Minecraft Windows 10 Edition headed to Oculus Rift VR headset
Palmer Luckey, the boy wonder co-founder of Oculus VR, surprised attendees at the company’s Connect 2 developer conference today with news that Minecraft is headed to the Rift. Though Oculus has yet to announce a release date for its virtual reality headset, it is expected to hit retail sometime next spring, at which point Minecraft will be made available on both the Windows Store and Oculus Store. It’s no surprise that Microsoft would extend the massively popular crafting game to the Rift platform as it’s recently demoed several augmented reality versions for its HoloLens headset, and pledged to support both Oculus and Vive’s brand of VR.
‘Oculus Ready’ PC program offers VR-ready rigs for less than $1,000
Oculus Ready is a new program that offers officially licensed, Oculus-branded PCs from Alienware, Dell and Asus. These rigs will be ready to run the consumer Oculus Rift when it launches in Q1 2016, with at least the minimum specs of 8GB RAM, an Intel i5 processor and NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290. All of the manufacturers will offer Oculus Ready PCs for less than $1,000, Oculus announced during its second annual Connect conference.
Oculus also showed off some of the games coming to the Rift, including Gang Beasts, Adr1ft, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and Battlezone. For developers, version 1.0 of the Oculus Rift software development kit launches in December. A second SDK, this one specific to Oculus’ Touch motion controls, will be available to developers before the Rift launches in 2016. Oculus Touch will launch with Oculus Medium, a 3D sculpting tool.
These games and many more will be shipping next year for the #Rift! Tune in: http://t.co/fmSRmeDvLh #OC2 pic.twitter.com/oBMhfm3js1
— Oculus (@oculus) September 24, 2015
Fox is bringing more than 100 movies to the Oculus VR Cinema
While gaming and other fully immersive experiences have already flourished on VR, at least one studios is jumping in with a way to watch movies on the big (small) screen. Fox confirmed today at the Oculus Connect 2 event that the company is bringing more than 100 of its movies to the Oculus Store at launch. You’ll watch the movies in the Oculus VR Cinema app, where you can watch movies in 2D or 3D on a huge virtual screen (you can see what it looks like after the break). Movies that are coming include Alien, Birdman, Taken, Die Hard, Office Space and more.
These are not full VR experiences (although Fox’s Innovation Lab is at work on a The Martian VR Experience), but can bring something like a movie theater to wherever you are, and even let friends watch together from anywhere. We’re not ready to trade in our big-screen HDTVs (yet), but especially on a plane or in a hotel room, we could see using this to get away without going anywhere — and an Oculus headset or Gear VR packs into a bag much better than our TVs do.
[Image credit: Photos 12 / Alamy]
Which mice are worth buying?
Plenty of folks make do with their laptop trackpads, but for many of us, there’s still a place in our hearts (and on our desks) for a good ol’ fashioned mouse. And, while gaming mice certainly offer lots of bells and whistles to make you a better player, what do you do when all you need is something to browse the web with? To answer that question, we’ve scoured reviews from a few trusted sources to find the best non-gaming mice out there. You might not be sniping soldiers from a rooftop with them, but they’ll certainly make it easier to edit documents at work.Slideshow-322648
Free Music: Pink Floyd “Wish You Were” album up for grabs on the Play Store
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Google Play Music is a wonderful app/service to not only sync up to 50,000 of your own tracks, listen to stations and share music with friends, but it is also a great place to bolster your music collection. Since its launch Google has routinely pushed out various playlists, best of’s along with other freebies to add to your on going collection of tunes. I try to alert you guys of free tunes every time I see them pop up and today is no different. Right now you can pick up a classic record from a classic band, Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here. It might not be Dark Side of the Moon, but the album, like The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon, have some amazingly powerful feelings locked in each track. What ever happened to musical talent like this?
To snag your free digital copy of whole album, hit the link below to bounce to the Play Store and have it handy.
Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here in the Play Store
The post Free Music: Pink Floyd “Wish You Were” album up for grabs on the Play Store appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
T-Mobile extended range LTE lights up in greater Orange County area
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Be on the lookout Orange County, you are getting some extended range LTE services from T-Mobile today. The Magenta carrier announced this morning that they are lighting up the 700MHz frequency to penetrate farther in range and deeper indoors. Locals living in Anaheim, Buena Park, Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Irvine, La Habra, Laguna Nigel, Lake Forest, Mission Viejo, Newport Beach, Orange, San Clemente, Santa Ana, Tustin, Westminster and Yorba Linda should see the biggest boost in LTE reception. That gives you guys access to faster data speeds in areas that you might previously have been missing out.
In nine months, T-Mobile has aggressively rolled out airwaves known as 700 MHz in 170 major metro areas including cities such as Houston, Washington D.C. and Denver, so you can use your compatible phone to get great 700 MHz coverage while visiting friends and family in those cities.
Of course, you won’t see the perks of the extended range LTE unless your current device has support for it. Looking at the device list you should be covered if you picked up your device in the last year as it shows the Note 4, Note 5, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, LG G4, Nexus 6, HTC One M9 and a few other devices that weren’t flagships. What is semi interesting though, is that T-Mobile only lists the Apple iPhone 6s and 6s Plus as being compatible.
Source: T-Mobile
The post T-Mobile extended range LTE lights up in greater Orange County area appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Apple Releases Second iOS 9.1 Public Beta
Apple today seeded the second iOS 9.1 beta to public beta testers, two weeks after seeding the first beta a day after its “Hey Siri” fall media event. Today’s beta is the same as the second iOS 9.1 beta seeded to developers yesterday.
Public beta testers who already have iOS 9.1 installed can get the second beta as an over-the-air update, and those interested in getting early release software from Apple can sign up to participate in Apple’s Beta Software Program.
iOS 9.1 is an update mainly designed for the iPad Pro, adding support for accessories like the Smart Keyboard and the Apple Pencil, both of which require deep integration with iOS 9. It will also include support for the new Apple TV.
The update also includes support for Unicode 8, introducing new emoji like taco, burrito, hot dog, popcorn, turkey, cheese wedge, and more, and it includes a new Siri setting that lets users give voice examples for the “Hey Siri” feature that can be activated whenever the iPhone is connected to power. With the new iPhone 6s, the new feature will be essential because “Hey Siri” can be used even when an iPhone is not plugged in.
Apple Releases iOS 9.0.1 for iPhone 6s and 6s Plus
Apple today released a version of iOS 9.0.1 designed for its newest devices, the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus. iOS 9.0.1 was initially seeded to the public yesterday, but that version of the software did not include support for the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus.
Customers who receive an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus tomorrow will need to update to the new operating system after unboxing their devices, as they will presumably ship with iOS 9.0 installed.
iOS 9.0.1 is a minor software update that was released one week after the public launch of iOS 9. It includes several bug fixes, including a fix for an issue that prevented some users from upgrading their iPhones to iOS 9 because of an unresponsive “Slide to Upgrade” dialog.
There are just a few hours to go until the iPhone 6s launch kicks off in New Zealand. Once 8:00 a.m. rolls around in the country, iPhone 6s pre-order deliveries will begin. The first Apple Store sales will begin a couple hours later as 8:00 a.m. hits in Australia. In the United States, retail stores will open at 8:00 a.m. local time and pre-order deliveries will start at 9:00 a.m.
iPhone 6s Lines Forming at Apple Stores Ahead of Launch Day
With less than one day until the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus launch in twelve countries, customers have begun forming lines at Apple Stores around the world to purchase one of the new devices. The size of the lineups vary depending on the location and will undoubtedly grow longer as we get closer to 8:00 am local time on Friday in each country.
Longer lines have formed at two Apple Stores in the German cities of Hamburg and Munich on the evening prior to the iPhone launch, while there are shorter queues in U.S. cities such as Chicago and San Francisco. Meanwhile, in Sydney, Australia, a media executive has a robot holding her place in line.
Birmingham, U.K.
Birmingham customers have the benefit of lining up indoors (via Benjamin Mason)
Chicago, U.S.
A short line has formed at the Apple Store on Michigan Avenue (Thanks, Marc!)
Hamburg, Germany
A large crowd has formed at the Apple Store in Hamburg (via Daniel Knott)
Munich, Germany
Apple Store in Munich has one of the longest iPhone lines so far (via Martin Gollwitzer) Read more 
Moto Hint (updated version) Review
Motorola has been in the communications game for awhile. From radios to cell phones, there is probably no form of communication Motorola hasn’t delved into. This includes Bluetooth earpieces, which they’ve been making since they became popular. With their recent focus on design and ease of use for their consumer products, the Moto Hint was a natural extension for Motorola. The Moto Hint seeks to provide a minimal design while providing tons of functionality. Let’s see if its up to the task.
Setup
Setup with the Moto Hint was simple enough. My biggest issue was I wanted to figure the device out for myself, so I assumed things instead of reading the instructions (insert joke about man’s pride here). So I could not figure out how to turn the stupid thing on. Well, turns out it doesn’t turn on until you place it in your ear, and then you are given prompts on how to pair the phone. Yeah, you bet I felt a little dumb.
So, already we have proof that this is meant to be as simple as possible, to the point that the device is telling you how to set it up.
Usage
If I had any gripes about the Moto Hint, its that remembering the various gestures and voice commands at first seems too much to handle. However, after using it for a few days, I realized once again that it is all meant to be natural and simple. Once I realized that, and after a few days of practice, I was a Moto Hint ninja in no time. So, my gripe no longer means anything.
The first aspect of the Moto Hint that needs learning is its charging cradle. At first I thought the best way to use it was to stick the Moto Hint inside whenever I didn’t have it in my ear. However, trying to take the device out of the cradle while your phone is ringing causes more fumbling than one would like. Really, the cradle is meant for storage (meaning, its a place to put it when you don’t want to use it at all) and charging the battery. See, the device is so small that its battery isn’t very large (we’re talkin’ 46 mAh here), giving approximately 3 hours of talk time. This is extended with the use of the cradle, which acts as a sort of external battery for the Moto Hint.
Anyways, so the idea is you either keep the Moto Hint in your ear all the time, or you place it on your desk, and then just stick it in your ear when you get a call, which will answer the call immediately. Once I started using this, it worked quite well. There’s a neat feature that uses the microphone on the Moto Hint to pass sounds around you through the Moto Hint into your ear, so that you’re not deaf on one side However, this takes a pretty significant hit on the battery, so it normally wasn’t worth it to use it for me.
The next aspect of the Moto Hint to learn were voice commands. Now, if you have a Moto X (or really, any phone that has a launch phrase for voice commands when the screen is off), you supposedly can use your custom launch phrase through the Moto Hint in order to give various commands, and really anything that Moto Voice or Google Now can do. However, I was not able to get this to work consistently, and instead found myself just tapping the Moto Hint, which activates Moto Voice, and then giving a command. Really, this isn’t that big of a deal, because tapping the Moto Hint takes all of a second. Still, it’d be nice to be completely hands free, especially while driving.
Probably one of the coolest parts of the Moto Hint is how unnoticeable it is when its in your ear due to its size. Most people didn’t even notice, and when they did, their reactions to it where pretty funny. I can’t tell you how often people tried to tell me I had something in my ear, as though I didn’t know.
Nevertheless, its minimalist design is great. It’s light, and even in its cradle, its easy to stick in your pocket and forget about it. Being able to pick it up and stick it in your ear for almost-instant usage is phenomenal, and the voice prompts always helped guide me in the direction I needed.
Sound Quality
Just because its small, the sound quality of calls on the Moto Hint was no compromise. Every conversation came through loud and clear, and at times was even better than my phone’s earpiece. Every time I asked, people said they could hear me great as well. In terms of sound, the Moto Hint made no significant impressions, but it worked well, which is what I expect of Bluetooth device such as this. In fact, it was good enough that I even tried listening to music and podcasts through it a couple of times, and that worked out well. Obviously it won’t last too long this way, but at least you can listen to something while walking between meetings or classes.
The Moto Hint is a wonderfully designed device whose size makes travel easy and use almost unnoticeable. Setup is easy, usage has a bit of a learning curve, but becomes more natural the more you use it, and sound quality is good. Likely the biggest thing to notice about the Moto Hint is its price tag: $130. So you have to ask yourself the question: is easy control, great design, and small size enough to make you want a Moto Hint?
The post Moto Hint (updated version) Review appeared first on AndroidGuys.
AIVAnet 