Huawei beats Apple to the Force Touch punch with the Mate S
Today’s a busy day for those in the Tech world, thanks to IFA 2015 in Berlin. We’ve seen announcements from Huawei, ASUS, and Acer, and are expecting plenty of more over the course of the rest of the week. In addition to announcing and opening pre-orders for the Huawei Watch, Huawei has announced their latest flagship device.
The Mate S is Huawei’s latest flagship to grace the market, and includes quite a few stunning features. Sporting a 5.5-inch 1080p Gorilla Glass display with a contrast ratio of 1.8M:1. What’s more surprising about this display is the fact that Huawei has beat Apple to the punch by introducing Force Touch Technology.
For those who aren’t sure exactly what Force Touch technology is, here’s a little run down. Force Touch technology allows your device to recognize exactly how hard you press down on the screen. By being able to track this, manufacturers can then program the device to react to certain pressures on the device. In the case of the Mate S, users will have various gestures that can be used to open up various applications and perform various tasks while in other applications.
The Mate S is also sporting a fingerprint scanner on the back of the phone, below the 13-megapixel camera. The camera will be paired with Optical Image Stabilization and an RGBW sensor, allowing the device to have more vivid pictures, without having to worry about shaky hands. Also, the front of the Mate S will have an 8-megapixel camera for those great selfies that everyone loves to take.
Below the surface, the Mate S will have 3GB of RAM with an octa-core Kirin 935 processor. As for storage, there will be three variants; 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB. However the 128GB variant of the Mate S will be available later this year, while the 32GB and 64GB variants will ship alter this month.
Last but not least, the Huawei Mate S will sport a 2700mAh battery, which while it seems tiny compared to other devices of this size, the Mate S will also have Quick Charge capabilities. While this isn’t the greatest news, the addition of Quick Charge will help make sure that you make it at least a full day on one single charge.
As for pricing of the Mate S, you will be able to get the Standard 32GB for €649 ($729) and Premium Mate S for €699 ($786). The Mate S will be up for pre-order on September 15th from Huawei’s Vmall store. Huawei will also provide more details on the 128GB variant later this year.
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Knee Kick Girl: an RPG with loose controls, a paywall, and a good soundtrack (App Review)
Before the start of this review, I must say that I played the game for about five hours and was not close to finishing it because of its paywall.
Today, we’ll be taking a look at the action RPG Knee Kick Girl created by developer Chad Miller. Miller’s indie rock band, soundsfromyourhead, composed the game’s soundtrack.
The story centers around a girl who is trapped in Purgatory and makes a deal with Lucifer in order to escape. To do so, she has to conquer enemies with an array of dungeons in order to fulfill the contract.
Setup
The game’s setup is a standard affair. Download and install it from Google Play. Once you open it, you’ll be right in the game.
Functions and Features
Think of Knee Kick Girl as a horde mode game. In every two out of three dungeons, you need to eliminate every foe. Then, on every third dungeon, you’ll fight an end-of-chapter boss. Once you’re successful in killing it, even if you have not finished off everything else, you’ll still receive all of the drops.
There are items (like healing hearts, temporary ally characters, etc.) and power-ups (temporary attack buffs and permanent general buffs) to collect along the way.
The leveling up system uses the currencies of gold coins (the most common) and blue stars (a distant, second-most common) in the game, so you don’t earn experience directly by defeating monsters. Diamonds, the rarest currency, cannot be obtained in the game whatsoever and can only be earned with actual money.
What We Liked
- The ability to stack items and power-ups for tougher dungeons and bosses.
- Decent but somewhat repetitive soundtrack.
Room for Improvement
- Movement is slippery. Knee Kick Girl commonly will keep circling around enemies or move in unexpected ways, especially on stairs and near walls and corners.
- Attacks are stiff and somewhat delayed. Combined with the above point, Knee Kick Girl can easily be damaged even if she gets her attack, which temporarily stuns, off first.
- While costing US $0.99, the game has a paywall, which can be seen in the item shop and after playing just three to four dungeons.
- Poor grammar and syntax in dialogue, menus, and popups.
I probably could tolerate Knee Kick Girl‘s faults more if it was not behind a paywall. I can understand the need for one in games such as this, but users are paying for this from the start only to be met with slippery, sometimes frustrating controls. Between this and how early the paywall arrives, it’s difficult for me to justify the cost.
Before you think about buying the game, consider Knee Kick Girl – Ghost Hunter, the free-to-play version.
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Hulu bucks the commercials and adds a new commercial-free tier
Commercials are annoying. Every time you watch a YouTube video, or a random video on the web, there’s almost ALWAYS a commercial. We understand why there are commercials, but it doesn’t mean that it makes them any more informational or any less annoying. Thankfully, Netflix does not put their customer’s through this ordeal since they are subscription based, and don’t need money from advertisements in their videos. Today, Hulu is also bucking that trend. Kind of.
Earlier today, Hulu announced that they would be adding a subscription-based, commercial-free viewing tier. For $12 a month, users can sign up and not have to deal with those pesky commercials every 7-10 minutes, and can watch almost whatever they want, interruption free.
By almost, we mean that while the majority of Hulu’s lineup falls under the commercial-free tier, there are still some titles that Hulu was not able to acquire the licensing for.
In response to feedback from our viewers, we started offering a commercial-free experience on Hulu. For a small number of shows, however, we have not obtained the rights to stream commercial free and they are not included in our No Commercials plan. You can still easily access these shows with a short commercial before and after each episode with no interruptions during the episode. Specific shows that still have commercials accessible through the No Commercials plan will be noted throughout the signup, switching, and playback experience. While the list of shows may change, these shows are currently: Grey’s Anatomy, Once Upon A Time, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Scandal, Grimm, New Girl, and How To Get Away With Murder.
This isn’t the end of the world, since the list of shows is so small, but it’s pretty awesome to see Hulu grab the streaming rights to other great shows like South Park, Seinfeld, CSI, Deadliest Catch and more.
For only $12 a month, you can get rid of those commercials and watch your favorite shows thanks to Hulu. Let us know what you think about these changes in the comment section below, and whether you will be signing up.
Source: Hulu
The post Hulu bucks the commercials and adds a new commercial-free tier appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Dear Veronica: Meditation for the masses
Judging from the number of questions I’ve received on the topic, you guys are curious about ways to disconnect a little bit. Whether that means deleting social media from your devices on the weekends (like we discussed in a previous episode) or trying out a new app for meditation, we’re all looking for some answers.
This week, I’m welcoming onto the show Dan Harris, co-anchor of Nightline, the weekend edition of Good Morning America on ABC, and author of 10 Happier. In his high-stress job, he faced a lot of similar pressures, and turned to meditation to bring back some balance. It’s not all crystals and incense, trust me.
Keep sending those questions in to me via email, or by posting on social media using the hashtag #DearVeronica! See you next time.
Tags: dan harris, dear veronica, Meditation, Veronica Belmont, video
CBS will stream some NFL regular season and playoff games
In addition to streaming the Super Bowl in February, CBS will stream both regular season and playoff action from the NFL. What’s more, access is free so you won’t be required to input cable subscription info or other credentials to watch. The slate of seven games includes the Jets vs. Dolphins in London on October 4th, Carolina vs. Dallas on Thanksgiving Day and four AFC playoff games in January. If you’ll recall, Yahoo also said it plans to stream an NFL game over the internet this season when the Jaguars meet the Buffalo Bills in London on October 25th. CBS, Fox and NBC have streamed NFL games in the past, but this season there’s more gridiron action on the schedule. When it’s time for kickoff, you’ll be able to stream CBS coverage on the web, mobile devices, Xbox One, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku and connected TVs.
[Image credit: Grant Halverson/Getty Images]
Filed under:
Home Entertainment, Internet, HD
Via:
Bleacher Report
Source:
CBS
Tags: cbs, football, hdpostcross, internet, nfl, sports, streaming
Comcast is charging its trial users extra to avoid data caps
If you’re participating in Comcast’s capped broadband trials, you’ll soon get a way to avoid usage limits, according to document spotted by DSL Reports. If you guessed “pay more money” as that solution, you can step up for your prize. The company has released a new FAQ for its trial Xfinity program in Florida, one of the regions where it’s testing 300GB cap limits. A new “unlimited data option” will let users avoid any overage charges — which normally run $10 for each 50GB of data — by paying an extra $30 per month on top of the normal rates.
Comcast is testing capping in a number of markets, including cities in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine and Florida, but the $30 unlimited option is currently only available in select Florida markets. (Outside of the trial regions, Comcast data isn’t capped.) The company claims it has no plans to extend capping nationwide, and merely refers to the data plans as a “flexible option” — meaning, it’s not limiting data if you’re willing to pay more. The FCC might see things differently, though, and judging by the public’s recent net neutrality complaints, it’s not likely to stomach anything that increases already sky-high rates.
Filed under:
Internet
Via:
DSLR Reports
Source:
Comcast
Tags: Broadband, comcast, DataCaps, tests, trial, uncapped, xfinity
Autonomous golf carts drive tourists around in Singapore
MIT and the National Research Foundation of Singapore recently tested an autonomous vehicle they developed together. No, it’s not a car or a truck — it’s a golf cart. The researchers created a self-driving golf cart called SMART and deployed several at a public garden to drive 500 or so tourists around during a six-day experiment. Since they crafted a whole system and not just the autonomous vehicle itself, they also tested a booking method which people used to schedule pick-ups and drop offs. In the future, that system could be adapted to a mobile app like Uber.
The team used only cameras and off-the-shelf laser rangefinders as sensors mounted at different heights. Since carts like this move slowly (with a top speed of around 15 mph), the team’s algorithms have more time to process data and adjust routes based on any obstacle they sense. The result is a relaxing ride, which almost every tester (98 percent of them) would love to repeat.
The vehicles are instrumented, but they are not as heavily instrumented as the DARPA vehicles [competitors in the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s autonomous-vehicle challenge] were, nor as heavily instrumented as, say, the Google car. We believe that if you have a simple suite of strategically placed sensors and augment that with reliable algorithms, you will get robust results that require less computation and have less of a chance to get confused by ‘fusing sensors,’ or situations where one sensor says one thing and another sensor says something different.
Admittedly, the group developed autonomous golf carts as a preliminary effort and a stepping stone towards developing self-driving cars. However, senior author Daniela Rus believes the slow-moving vehicles themselves can be used to drive the elderly around in special areas, such as shopping complexes.
Filed under:
Transportation
Source:
MIT
Tags: driverless, golf, golfcart, MIT, self-driving, singapore
Huawei G8 officially announced – metal chassis and fingerprint scanner in tow
We’ve seen the device pass through TENAA a few months ago, and now it’s official – alongside the brand new Mate S, Huawei has officially launched the G8 handset at IFA 2015.
Featuring a 5.5-inch Full HD IPS LCD display, 2.5D Gorilla Glass and an all-metal chassis, the Huawei G8 looks to be quite the attractive device. It’s powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor, 3GB of RAM, and also comes with 32GB of on-board storage with microSD expansion up to 64GB. Rounding out the specs, it also comes with a 13MP rear-facing camera with optical image stabilization, a 5MP front-facing camera, dual SIM card slots, a big 3000mAh battery, and runs Huawei’s Emotion UI software overlay atop Android 5.1 Lollipop.
There’s also a fingerprint scanner mounted on the back side of the handset, which Huawei says comes with its Fingerprint Sense 2.0 technology.
This 4G LTE-capable device will be available sometime this month for the recommended price of €399. So far, we know the device will launch in China, Egypt, Germany, Malaysia, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom. For more information on the Huawei G8, check out the official product page at this link.
Hulu ads a commercial-free plan for $11.99 a month
Up until now, there was only one way to watch Hulu: with ads. Even if you paid for their subscription service, you still had to deal with ads, your library of content was just larger. Thankfully, Hulu is now launching a commercial free subscription for $11.99 a month.
At Hulu, we pride ourselves on listening to our customers and giving them the best possible experience. Many of our customers have asked us for a commercial free option, and so today we are excited to introduce just that. Providing more choice for consumers is fundamental to the Hulu experience, in addition to an array of choices in content and devices, our customers can now choose to watch with or without commercials.
Hulu will continue to offer its commercial-based subscription plan for $7.99, or the limited content free option as well. For those with the ad-free option, it is worth mentioning that not all content with be without ads. Hulu says it is still working to obtain rights to stream commercial free from some of its programming, though you can access these episodes by watching a small commercial at the beginning and end with no interruptions in the middle.
Hulu says that any show with commericals in a ad-free subscription will be clearly marked for its subscribers. Some of the shows in this commercial-equipped list include: Scandal, Grimm, New Girl, and Once Upon a Time. What do you think of the new plan, worth paying extra for?
Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 4.7 review
We earlier reviewed the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3, one of the more premium off-contract smartphones you can get your hands on. Now, Alcatel OneTouch has released a smaller, 4.7-inch variant of the device aiming to reach a wider and more populated part of the market.
With the major screen reduction, there’s also been a drastic hit to the device’s specifications, which could potentially cause some worry as far as performance goes. Fortunately, the 4.7-inch Idol 3 still runs and looks like a champ!
Design
The 4.7-inch Idol 3 takes on an identical design to its bigger brother, only with a smaller form factor. It sizes in at 134.6 x 65.9 x 7.6mm and weights a meager 110 grams. Similar to the original model, speakers are placed directly below and above the display.
Unlike the larger 5.5-inch Idol 3, this 4.7-inch model fits firmly in the hand, making it easy to manage the 4.7-inches of screen real estate.
It has the same dark color with a brushed texture on the phone’s plastic back. It doesn’t suffer from being easily bendable, as you might expect in a much smaller and less heftier device.
An audio jack is placed at the top of the device, a micro-USB port on the bottom. The power button is placed on the left side of the device right above the SIM-card tray, and the volume rocker sits comfortably on the right side.
Right above the display is a 5MP camera capable of recording video in 1080p. Around the back, on the top left of the device, is a 13MP camera with autofocus and an LED flash is placed right below the sensor.
Hardware
This model of the Idol 3 features a 4.7-inch 1280×720 IPS LCD display, a Snapdragon 410 chipset, a quad-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A53 processor, 1.5GB of RAM, an Adreno 306 GPU, and storage options of 8 or 16GB. There’s microSD card support, and the device is sporting a 2,000mAh battery.
The device supports the same bands as its bigger brother:
- GSM Quad (850, 900, 1800, 1900) CHANGE BANDS
- UMTS/HSPA+ (850, 900, 1900, 2100)
- 4G LTE (1, 3, 7, 8, 20)
Performance
I was very surprised how well the 4.7-inch Idol 3 ran, to be frank. Featuring a Snapdragon 410 processor clocked at 1.2GHz and 1.5GB of RAM, there was quite a drop in sheer processing power. However, it’s still a snappy processor and the RAM seems to be more than sufficient.
Everything ran smoothly and apps opened almost immediately. There were small delays in opening the camera and browsing through the gallery, but nothing too bad. I did notice that more demanding games like Modern Combat 5 and Asphalt 8 run a bit sluggish and the phone got quite hot when playing those titles.
The 4.7-inch Idol 3 plays your average games like Clash of Clans, Angry Birds, and others like a champ, though.
As for the display, you get a 4.7-inch 1280×720 IPS LCD panel, which is a significant change from its bigger brother’s 5.5-inch Full HD 1920 x 1080 display. Everything about the display still looks great, despite that.
Colors aren’t washed out, text looks crisp, icons are well defined, and so on. Obviously when you compare the two side-by-side, you’re going to notice a difference, largely because the drop in pixels-per-inch. The 4.7-inch Idol 3 has 312ppi compared to the Idol 3’s 400ppi. The LCD panel still performed well outdoors in direct sunlight, despite not having the vivid and vibrant colors that AMOLED display sport.
Finally, the device features dual front-facing speakers, making for an excellent audio experience thanks to Alcatel OneTouch’s partnership with JBL. A pair of JBL headphones are included in the package when you buy the Idol 3, and while they’re more ideal for listening to music, they didn’t sound as great as the speakers on the smartphone.
Battery
The 4.7-inch Idol 3 is by no means a power hungry smartphone, featuring a humble 4.7-inch IPS LCD display. It’s a relatively efficient smartphone, and the biggest battery drain you’re going to see will come from 4G LTE connectivity.
It has a 2,000mAh non-removable battery, and it will easily give users enough power to get through the work day and well into the evening hours.
Software
This is yet another area where Alcatel OneTouch excelled with the Idol 3. The company changed very little as far as software changes go. You basically get the pure Android experience, excluding a few features Alcatel OneTouch added, such as an option to make the phone fully reversible. The only real downside is that some of Alcatel OneTouch’s app icons look clunky.
The device is loaded with a lot of the company’s own applications; however, Alcatel OneTouch took the initiative to build them with Google’s Material Design guidelines. The software doesn’t feel cluttered. In fact, everything is relatively fast and responsive.
The Idol 3 4.7-inch is running Android 5.0, and being an unlocked device, updates will come straight from Alcatel OneTouch, skipping the middlemen that are the carriers. This generally means faster updates, although Android 5.1 has yet to be seen, though we imagine it’s in the works.
Camera
Alcatel OneTouch’s 4-7-inch Idol 3 features the same 13-megapixel sensor as the larger handset, allowing the user to take quick, beautiful, and snappy photos. As expected, the same camera problems plague this lower-end model, producing subpar photos in low light situations.
Photos look decent in optimal lighting settings, but unfortunately, stills still seem to look washed out, grainy, and lack definition and detail. The device’s 5-megapixel front-facing sensor is a step down from the 8-megapixel camera on the previous model, albeit camera quality seems to remain the same that we see from even the front-facing cameras of flagship devices.
It has all of your usual features–Auto, HDR, Panorama, Time lapse, Manual, Scanner and, Face Beauty. Scanner is for scanning QR codes and is actually pretty unique to the Idol 3 devices, considering it’s not a normal feature even in most flagship devices.
Closing
Overall, the Idol 3 even its 4.7-inch form factor is a great device in comparison to many other off-contract solutions. Alcatel OneTouch twice now have been able to put together a premium package at a low price point for those that would prefer sticking to the off-contract payment model.
The device sells for $179 on Alcatel OneTouch’s own online store and through Amazon. This is a significant drop from the 5.5-inch models $249 price point, making this lower spec’d model even more attractive for those looking for a premium smartphone at a low price point.
Come comment on this article: Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 4.7 review
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