O2 Priority will give away 25,000 Star Wars themed Mini-Buddy speakers from November 5
While we wait with bated breath for December 17 to come around so we can finally see what JJ Abrams has achieved with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the merchandising campaign is well under way. While much of the associated merchandising will cost a pretty penny (the cynic in me understands why the film is being released in the holiday season), UK carrier, O2, has decided to give away 25,000 Star Wars themed Mini Buddy speakers via its Priority app from November 5.
All you have to do to claim one is turn up at your nearest O2 shop and show one of the staff the unique code which is received when accepting the offer via the Priority app. Naturally, there are a couple of conditions, the main one being that you must be an O2 customer with the Priority app installed on your device, there’s a policy of one speaker per customer, and once the speakers are gone, they are gone, never to return.
The Star Wars themed Mini-Buddy speaker giveaway will run from 5-15 November and will likely go out of stock pretty quickly, so it’s advisable to claim yours sooner rather than later to avoid disappointment. Why we wait for both the film to launch and the giveaway to begin, you can check out Brad’s review of the Star Wars: Uprising.
Source: O2 Priority
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HTC won’t talk about its own future any more
A few months ago, we suggested that HTC could be the first really big Android manufacturer to go to the wall. In the wake of the firm’s most recent update on its financial health, we’re not really able to say anything different. The firm has posted a $138.6 million loss for the last three months, which is better than the $265 million it ate in the previous quarter, but still a loss. That may not, however, be the most troubling issue for the firm since, during its investors call, it announced that it would no longer publish guidance on its future performance.
Source: HTC (.PDF)
LG V10 to start shipping in China, Hong Kong and the United States this week
LG has announced that its latest smartphone, the V10, will start shipping in China, Hong Kong and the United States this week. The handset will then make its way to “key markets” in Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America and the Middle East.
Over in the US, AT&T, T-Mobile and Big Red will be carrying the V10. The former operator has already started accepting pre-orders of the device and is believed to start shipping units from its warehouse later today, whilst the other two carriers are expected to kick off sales sometime next week.
Source: LG
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London police arrest second teenager over TalkTalk data breach
The hack which exposed millions of TalkTalk customer account details may have been orchestrated by more than one individual. Following the arrest of a 15-year-old boy on Monday, Metropolitan Police today confirmed that a second individual has been apprehended in connection with the case. A 16-year-old boy was cuffed on Thursday at an address in Feltham, London, by detectives from the Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unit. The property was searched and the teenager has since been released on bail. In a statement, officers confirmed that a second property in Liverpool has also been examined, although it’s unclear how this relates to the overall investigation.
Source: Metropolitan Police
Seattle Police’s hacker leaves the force
The hacker who helped the Seattle police department work on its transparency has left the force. Tim Clemans will no longer be developing auto-blurring software for dash-and-body cameras at the department due to what sounds like some politics between himself and leadership. It’s something that Clemans actually predicted, according to The Stranger. The problems apparently started gestating as recently as August when one of the department’s captains made a complaint that any and all changes to the 911 dispatch center needed his approval before being implemented. You see, Clemans developed an app that would highlight the most serious emergency calls automatically — something the captain felt usurped his power despite it making dispatchers’ jobs easier. Other staff members voiced their support saying Clemans had done “a tremendous job” with his work, lamenting his departure.
Source: The Stranger
This guy got Super Mario 64 running on Android Wear
Back in 1994, I had a Starfox wristwatch that made me, inarguably, the coolest kid in first grade.
Sure, the little buttons were hard to press. And yes, the tiny screen made it impossible to tell what was going on. And perhaps it’s true that Mrs. Graham sent me home with a note that said “John struggles to pay attention as it is, so giving him gadgets to bring to school only exacerbates the problem.”
Nevertheless, I was a hit on the playground. (Or at least I got hit on the playground. Being a geek wasn’t as easy in the 90’s.)
Technology sure has come a long way. Today, Youtuber Hacking Jules released a video showcasing his ability to run Super Mario 64 and the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on an LG G Watch.
Sure, the buttons look hard to press. And yes, the tiny screen makes it impossible to tell what’s going on. And maybe it’s true that Mrs. Graham would be no more thrilled to see this in her classroom than she was to bear witness to my mighty Starfox watch.
But still, you’ve gotta admit it’s pretty damn cool.
The N64 emulator actually looks pretty workable. The framerate seems to chug pretty frequently, but I’ve seen people have a worse time in Minecraft and just deal with it. A physical controller seems like it would free up a lot of the screen and increase playability too.
What are your thoughts? Technological breakthrough worthy of Mrs. Graham’s appreciation or total waste of time and computing power?
Sprint’s shameless “unlimited” plan shoves users to 2G network after 1GB of data
Sprint is offering a new plan they’re calling an “unlimited data plan” for only $20 a month. Unlimited data plans have long been the holy grail of power users, some of which found themselves buying phones outright to keep their grandfathered plan rather than sign a new contract. However, Sprint isn’t using this word the way it’s universally understood.
Sprint’s shady little plan offers a paltry 1GB of LTE data, after which subscribers are shoved down onto 2G networks. That’s right: the mobile equivalent of the 28k modem. A technology so antiquated that it’s expected to be shut down completely sometime in the next two years to make room on the electromagnetic spectrum for services that are actually useable.
The desperate mobile carrier isn’t the first to offer low-cost, low-service plans like this – T-Mobile, for instance, has an almost identical one they call “Simple Choice” -but they are the first carrier to try to spin this bug into a feature by using blatantly misleading language.
As mentioned previously, the data portion of the plan is only $20 a month, but you’re going to fork over another $20 for unlimited calls and texting. That brings this godawful plan to $40. If you want to stay on LTE rather than bump down to 2G, Sprint’s offering 1GB chunks at $15 a pop. This means if you’re the kind of user who actually needs real unlimited data, by the time you hit 3GB, you might as well have just sprung for Sprint’s actual unlimited plan which runs for $70 a month.
The grungiest thing about all this is how deliberately misinforming it is. If Sprint sets a precedent and is able to start calling an extremely limited plan “unlimited” by just kicking you over to dial-up once you pass a threshold, mobile companies may start throwing around loose language all over the place.
What do you think of this development? Is it fair for Sprint to call this plan unlimited since it is technically unlimited, or is this a case of false advertising?
Video games are pretty lazy in their portrayal of PTSD
It’s reported that one in three troops returning home from war are being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress symptoms. If you look at video games, those numbers are probably exponentially higher considering the events characters endure while saving the (virtual) world. But games aren’t exactly known for being particularly subtle, and that’s what the latest episode of Low Batteries from Eurogamer is all about. The clip examines Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Spec Ops: The Line, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and a few others. The findings? Sadly, games use PTSD as short-hand to fill in character backstory or motivations and sometimes are pretty lazy about it.
Via: (2)
Source: Eurogamer (YouTube) (1)
Tor Messenger makes chatting off the record easier
Tor has finally released a beta version of the cross-platform chat program it’s been working on for quite a while. The client works with several chat services/protocols such as Jabber, IRC, Google Talk, Facebook Chat, Twitter and Yahoo, but its main draw is definitely the privacy features Tor is famous for. It uses Off-the-Record (OTR) protocol to encrypt your IMs, which pass through Tor’s network of volunteer computers for security and anonymity. According to Wired, it even has chat logging disabled as a default setting. “With Tor Messenger, your chat is encrypted and anonymous… so it is hidden from snoops, whether they are the government of a foreign country or a company trying to sell you boots,” Kate Krauss, the company’s public policy director, told the publication.
Via: TheNextWeb
Source: Tor
Sony sees profit in Q2 2015, but not from smartphones
Things have been tough for Sony this last decade or so, with their once-towering stock ($150 a share in 2000) bottoming out at $9.75 in 2012. Since then, the Japanese company has been on the move to adopt a new corporate identity and remain competitive in the global market. As of the close of second quarter 2015, things might be looking up. Their stock has risen 35.6% in 2015, and the company has reported a narrow profit of $280 million.
In addition to changes in corporate policy that involve extensive restructuring and trimming, this boost is due in part to a recent drop in the value of the Yen (which has made Sony more globally competitive) and the ongoing success of the PS4. Advantageous exchange rates and a profit of $199 million from their game-related subdivision constitute the vast majority of this profitable season.
However, these boons don’t quite offset the billions of dollars they’ve lost in the television market against less expensive competitors from Taiwan and South Korea since 2005. Sony’s mobile division is still having a hard go of it as well, reporting a “significant decrease” in smartphone unit sales over the second quarter of 2015. Their smart phone business dropped 15%, a $172 million loss.
On a smaller scale, this drop seems like bad news, but when you compare it to the $1.58 billion Sony Mobile lost in the second quarter of 2014… it’s really not so bad. Sony Mobile has a long way to go before it’s in the black, but it has also come a long way as well.
Sony is choosing to de-emphasize these less-than-profitable endeavors, and they’re focusing on those areas of business that are seeing good returns. Their ongoing sale of camera components and semiconductors to bigger mobile players like Apple and Samsung, for instance, continues to be on the rise.
As it stands, Sony is still struggling to get back on their feet, but things are looking brighter. It seems they have the PS4 to thank for that, however, not their mobile devices.
AIVAnet 