Sonos app hints at new speaker with gesture control
Keeping your new product secret until launch is a tricky business. Especially when you want to co-launch an update to your mobile app with renders and guides for said new product. A beta version of the Sonos app popped up online, and was promptly unpacked, and sifted through over at Zatznotfunny — revealing images of a speaker not in the current Sonos range. The renders offer no sense of scale, so it’s hard to say if the device could be something like a Play:6, or whether one of the (now years old) existing products is getting a facelift — but there’s definitely a sleeker, more modern design language going on. Perhaps most interesting, is that the renders hint at swipe/gesture control in lieu of buttons. Always (and literally) a nice touch. Right now that’s all we have to go on, but we like what we see.
Filed under:
Home Entertainment, Internet
Source:
Zatznotfunny
Tags: app, gesture, play, play3, play5, play6, sonos, speaker
Your PS4 is screaming out for some color (and a gold DualShock 4)
Admit it: these new DualShock 4s and color plates for your PS4 are going to make that living room obelisk pop. Slideshow-320584
Tags: colorpanels, controllers, dualshock, dualshock4, hands-on, playstation, ps4, sony, tgs2015
BBC iPlayer offers picture-in-picture TV viewing on your iPad
Split-screen multitasking on the iPad is one of the standout additions in iOS 9, but not everyone has an iPad Air 2 (or soon, iPad Pro) to take advantage of it. Instead, the feature that most iPad users are likely to benefit from is picture-in-picture — the ability to slide a video into the corner while you do something else on your tablet. BBC iPlayer is one of the first apps to adopt the new functionality, meaning you can watch Bake Off while reading some recipes, or keep BBC News in the background while you scan the headlines in Apple’s News app. The feature works on the iPad mini 2 and 3, iPad Air and Air 2, and the upcoming iPad Pro — just press the home button during video playback to activate it.
[Image Credit: BBC]
Filed under:
Tablets
Source:
BBC iPlayer (iOS)
Tags: bbc, ios9, iplayer, pictureinpicture, streaming, tablet, television, TV
Ford’s smartwatch apps let drivers unlock their electric car
In recent months, both Hyundai and Volvo have launched smartwatch apps, allowing car owners to control some of their vehicle’s functions from the comfort of their wrist. Now Ford wants in on the action. In the latest update to its MyFord app, available on both iOS and Android Wear, the car maker is letting drivers of select electric and plug-in hybrid models access information on their vehicle battery status (including the estimated range), enable the air-conditioning, lock and unlock the car and follow directions to where their car is parked.
One particularly interesting feature is the addition of a personal driving score, which indicates how well you are driving by factoring in your average miles to the gallon, distance traveled and how efficiently you accelerate and slow down. The more green leaves you see on the display, the better you’re driving. If you drive a Ford C-MAX Energi, Ford Focus Electric or Ford Fusion Energi and either an Apple Watch or Android Wear smartwatch (or both, if you’re flash with the cash), you can download the app right now.
Filed under:
Transportation, Wearables, Mobile, Apple, Google
Via:
Ford
Source:
MyFord (App Store), (Google Play)
Tags: android, android wear, apple, applewatch, ford, google, ios, mobilepostcross, myford, smartwatch
Clearest yet photos of the BlackBerry Venice appear, show well-organized Android UI
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It’s probably a sign of the times when an unreleased, Android-powered BlackBerry smartphone is one of the more anticipated devices in the smartphone world, though we’re not exactly complaining. Photos of the BlackBerry Venice have been released into the wild today courtesy of Android Authority and they’ve given us our clearest look at the upcoming device, and if nothing else, we can see that BlackBerry is very serious about its move to Android.
From the few photos we have here, we can see the themed appearance of the user interface (jury’s still out about those icons), as well as some improvements that BlackBerry have added to the Venice. Most notably for me is the addition of more options on the Home swipe-up action which normally just brings up the Google Now action. And in case you were still in some kind of denial that this device was just running some epically themed version of BlackBerry 10, here’s a photo of the boot-up screen of the Venice clearly showing the “powered by Android” logo:
We still have no official word as to when or where the BlackBerry Venice is going to be released, but all bets are on for a November release.
What do you think about these photos of the BlackBerry Venice? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Android Authority via TalkAndroid
The post Clearest yet photos of the BlackBerry Venice appear, show well-organized Android UI appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
PayPal Sparks Speculation About Online Gaming In U.S.
Last year, an article written up at Slate speculated that online gambling would be legalised across the U.S. by the end of this decade. The article suggested that with online poker already legal in three U.S. states (Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware), and significant pressure from major gaming companies being put on legislators, a spread is inevitable. Both types of games and regions in which those games are legal will almost undoubtedly expand between now and 2020.
It was a very sound argument from a major publication, but the truth is that Slate’s article was also one of many. It’s not exactly groundbreaking to pose a theory that the U.S. will legalise online gambling, at least in some respects. The industry potential is simply too staggering, and too much of the U.S. population is interested. The issue is just that legislation in America can be a very slow process.
But recently we got a subtle indication that some potentially major players in a hypothetical U.S. online gambling industry may be expecting things to start happening sooner rather than later. According to CNBC, PayPal has worked its way back into some budding online gambling platforms operating in the U.S. This move makes perfect sense, as there’s plenty of business for PayPal even if it’s only operating on sites active in three of the 50 American states. However, the timing has raised some eyebrows. Noise about legalisation efforts in the U.S. is getting louder by the year, and for PayPal to quietly hop on board now suggests that the company is expecting increased activity on the horizon.
As for the actual utility of PayPal for gambling sites and among paying players, the idea is to simultaneously streamline and secure the experience. While U.S. legalisation would bring about the quick emergence of a number of online gambling platforms, many see the most potential in the mobile market that would be attached to these platforms. We’ve already seen in areas of the world in which online gambling is perfectly legal that mobile gaming brings in gigantic amounts of business, and part of that comes down to providing quick gaming and payment methods.
In the UK, the Gala Bingo platform—it incidentally already includes PayPal among its various payment options—has provided a model for making gambling opportunities as accessible as possible to players. Rather than requiring an app download (which is still an option), the site actually offers QR codes that can be read by a smartphone, and which then load the Gala platform onto that phone. Alternatively, players can even send a certain text message to an arranged number and receive the platform as well. This is the sort of speed and accessibility that has made mobile casinos mutually appealing—to the casinos because they bring in business, and to players because everything is so convenient.
The integration of a payment facilitator with online gaming sites and their respective mobile branches is an extension of this convenience, and one from which PayPal stands to benefit enormously. Just as online gamblers grow used to being able to access their favourite sites’ games at the touch of a button or after a quick scan, the ability to pay instantaneously will contribute to the user experience on a broad scale.
This, in addition to the fact that PayPal is generally trusted by the public as a safe way to send and receive funds, is why PayPal and online gambling sites can be so valuable to one another. And the fact that PayPal is already moving on securing these partnerships may just be the latest indication that the U.S. is an online gambling market waiting to explode.
Microsoft’s email/texting app Send is available on Android
Earlier this summer Microsoft debuted Send, an app which aimed to combine the most usable features from instant messaging and email into a unified experience. It debuted as an iOS-only app but on Wednesday the company released Send (beta) for the Android OS. Its availability is also expanding — while it was previously limited to the US and Canada, now UK, Brazil and Denmark users (with an Office 365 business or education account) can try Send out on either platform, complete with GIFs. Windows Phone is still the odd one out, but Microsoft say it is “currently working” on a version for its own mobile platform.
Filed under:
Cellphones, Tablets, Internet, Software, Microsoft
Via:
TechCrunch
Source:
Google Play
Tags: Android, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, iOS, messaging, microsoft, Office365, Send
‘Dark Souls 3’ is coming for your patience next April
Don’t have a PlayStation 4 and Bloodborne but still want in on some punishing action by way of the folks at From Software? Good because Dark Souls 3 hits PC, PS4 and Xbox One next April — right in line with the “early 2016” window we were teased with during E3 this year. And for those who need something to do between now and then, perhaps the recently announced “The Old Hunters” expansion for Bloodborne will whet your whistle come its November 24th release date. Here’s to hoping you’re suitably prepared to die evade peril by then.
Slideshow-320586
Filed under:
Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD
Tags: 2016, april2016, bloodborne, darksouls, darksouls3, dlc, fromsoftware, gaming, hd, hdpostcross
A giant rat bird was the closest I got to ‘The Last Guardian’
Well, I got to tease it with a giant pink ball. To promote The Last Guardian, which is very much happening and also very not playable (so far) at the Tokyo Game Show, the team at genDesign hooked up a 20-foot screen with a projection of the lovable / grotesque (delete as applicable) Trico. The feathery giant rodent is projected at fictional life-size, while two hidden depth cameras pick movement of anyone near its cage. We seemed to get the best reactions when the organizers brought out that aforementioned pink ball to catch its attention. It still roars a lot, which only scares the crap out of you the first… twelve times. It’s a simple little technical demo that doesn’t reveal anything more about the game, but it’s better than watching similar gameplay videos again. Hand me a controller.
The Last Guardian beast is kind of adorable — until it roars down your ear. #tgs2015
A video posted by MT (@thtmtsmth) on Sep 16, 2015 at 9:58pm PDT
Tags: japan, projection, sony, tgs2015, thelastguardian, trico, video
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