Video game museum is raising funds for a bigger home via Kickstarter
The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (MADE) is back on Kickstarter after four years to raise funds to move to an even bigger home. Back in 2011, the video game museum managed to raise over $20,000 using the website to rent a place in San Francisco. Unfortunately, a ceiling recently collapsed and destroyed 18 of its computers and projectors, including those donated by big companies, such as Google and Dolby. The management took it a sign that it’s time to expand: if the team meets its $50,000 goal, the MADE will pack up and leave its current 2,107 sq. ft. abode. The group’s already eyeing a 4,400 sq. ft. retail facility in Oakland, and almost all the money from Kickstarter will go towards renting the place.
Despite being a “museum,” the MADE doesn’t keep its video games behind glass displays. It frequently holds events like gaming marathons, takes on various relevant projects and allows members to play the titles in its inventory for free. Note that this is a true fundraising campaign, so you won’t be getting anything fancy as a reward. If you’re cool with getting paraphernalia and the honor of naming or designing exhibits in exchange for your money, then check out the group’s Kickstarter page.
[Image credit: vonguard/Flickr]
Filed under:
Misc
Source:
Kickstarter
Tags: made, videogames
Cablevision buyout makes Altice the fourth-largest US cable operator
Cablevision, an iconic US cable TV company founded in 1973, has been purchased by France’s Altice for $17.7 billion. The sale has been approved by shareholders and is expected to go through in the first half of 2016. “Nearly half a century later, the time is right for new ownership of Cablevision and its considerable assets,” said CEO James L. Dolan. Not included in those assets, however, is Cablevision’s Madison Square Garden company — the Dolan family will keep the downtown New York arena, along with Radio City Music Hall and the Rangers and Knicks pro sports franchises. It’s also holding onto AMC Networks, the home of Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead.
Altice was a company little known in the US until it purchased regional cable group Suddenlink for $9.1 billion in May. In Europe, the family-owned company provides internet, pay-TV and mobile phone offerings. “The acquisition of Cablevision represents Altice’s next step in the US market,” said CEO Patrick Drahi.” That’s an understatement — with the Cablevision acquisition, Altice is now the fourth-largest cable TV provider in the US.
Filed under:
Home Entertainment, Internet, HD
Source:
Cablevision
Tags: Acquisition, Altice, Cable, Cablevision, France, hdpostcross, ISP, Knicks, MadisonSquareGarden
Honda Introduces 2016 Civic With CarPlay and Android Auto Support
Honda on Wednesday at YouTube Space LA introduced the redesigned 2016 Civic with CarPlay and Android Auto support. The tenth-generation sedan will be the second Honda vehicle to support CarPlay alongside the 2016 Accord as the Japanese car maker continues its 2016 vehicle rollout.
Apple has listed Honda as a CarPlay partner on its website for quite some time, but the car maker waited until its 2016 lineup to introduce the iPhone-based dashboard system. GM is also supporting CarPlay and Android Auto in 2016 across its Chevrolet, Cadillac, Corvette, Buick and GMC vehicle brands.
CarPlay connects to iPhone and provides hands-free or eyes-free access to Maps, Phone, Messages, Music, Podcasts and third-party apps such as Spotify, Rdio, iHeartRadio, CBS Radio and MLB At Bat. The in-dash software uses Siri and also interfaces with your vehicle’s knobs, dials and buttons.
YouTube will soon support game streaming from Android phones
Google has revealed that you’ll soon be able to stream Android smartphone or tablet games directly to YouTube without any additional software or hardware. The incoming feature will also let you add video and audio commentary via your device’s front camera and a headset, and you’ll be able to record and upload game play clips to YouTube from Google Play Games. YouTube Gaming head Ryan Wyatt unveiled the feature at the Tokyo Game Show, and Japan will be the first nation to get it.
“Japan’s mobile games define its gaming culture, far more so than in other countries,” said Wyatt, explaining why Google elected to launch it there. YouTube has high hopes for its YouTube Gaming service in general, but is still a minor player next to Twitch. However, the app received high marks right out of the gate for its sleek interface, and a lot of additional folks will get to try it when it arrives on Android. As for when that will be, the company just said “soon.”
https://youtu.be/5KXnsJMueMc?list=PL7Xnz4ThUXV-jH1fDMjw2Ouold6zE2zcd&t=8295
Filed under:
Gaming, Home Entertainment, Google
Source:
Tokyo Games Week (YouTube)
Tags: gamestreaming, google, streaming, Twitch, video, YouTube, YouTubeGaming
Amazon’s thinner Fire HD tablets always have something to watch
Amazon tablets are for content consumption. That’s what the company keeps saying and with today’s announcement of new two new Fire HD tablets, it’s clear that the company that sells you socks and cat food over the internet is doubling down on that message. The new lighter tablets come in eight and 10.1-inch versions and are only 7.7mm thick. But that’s only a small part of the news, the tablets and new Fire OS 5 are laser focused on reading, watching and listening. For example, the new tablets now preemptively download Amazon Prime videos based on your video recommendations so when you are offline, you have videos ready to watch. The new Word Runner feature for reading is to help you quickly get through a chapter or a book in record time, And to make sure you have enough room for all those videos, songs and books you’ll be consuming the tablets ship with microSD slots for additional storage for content. Content is king at Amazon and these are the devices they’ve created to deliver it to you. Slideshow-320565
The new eight-inch tablet starts at $149.99 (£130) with 8GB of memory while the 10.1-inch base model costing $229.99 (£170) for 16GB of memory. The inclusion of microSD cards means that up to an additional 128GB can be added to any of the tablets. For offline viewing of streaming Prime Videos, Amazon has adjusted its DRM so you can now store those movies and TV shows on the microSD card.
Of course if you forget to actually download any videos before you leave, you’re usually gonna have a bad time. But Amazon has introduced a feature that downloads videos in the background called On Deck. It determines what you would like to watch using Amazon’t recommendation engine. On Deck adds and removes videos are storage space fluctuates. The idea is that you’ll always something to watch when you’re offline. It’s a bit like when a TiVo records shows you may like. They’re there just in case you need them.
If you’re more of a bibliophile, reading on the Fire HD might have just got a bit quicker. The speed-reading Word Runner feature displays one word at a time at between 100 and 900 words a minute. It slowly speeds up the text to your desired word-per-minute rate and pauses ever so slightly for difficult words, punctuation and paragraph breaks. If you miss a word, you can pause it for a timeline of the words and you can slide back and forth until you figure out where you’re supposed to be.
All the new features are housed in new enclosures. Both tablets have laminated metal backs. The 8-inch version is available in black, magenta, tangerine, and blue. Sadly, the 10.1-inch Fire HD is only available in black or white. Amazon has stuck with the widescreen IPS Gorilla Glass displays so there’s very little letterboxing while watching videos. The rear-facing camera is now 5MP with the front-facing camera hitting 720p. Both are powered by the same quad-core 1.5GHz processor found in the former Fire HD 7.
But again, it’s not about the tablet, it’s about an experience. Amazon said it had two goals with Fire OS 5: Make it fun and help with content discovery. Discovery is no problem for the Fire OS, fun is in the eye of the tablet holder (see what I did there).
The Fire HD 8 and 10 are available for preorder now and will start shipping on September 30.
Filed under:
Misc, Tablets, Amazon
Source:
Amazon
Tags: amazon, FireHD10, FireHD8, FireOS, FireOS5
Amazon Fire TV comes out to play with 4K and Alexa, stays at $99
If you’re one of the folks that’s purchased a 4K TV, Amazon has some good news for you: The new Fire TV supports 4K and still costs $99.99 (£80). In addition to handling all those extra pixels, the voice remote now calls up Alexa, the Echo assistant with access to more than just movie and TV titles. Ask it about the weather, sports, traffic and have it play music from your Amazon playlists and Prime. All of the information is displayed on your TV. The company also announced a $49.99 (£45) Fire TV Stick with a Voice Remote (finally) and a new game controller also with voice control and a headphone jack so your zombie shooting ways don’t disturb the rest of the house. Slideshow-320558
Folks with regular HDTVs can take advantage of the Fire TV’s support of HEVC (high efficiency video coding) for higher quality 1080p streams at lower bit rates. Amazon says that HEVC is roughly two times more efficient than the standard h.264. If you live in an area where your streaming video quality is on par with an 8-bit video game, HEVC might help.
The new box also supports 802.11ac for better long-range performance, has 75-percent more processing power and a GPU that’s twice as fast. All that extra silicon strength is for the company’s updated focus on making the Fire TV a low-cost console for mobile games on your TV. To further convince you to start playing games with the device, Amazon not only updated its game controller with a more ergonomic design, voice control and headphone jack, but it also introduced the Fire TV Gaming Edition. The $139.99 pack comes with a Fire TV, controller, 32GB microSD card and two games (Duck Tales and Shovel Knight). It will also only be available in the US.
While the Fire TV Stick got some update love with its new Voice Remote, the regular $39.99 (£35) version will let you use the Fire TV Remote app for iOS and Android to chat with your TV.
While the Alexa-powered voice feature on the now TV-connected boxes is nice, unfortunately it won’t be as robust as what’s available in the Echo. For example, you won’t be able to tell your TV to turn off your lights. But during a briefing, Amazon spokespersons said that while not available in this release, the company does see the TV as an IoT hub.
All this new Alexa-powered chit chat will also be available via an upcoming OTA Fire TV OS 5 update for to current Fire TV and Fire TV Stick owners that will also bring Amazon’s tech support feature Mayday to your TV.
The new hardware is available now for pre-order with the Fire TV shipping on October 5 and the Fire TV Stick with Voice Remote heading out on October 22.
Filed under:
Gaming, Home Entertainment, Household, HD, Amazon
Source:
Amazon
Tags: 4K, amazon, FireTV, FireTVStick, hdpostcross, UHD
Amazon’s selling its $50 Fire tablet in six packs
It was rumored and now the 7-inch $49.99 (£50) Amazon Fire tablet is here. The content peddling device is cheaper than dinner for two at a medium nice restaurant (without drinks but probably including appetizers). While it’s cheap, it actually looks better than other sub-$100 tablets on the market with an IPS display with a wide viewing angle and a nice rich contrast level. It’s powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM and has 8GB of storage. But like the new Fire HD tablets it has a microSD card so you can add up to 128GB of space. It’s cheap, durable and Amazon offers them in a six pack. Slideshow-320582
No really, you can buy a six pack of Fire tablets from Amazon. It’ll cost you less than $250 (£250) so you’re buying five tablets and getting the sixth one free. For less than the price of the cheapest iPad you can have a Fire in every room in your house.
The Fire will run the latest Fire OS 5 and still has the same features found on other Amazon tablets: X-Ray, ASAP, Mayday, the new Word Runner and FreeTime for kids.
Speaking of kids, Amazon also introduced a new Fire Kids edition for $99.99 (£100). It’s just the 7-inch Fire in in a thick pink or blue bumper with a two-year warranty that covers any damage your kid does to the tablet. Knock it off the table and shatter the screen. Get new one for free. Drop it in the toilet. Get a new one for free. Launch if off the second story of your house… Well you get the point.
It comes with a free year of FreeTime Unlimited Amazon’s kid-friendly OS so parents don’t have to worry about their offspring wandering onto 4chan. Both the Fire and Fire Kids Edition are available for pre-order now and will ship on September 30th.
Filed under:
Tablets, Software, Amazon
Source:
Amazon
Tags: amazon, Fire, FireKidsEdition, FireTablet
The best part of playing ‘Metal Gear Online’ isn’t the shooting
Metal Gear Online takes The Phantom Pain, well, online. We’ve just got to go a few rounds in Bounty Hunter, one of two play-modes — the other is Cloak and Dagger and focuses on stealthier things. Controls will be familiar to anyone that’s played MGS5, but because everyone can’t be Solid Snake (ugh), in MGO there’s a range of roles and abilities from stealthier builds with non-lethal or silenced weapons, to a half-mech suit (the Walker Gear) that lets you blast the hell out of your opponents. While the mech seems like the easy choice for a whole lot of kills, but that doesn’t necessary mean it’s the funnest way to play.
Each of the roles appear roughy balanced: lightweight characters will also get stealth camouflage to improve their chances of survival. And yep, there are cardboard boxes too. Those lesser-equipped characters move with a bit more urgency too. Close-quarter combat also gets a whole lot more fun when several characters rush in to get a knock-out. However, when you go down, it’s not quite over. You can still wiggle the L-stick and hammer buttons to revive yourself — and even if your enemy attaches a pesky Fulton balloon to spirit you away from the battle completely. (Well, until the respawn.)
We got to play on two stages: one set in a half-built dam and Black Site, which will look familiar to anyone that’s battled through Ground Zeroes. Like the single-player game, weather conditions can (and will) change mid-game. We got caught in a rain squall that ruined our prime sniping spot up high. You’ll also get points for non-lethal acts. Shoot down a balloon and save an ally, or force a confession out of an enemy for a nice point bonus… before you finish the job. Naturally, if you’re still a bit green at MGS5, you’re going to find it a pretty steep learning curve, but you’re also likely to pick up a kill here and there. Helping your allies is strongly advised until you find your feet — and the entire side will benefit.
The second mode, Cloak and Dagger, involves an infiltration team and a defense team. This time, once you’re dead — or floating in the atmosphere — that’s it for you. Tense stand-offs are likely to be the standard. The infiltration team will have to pick up a data disc and get it back to an escape point. The defending team, obviously, has to stop that. (If we get a chance to play, we’ll update this article with our impressions.) The game will appear within Phantom Pain on October 6th across PS4, Xbox One, PS3 and Xbox 360, although the older generation of consoles will be limited to less players on screen. A PC version will join the fight in January 2016.
Filed under:
Gaming
Tags: metalgearonline, metalgearsolid, mgs, mgs5, stealth, tgs2015, video
T-Mobile Expands Simple Global Coverage to All of Europe and South America
T-Mobile has announced the expansion of its Simple Global coverage to an additional 20 countries to now cover all of Europe and South America. Simple Global is now available in the Bahamas and 145 total countries worldwide, covering more than 90% of the areas that Americans travel abroad each year.
Simple Global provides Simple Choice postpaid customers with unlimited data and texting at no extra cost, and flat-rate calls for 20 cents per minute, outside of the United States. It is complemented by Mobile Without Borders, which allows full talk, text and 4G LTE data usage in Canada and Mexico at no extra cost.
“We’ve just made your traveling even easier in 20 more destinations around the world, expanding Simple Global to cover all of Europe and all of South America,” said John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile. “The carriers have made billions overcharging consumers who just want to stay connected overseas, and we’ve changed all that! Today, we made it even simpler to text, search or keep up on social media in a total of 145 countries and destinations, all at no extra cost!”
Simple Global is now available in the following countries and destinations:
- Caribbean: Bahamas, Haiti
- Europe: Albania, Belarus, Bosnia, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Monaco, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, Guernsey, Alderney, Jersey, Sark, Isle of Man
- Others: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan
Simple Global provides a standard data speed of 128 Kbps. No tethering is allowed.
ICYMI: Tour a warzone in VR, champ rock-paper bot and more
Today on In Case You Missed It: A Syrian news agency is giving viewers a chance to nearly walk the ground of a bombed out city center with a virtual reality tour. Rock, paper, scissors champs would cry themselves to sleep after taking on a Japanese robot that wins the game every time, thanks to high-speed tracking tech. And OpenROV’s underwater drone is being heavily funded on Kickstarter, bringing maps of the sea floor to everyone with some spare cash and a penchant for the ocean.
Next up, please laugh at this parody with us: It’s for a fake app called “Nickleblock” that plays a Nickelback song each time a user tries to look at an ex on Facebook.
If you come across any interesting videos, we’d love to see them. Just tweet us with the #ICYMI hashtag @engadget or @mskerryd.
Filed under:
Misc, Meta, Peripherals, Robots, Transportation, Internet, Software
Tags: engadget, engadgetdaily, engadgetdailyshow, engadgetvideo, highspeedtrackingtech, icymi, incaseyoumissedit, iOS9, Japaneserobot, O, OpenROV, robot, rockpaperscissors, RPS, RPSLeague, Syria, SyriaSmartNewsAgency, SyriaVR, underwaterrover, video, VRSyria, warzoneVR
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