nearly a tablet for everybody here. Be sure to let us know in the comments.
source: Asus
Come comment on this article: Asus announces ZenPad S 8.0 and three other tablets at Computex 2015
ASUS unveils pocket-sized projector that can play videos from your Android device via USB
ASUS has been extremely busy at the Computex event today. First it announced the ZenWatch 2, then a new Chromebox and just now, a pocket-sized projector that can play video from Android smartphones and tablets via a micro-USB.
Obviously, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen projectors for mobile devices that can fit in your pocket, but it is the first time we’ve seen one that is compatible with a USB cable as opposed to an HDMI, which makes it that little bit more portable as you don’t have to carry a second cable.
The unit itself features a whopping 6,000 mAh battery, which doubles as a portable battery pack, allowing you to charge any smartphone or tablet via its USB port, which is pretty useful if you’re mirroring a movie and don’t want your handset to die.
Unfortunately, there’s no solid information with regards to pricing or availability just yet, but some ASUS representatives have hinted that it may have a $200 price tag. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Come comment on this article: ASUS unveils pocket-sized projector that can play videos from your Android device via USB
How laser scans and VR are preserving London’s hidden ‘Mail Rail’
Deep in the heart of London, buried beneath 70 feet of soil and concrete, lies a hidden underground railway. For almost 80 years, the UK’s “Mail Rail” transported letters and parcels between the capital’s main post offices and a few overground train stations, where they could then be delivered across the country. It was a unique way to avoid street congestion, but by 2003 the line had become uneconomical to run. The decision was made to shut it down and it’s laid dormant ever since, invisible to the public.
Now, the British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA) wants to open the Mail Rail to the masses. The organization’s plan is to open a new museum near Mount Pleasant station and convert a section of the line into a ride. It will, inevitably, mean making some changes to the railway as it stands today. But before any renovations are made, the BPMA wants to preserve the space with a digital archive. Rather than simply taking some photos though, or moving the best artifacts into glass cabinets, the organization opted for a technology called LIDAR. Similar to radar or sonar, this process involves firing a laser in every direction and measuring the time it takes to reflect off other objects. All of these recordings then create a “point cloud,” which specialist companies can use to create 3D models. It’s also the same technology that self-driving cars use to detect and analyze their surroundings.
Hiring the experts
To record such an unusual site, BPMA enlisted ScanLab Projects. Based in London’s Bethnal Green, the company has used LIDAR to document a raft of spectacular places, including the D-Day landing beaches in Normandy, France; a shipping gallery in London’s Science Museum; and parts of the Arctic Ocean near Svalbard, Norway. After capturing each location with the laser scanner, ScanLab goes over them again with a DSLR camera. Back in the office, the team then flattens the 3D model into 2D panoramas and lines them up with the DSLR photos. The images from the laser scanner contain depth information, meaning the colors captured by the DSLR can later be applied to the 3D model.
“Conceptually, this removes the need to take a photograph and choose the angle when you’re at the location,” ScanLab co-founder William Trossell says. “You can come back into our office and spend months, or years finding exactly the right perspective.”
The process is time-consuming and resource-intensive, but if any space deserves such a detailed and meticulous treatment, it’s the Mail Rail. While it was operational, the carriages would carry up to 4 million letters along 23 miles of track every day. It was the first driverless, electrified railway and the only purpose-built underground mail transit system in the world. The line was originally called the “Post Office Underground Railway” and it launched in 1927, but the initial tunneling work was actually completed a decade earlier. Its structural integrity proved useful in World War I when it was used to protect art pieces from The National Portrait Gallery, the Tate and the British Museum during German bombing raids. In World War II, the network also doubled as dormitories for post office staff.
Most importantly, the Mail Rail has been left untouched since its closure. A few engineers still work on the line to check for water damage and other structural problems, but otherwise nothing has been moved. Royal Mail never planned to close the Mail Rail down completely, so on the last “official” day in 2003, staff simply downed their tools and left. They unknowingly created a near-perfect time capsule, a snapshot in history.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/124635236?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0
ScanLab spent five days mapping the railway with two separate scanning teams. Even now, the BPMA isn’t sure how it’ll use the data inside the new museum. VR is one option, but the team is also considering mobile apps. Visitors could hold their phones up at the walls, for instance, and see the original space like a rift in the fabric of time. Parts could also be used as projections during the ride, or as an alternative experience for visitors with disabilities. “For people with claustrophobia, or people that aren’t comfortable with enclosed spaces, it’s not going to be a pleasant experience on the ride,” a BPMA spokesperson said. “However, we want them to be able to experience it, so applications like this are some of the options we’re now exploring to try and bring that experience to them.”
LIDAR data can be used for many different purposes. A surveyor might be interested in the raw geographical information — just a spreadsheet with the numbers the LIDAR spat out. An architect, however, could request a top-down plan of a building. “We can take the roof off the structure and then pull the first floor away from the second floor — almost architecturally dissect the building,” Trossell adds. “Then it becomes a good tool for investigative processes, where you’re trying to forensically re-examine a crime scene, or work out where the light sockets are because you need to know where to put the new ones.” Other LIDAR and 3D visualization companies are doing similar work; Digital Surveys, for instance, mapped a ship called the Northern Wave vessel to help engineers design new upgrades; Historic Scotland and the Glasgow School of Art are scanning 10 historic landmarks, including five World Heritage Sites in Scotland, for preservation purposes.
Taking a trip in VR
LIDAR visualizations are rarely used in VR experiences though. That’s hardly a surprise, given VR is an emerging technology and major players such as Oculus VR, Sony and Valve have yet to release consumer hardware. But ScanLab has been pressing forward and exploring how its model could be adapted for virtual reality. In its spacious design studio in London’s Bethnal Green, the company has rigged up an Oculus Rift DK2 headset with plastic prongs and white balls attached on top. Six cameras on the ceiling track their whereabouts and replicate the users’ movement inside the Mail Rail visualization.
The experience differs from typical VR demos because it shows an exact reproduction of a real-world location, rather than a level from a video game. The idea is that users will be drawn to the Mail Rail’s nooks and crannies and everyday objects knowing that, over a decade ago, real people were interacting with them. Walking through the model from the same perspective as an employee should, in theory, help people to visualize what it must’ve been like down there, especially during the two World Wars.
For now, ScanLab is only loading a portion of its 3D model inside the Oculus Rift. Booting up the entire visualization, at least with their current hardware, would involve too much processing. Not that it really matters — ScanLab’s motion-tracking setup is in the middle of its office, so testers can only walk three or four steps before bumping into tables and chairs anyway. At such close quarters, the quality of the model isn’t perfect either. Everything looks just a tad grainy, like an analog TV that hasn’t been tuned correctly. In addition, ScanLab can only load a single LIDAR scan at once. It means that if you look in places that, at the time of capture, were blocked by other objects in front of the scanner, you’ll sometimes see black “data shadows.” However, this experience is only an experiment — a version for the museum would no doubt incorporate a more complete model.
VR is an immersive way to experience any 3D space. But ultimately, the work BPMA and ScanLab have done goes beyond a cumbersome set of goggles. They have digitally archived a place that few people have ever seen before, and soon it’ll be available to anyone that’s able to travel to London. In humanity’s quest to preserve historic spaces, LIDAR is proving itself to be a valuable tool. The challenge now is to apply that data in a way that benefits the upcoming museum and the stories its curators want to tell.
[Image Credits: British Postal Museum & Archive/Miles Willis (Lead photo, Mount Pleasant Mail Rail station photos); ScanLab Projects (Mail Rail graphic and gallery)]
Filed under: Transportation, Alt
Why ‘Rock Band 4’ got the gang back together
Walking onto the roof of the Shangri La Hotel in Santa Monica, California, I was nervous and curious to see Rock Band 4. After all it had been five years since Rock Band 3. Would it still feel good? Is this really the right time to bring back Harmonix’s brilliant karaoke video game, with its comfy plastic instruments and catalog of songs? After playing it and then talking with Greg LoPiccolo, one of the creators of both Guitar Hero and Rock Band, my fears were laid to rest. Under a thick smear of sweet rock and roll, of course.
Rock Band 4 feels familiar in all the best ways, with low-impact, welcome changes that just feel right. The instruments, mostly indistinguishable from Rock Band 3‘s drums and guitar, still feel approachable and toy-like, well-suited to the game’s cartoony musicians. Barring one intriguing new feature that we’re not allowed to talk about just yet, the other changes are goofy fun. Take the new intros: The screen prompts you to yell, “Hello, Boston!” Are you ready to rock?” Unless you do your best Steven Tyler at an ’80s Aerosmith concert, the whole shebang won’t start. It also feels great to seamlessly put together a playlist. If you finish a song and want to keep going, one player picks the next jam from a list and others vote, selecting from categories like “play a song from 1991.”
While the game still felt just right in my hands, I still wanted to know why Harmonix decided that right now was the time to bring it back. LoPiccolo expounded on that subject and more.
The last time we spoke was in March of 2013, just before Harmonix delivered the very last weekly downloadable update for Rock Band 3. My very first question for you then was, “Is the plan to bring Rock Band back in five years, otherwise known as the perfect window to hit the nostalgia market?” You said to me, “Well… we’ll see!” You sounded like a man with a plan. Now here’s Rock Band 4. Was this always the plan to bring Rock Band 4 out within a few years?
No. I can’t in good conscience say this was always the plan. It was way more improvisational.
What was the plan, then?
We didn’t ever want Rock Band to fade away. We love it! We love working on it; we love watching people have fun with it. It exceeded beyond our wildest expectations when it came out, but a lot of things have to line up if you’re going to drop seven or eight figures on developing a video game, you know? One of the things I think was true was that after the eighth-gen consoles came out, our usual sweet spot isn’t in year one. That’s when Halo and the hardcore games come out. Our thinking was, let’s wait to let these consoles establish themselves and then see what we got. Then we dipped our toe in the water and people got excited, so let’s do it!
Speaking of the survey Harmonix put out earlier this year asking what people want from a new Rock Band. What surprised you about people’s response?
I don’t know if we were surprised so much as it confirmed what we hoped was true. It confirmed that people actually still cared about Rock Band. Yeah, people still want to play this game and they were very specific about what they cared about being in it. Like, DLC should carry over! People don’t want to have to buy their songs again; they don’t want to have to buy their instruments again if they still have them. So we took that stuff seriously and worked on a plan to carry all that stuff forward. Which was a lot of work.
I don’t want to get too deep in the weeds on the business end, but I know that licensing these songs has always been the biggest hurdle. Has anything changed in the past five years since Rock Band 3 to make your lives easier?
Not really. We occupy this weird little corner of that ecosystem. The thing that makes us unique, where those streaming issues aren’t really relevant, is that we need track masters to craft our gameplay. You don’t stream masters. Someone’s got to go down to the basement, blow the dust off them and transfer them to us. That’s still true: We still hand build our gameplay from the original master recordings.
Has there been any change in how you produce a song or did you just go back to the old process because it works?
Well, we’ve had to change our authoring format for our new features. We have our freestyle vocal feature which means that the game needs to know what key you’re singing in at any given time. If you sing on hard or expert difficulty, you don’t have to stick to the authored notes. You can sing any chord and as long as it’s in tune with the song, you can score on that. That didn’t exist in the old songs so we had to redo that and go back to retrofit it into the old songs as well.
In April, I got to sit down with Guitar Hero Live and we discussed their turnaround time for getting a song into their game. The way they explained their pipeline was that if there’s a hit single making the rounds on YouTube, they can turn it around in a day and have it online. Have you changed your process at all to satisfy a faster pace?
Most of the material our players care about isn’t necessarily from last month; it’s from 10 years ago!
As far as I can tell, that’s not what’s driving our audience. New songs are always coming, but most of the material our players care about isn’t necessarily from last month; it’s from 10 years ago! Or 30 years ago! So we want to continue to add stuff to our catalog that’s current, and Rock Band 4 will have current songs, but it’s all about the catalog, having this huge library of material. We have 2,000-plus songs at this point. That’s awesome and that’s something we’re really proud of. We’ve made this huge effort to cover the breadth of rock history as best we can, across styles and decades.
Literally every person I talked to at Harmonix who worked on Rock Band told me that they had the same regret: That they never got Led Zeppelin. So tell me: Zeppelin?
I have no comment at this time!
That’s my favorite answer.
We would still like Zeppelin. Clearly. But I have nothing to tell you.
Mad Catz is helping publish Rock Band 4. How did that happen?
We worked with them on Rock Band 3 so our relationship does go back a ways. They made the Mustang guitar for us as well as the keyboard and did a terrific job. So when we got in touch with them about the idea of bringing back Rock Band 4, they were into it and they were an ideal partner for us.
We would still like Zeppelin. Clearly.
Was there ever a point that you weren’t going to call this Rock Band 4? Slapping a number on a popular video game series carries a lot of weight. It can push away new players unfamiliar with a series, but it also lets your most diehard fans know that this is the real deal, a full-on sequel.
There was a little bit of back and forth about that but everything else just seemed too gimmicky. Rock Band Reunion! That’s stupid. At the end we didn’t even argue about it. It’s Rock Band 4.
Typo’s Smartphone Keyboard Business Comes to an End Following BlackBerry Lawsuits [iOS Blog]
BlackBerry and Typo Keyboard have reached the end of a lengthy lawsuit over Typo’s BlackBerry-esque iPhone case that adds a physical keyboard to the Apple product (via The Verge). The lawsuit dating back to January 2014 argued that Typo, which saw significant publicity due to Ryan Seacrest’s backing, willfully infringed on patents and “blatantly copied” BlackBerry’s keyboard design. Today’s settlement brings the news that Typo now essentially is prevented from making keyboards for any smartphone in the future.
While neither company released the full settlement terms, a brief press release from BlackBerry notes that Typo has agreed not to produce keyboards for devices with screens smaller than 7.9 inches. The essentially precludes Typo from making keyboards for any smartphone, but leaves the door open for keyboards for tablets or any other device with a screen larger than 7.9 inches.
As part of the settlement, Typo Products LLC, Typo Innovations LLC, Show Media LLC, Hallier Investments LLC, and Laurence Hallier have agreed to permanently discontinue selling anywhere in the world keyboards for smartphones and mobile devices with a screen size of less than 7.9 inches. Typo Products LLC, Typo Innovations LLC, Show Media LLC, Hallier Investments LLC, and Laurence Hallier may continue to sell keyboards for devices with a screen size of 7.9 inches or larger. Other terms of the settlement are confidential.
Thanks to BlackBerry’s constant pursuit of a lawsuit against the company, the Typo Keyboard for iPhone faced a very rocky road since its debut in January of 2014. Typo kept moving forward, however, just last December introducing the Typo2 for iPhone 6 that the company promised was designed to avoid the legal pitfalls of its previous case. BlackBerry was unconvinced, however, once again filing suit against Typo over the new product in February.
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