Google announces the best four apps currently made for Project Tango
Project Tango still isn’t a readily available consumer product, but that hasn’t stopped Google and other developers from continuing to push the platform forward. Google recently ran a contest to pick out the best available apps on Project Tango from each of four categories: best game, best augmented or virtual reality app, best utility, and an overall winner. Today Google has announced which apps have won those awards.
The overall winner was given to WeR Cubed, which utilizes Project Tango’s spatial recognition abilities in a puzzle game. The game is relatively simple where you only have to flip blocks around to make the top colors of each of the blocks match, but a user can walk around the room they’re in with Tango to view different sides of the blocks. Pretty interesting stuff.
Ghostly Mansion scored the best game award, putting the player in a haunted mansion as a ghost searching for clues to their own death. The player has to use Tango to walk around and search the house for those clues in a creepy environment.
InnAR Wars won best augmented reality app, and it also happens to be a game. It turns an room into a simulated outer space environment where two players walk around trying to claim more territory than the other players.
The only non-game winner was for the utility app, which was won by Phi.3D. The app lets you walk around a room so Tango can map out the environment, after which it will create a full 3D model of the room you’re in.
While none of these are market-altering uses of Project Tango’s abilities, it definitely puts the project on the right path towards being an extremely innovative piece of equipment in the future.
source: The Verge
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Apple Campus 2 ‘Spaceship’ Taking Shape as Construction Continues
Heading into November, construction on Apple’s second campus is progressing nicely, with Apple’s construction crews making a lot of headway on the ring-shaped main building. A new aerial video captured by drone pilot Duncan Sinfield and shared with MacRumors gives a close-up view at the current state of the building.
Four internal levels of the primary building have now been completed, and the concept Steve Jobs envisioned for the campus is starting to take shape. When completed, the interior area of the building will feature hundreds of trees and lots of greenery, with outdoor eating and viewing areas for Apple employees.
Two nearby parking structures are now close to being completed, and there’s also been some progress made on the underground auditorium, where Apple will hold major press events. There have been a lot of changes since we last shared an aerial video in September.
When fully complete, the second Apple campus will feature the 2.8 million square foot ring-shaped main building, several parking structures, a 100,000 square foot fitness center, a 120,000 square foot auditorium for hosting events, and a dedicated visitor’s center complete with an observation deck, cafe, and Apple Store. Apple is on track to finish construction at the end of next year.
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Apple Planning International Expansion of ‘Personal Pickup’ Service
Apple is training retail employees in Australia, France, United Kingdom and other countries for the international launch of Personal Pickup, a service that enables customers to place an order on the Apple Online Store or Apple Store app and pick it up at any Apple Retail Store within an hour, according to sources.
Apple is planning to roll out Personal Pickup internationally as early as November, possibly alongside the launch of the iPad Pro, but could push back the plans until later this year or beyond, according to sources. Apple did not immediately respond when reached for comment.
Personal Pickup, which launched exclusively in the U.S. in 2011, is available for a wide range of products including Macs, iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs and the Apple Watch. Apple notifies customers via email or text message when their order is available for in-store pickup, at which point they can pick it up with a valid photo ID.
The global expansion of Personal Pickup is likely another move orchestrated by Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts, as she continues to bridge the gap between Apple’s online and retail store shopping experiences. Apple has opened over 460 retail stores in 18 countries since May 2001, with nearly 200 located outside the U.S.
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Best Buy hopes same-day delivery will fend off Amazon
Online retailers like Amazon are putting the pressure on brick-and-mortar retail spaces by offering cheap and speedy delivery of goods, with same-day — and in some cases one-hour — deliveries to metro areas around the country. In a bid to keep up with the competition, Best Buy is testing a same-day delivery service with the help of delivery service Deliv. Currently being tested in San Francisco, same-day delivery will cost Best Buy customers the same amount as one-day business express shipping. The company is marketing the service to online shoppers as an alternative to its in-store pickup option. It will be interesting to see whether people in San Fransico will continue to collect their goods from a physical store when they can now opt to get it delivered to them — probably as they stream Amazon Prime Video from the comfort of their sofa.
Source: Re/code
Battlezone’s PSVR reboot is the ultimate fan service
It could be argued that Atari’s 1980 arcade classic Battlezone was the first virtual reality game. In a simple duel of tanks, players looked through a small opening in the cabinet to maneuver their lumbering vehicle, firing at a single enemy and avoiding being struck by projectiles. The game’s wireframe design was graphically simplistic, but stenciled in thin green lines on the horizon was a single object that drew the attention of fans: an erupting volcano. Rumors swirled of a secret route that would lead players to the volcano’s crater where a castle lay awaiting brave explorers. “Of course, none of this was true,” Atari engineer Lyle Rains pointed out in Van Burnham’s 2001 book Supercade. But that didn’t stop the dreamers. In one case, a fan even wrote to Atari to tell the company he’d reached the mythical castle.
After decades of speculation, developer Rebellion, best known for the Sniper Elite series, is rebooting Battlezone for Sony’s PlayStation VR and taking players into the heart of the volcano.
Google swears it won’t phase out Chrome OS
That talk of Google merging Android and Chrome OS, effectively killing Chrome OS as you know it? Google would rather that you forget about all that. In a follow-up to its early rebuttal, the search firm acknowledges that it’s working on ways to “bring together” the two platforms, but insists that there’s “no plan to phase out” Chrome OS. The web-focused software is still popular in classrooms and offices, Google says, and there are plans to upgrade it with everything from a more substantial Material Design makeover to a new media player. There are “dozens” of Chromebooks launching in 2016, the company adds.
Source: Google Chrome Blog
Battlezone’s PSVR reboot is the ultimate fan service
It could be argued that Atari’s 1980 arcade classic Battlezone was the first virtual reality game. In a simple duel of tanks, players looked through a small opening in the cabinet to maneuver their lumbering vehicle, firing at a single enemy and avoiding being struck by projectiles. The game’s wireframe design was graphically simplistic, but stenciled in thin green lines on the horizon was a single object that drew the attention of fans: an erupting volcano. Rumors swirled of a secret route that would lead players to the volcano’s crater where a castle lay awaiting brave explorers. “Of course, none of this was true,” Atari engineer Lyle Rains pointed out in Van Burnham’s 2001 book Supercade. But that didn’t stop the dreamers. In one case, a fan even wrote to Atari to tell the company he’d reached the mythical castle.
After decades of speculation, developer Rebellion, best known for the Sniper Elite series, is rebooting Battlezone for Sony’s PlayStation VR and taking players into the heart of the volcano.
A very cool review of the verykool Jet SL5009
A while back I wrote an article about Why low to mid level phones are the “Next Big Thing”. I recently received an entry-level phone from a company named verykool. In this review, we will see if the verykool Jet SL5009 disproves my thesis or corroborates it.
verykool overview
The verykool Jet SL5009 is an inexpensive Android-based smartphone with LTE. One of their claims to fame is their low price point, a 5″ screen, Android 5.1 Lollipop, and the inclusion of both front-facing and rear-facing flashes. The phone also comes with a gel case and screen protector included. Here is the complete list of specs.
- 2G bands GSM 850 / 1900 – SIM 1 & SIM 2
- 3G bands HSDPA 850 / 1700(AWS) / 1900 / 2100
- 4G bands LTE band 2(1900), 4(1700/2100), 5(850), 7(2600), 17(700)
- Dimensions 147 x 72.5 x 8.9 mm (5.79 x 2.85 x 0.35 in)
- Weight 165 g (5.82 oz)
- SIM Dual SIM (Micro-SIM, dual stand-by)
- 5.0 inches IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors (~64.6% screen-to-body ratio)
- Resolution 480 x 854 pixels (~196 PPI pixel density)
- Multitouch (2 fingers only)
- Scratch-resistant glass
- Android 5.1 (Lollipop)
- Mediatek MT6735M
- CPU Quad-core 1.1 GHz Cortex-A7
- MicroSD, up to 64 GB
- Internal 8 GB
- 1 GB RAM
- 8 MP rear-facing camera, 3264 x 2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
- Video 720p@30fps
- 1.3 MP front-facing camera, LED flash
- 3.5mm jack
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot
- Bluetooth v4.0, A2DP, LE
- GPS, with A-GPS
- FM radio
- USB microUSB v2.0
- Li-Ion 1900 mAh battery
verykool usage
Software:
One of the first things that I noticed about the phone is that it runs stock Android 5.1 and there is almost no bloatware whatsoever. In fact, the only bloatware I could find on the phone was the verykool app. It was easy enough to disable, but it tripped me up at first because the app is set to automatically launch at boot. If you don’t get through the initial setup quickly enough, the app will launch before you finish the setup process. You can just use the back button to return to the setup, but as it will launch automatically after every reboot, I recommend disabling the app right away.
Hardware:
The next thing I noticed about the phone was the form factor. The phone is pretty thin. It’s not iPhone thin, but it’s thinner than my LG G3. In every other dimension, it is on par with the G3. One big difference is that the G3 has much smaller bezels and is able to pack a 5.5″ screen in the same space that the SL5009 packs a 5″ screen. However, the phone feels good in your hand and unlike my G3 it doesn’t feel like it’s going to slip out of my hand at any given moment.
Even though the screen’s resolution is only 480 x 854 pixels, I found the clarity and resolution to be quite good. It’s not QHD good, or even 720p good, but I’m reminded that most early Android phones and even the early iPhone’s resolutions were worse than this screen. After using it for a while, I didn’t even notice that it wasn’t HD.
One of the aspects of the phone that I really like is the screen brightness. The screen gets very bright, almost too bright. This makes it super easy to see, even in direct sunlight. I would even venture to say that the screen’s visibility in direct sunlight is among the best in the industry.
The one knock on the screen would be its visibility from an angle. Even though the screen features IPS technology, the image quality decreases when being viewed at an angle. It’s to be expected on a device in this price range.
The speakers sound quality is ok. It’s not great, but it’s not bad either. The biggest advantages that it has is that the speaker is loud, much louder that you would expect a phone in this price range to be. The headset speaker is also pretty good, but it’s lacking VoLTE, so the audio doesn’t get that HD sound like you might expect from a higher end phone.
The headphones that come with the phone, however, are another story. They, like the standard issue headphones of other manufacturers, are bud style headphones, but the quality is subpar at the most. I found that they were uncomfortable to use for any extended period of time and the sound quality was bad too. They had a muffled sound to them and the bass seemed way too exaggerated for bud headphones. There was no problem with sound over Bluetooth.
Another thing that I wasn’t too fond of was the capacitive buttons. The actual contact area was small and if I didn’t get my finger exactly on the button, it wouldn’t register the touch. Also, while the buttons were backlit, they would only turn on when they were touched. When the backlight was not on, the buttons were impossible to see.
While there were no issues with the Bluetooth, I found that the phone was missing one of my favorite features on my previous Android phones, the voice dialer. You can imagine my disappointment when I tried to use my LG Tone headphones to initiate a voice call and nothing happened. Another unintended consequence of this is that while the phone has Android 5.1, the phone does not support Android Auto. I suspect that both issues are related.
The phone also features dual SIM card slots and switch between cards, but as I did not have a second SIM card to test it with, I am unsure of how this will work, or even how it will benefit the average American consumer. If you do a lot of international traveling I can see this being more beneficial.
One downside of the SIM card slots is that they are a pain to take out of the phone. They fit very tight into their respective slots. They are rather difficult to get a grip on.
Performance:
Overall the phone feels very responsive. At times, it did freeze up for a few seconds, but it did not happen very regularly and I was using the phone pretty heavily. I am more of a power user, so the average Joe will probably not run into any problems. However, this is where having a removable battery really comes in handy. Just pop it out and back in and you’re golden.
The phone also performed well with gaming. While the CPU and GPU aren’t going to set any records, the phone’s lower resolution allows for the processor to make the gameplay smooth. I found that it was best to close any other running apps because of the phone’s meager 1GB of RAM. The games that I tried were Asphalt 8 and Fallout Shelter. Both performed very well. The only knock being that they seemed to take a little longer to load. Once the game was loaded the gameplay was very smooth. I was also able to use a gamepad with the phone while playing Asphalt 8 with the higher graphics, without any hiccups.
The phone’s 8 GB of storage will limit how many games you can actually install, but the phone does support moving some of your apps to the micro SD card, but even so, you will still run out of space fairly quickly when installing games and other large apps.
Although the battery is only 1,900 mAh, the battery life isn’t too bad. Under light use, I could make through the whole day on a single charge. Using it heavily will cause the battery to drain more quickly and you’ll need to put it on a charger to make it throughout the day. I tried downloading a battery saving app, but the verykool Jet’s memory management is so aggressive with it’s 1 GB of RAM, that the battery saver app wasn’t able to do anything.
verykool benchmarks
As you can see from the benchmarks below, the verykool Jet SL5009 isn’t too shabby for an entry-level phone. It comes in performing slightly above Samsung’s flagship model from 2012, the Galaxy S III.
verykool camera
The camera isn’t too shabby either. The 8mp rear-facing camera performs pretty well in sunlight but falls short in low-light conditions. The flash is essential in low light photography.
Speaking of flashes, you may have noticed from the overview section that the camera has a front facing flash. Unfortunately, that flash is paired with a sub-par 1.3 MP camera. The flash merely illuminates the subject enough to make out the features and the picture comes out looking grainy and overexposed.
Take a look at the gallery below for some examples.
3.44 out of 5 stars
Overall, this is a great entry level phone and it proves that you don’t need to spend $600 + to get a good phone. It won’t compete with or even compare to the big budget flagship models, but if you’re on a budget and you want a phone with a decent sized screen, then this is a great option for you.
To me, this is the ideal phone to get your kid. It’s big enough and verykool enough to keep the other kids from making fun of them, but not too expensive to replace, when they drop it or throw it during a temper tantrum.
So what are you waiting for? Head over to Amazon to get yours.
The post A very cool review of the verykool Jet SL5009 appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Sprint becomes first carrier to allow roaming in Cuba
Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure signed a “direct roaming agreement” today that will allow customers to travel to Cuba and use their phones just as they do in the United States. This makes Sprint the very first U.S. carrier to allow roaming in Cuba. The carrier was able to reach an agreement by working with the United States-Cuba Business Council.
Claure had the following to say about the agreement:
“As the commercial relationship between the U.S. and Cuba continues progress, it is expected that the number of travelers to Cuba will increase exponentially. We want to make sure any Sprint customer traveling to Cuba can use their phone the same way as they do in the United States.”
And Sprint’s head honcho is correct in saying that more people plan to visit Cuba. Research suggests that the number of people visiting Cuba will increase to 5 million people (from 3 million) within ten years.
Although the carrier has yet to announce pricing for roaming in Cuba, Sprint already has its Open World add-on that gives customers access to its network in select countries around the world.
Sprint First U.S. Carrier to Sign Direct Cuba Roaming Agreement
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (BUSINESS WIRE), November 02, 2015 – Sprint (NYSE: S) today became the first U.S. wireless carrier to sign a direct roaming agreement with Telecommunications Company of Cuba (ETECSA).
“As the commercial relationship between the U.S. and Cuba continues to progress, it is expected that the number of travelers to Cuba will increase exponentially,” said Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure. “We want to make sure any Sprint customer traveling to Cuba can use their phone the same way as they do in the United States.”
Claure made the announcement at a signing ceremony in Havana as part of the U.S.-Cuba Business Council (USCBC) delegation to Cuba.
As the only U.S. carrier with a direct roaming agreement and a direct long-distance interconnection agreement with Cuban provider ETECSA, Sprint is leading the way for U.S.-Cuba telecommunications.
More than 3 million people from around the world are expected to visit Cuba this year. Within 10 years, that number is projected to grow to more than 5 million.
The USCBC, an advocacy organization housed at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is a formal commitment by the American business community to build a strong and strategic commercial relationship between Cuba and the United States.
Earlier this year, Sprint launched Sprint Global Roaming and in August launched Sprint Open World, an industry-leading plan for connectivity in Canada, Mexico and most other countries across Latin America. The agreement signed today with ETECSA makes it much more convenient for Sprint customers who plan to work, study or visit family in Cuba. Offer details and timing of availability will be announced soon.
About Sprint
Sprint (NYSE: S) is a communications services company that creates more and better ways to connect its customers to the things they care about most. Sprint served more than 57 million connections as of June 30, 2015, and is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including the first wireless 4G service from a national carrier in the United States; leading no-contract brands including Virgin Mobile USA, Boost Mobile, and Assurance Wireless; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. Sprint has been named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) North America for the past five years. You can learn more and visit Sprint at www.sprint.com or www.facebook.com/sprint and www.twitter.com/sprint.
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AT&T will carry the BlackBerry Priv on November 6th for $249
If you’ve been looking out for official carrier availability for the BlackBerry Priv, AT&T has announced that they’ll be the first carrier to sell BlackBerry’s first Android device. The Priv will be available on November 6th, which is only a few days off.
You can pick up a Priv on AT&T’s Next installment plans, or pay $249 on a two-year contract, reflecting that relatively high $699 price that BlackBerry is asking for the phone.
History really does repeat itself, especially when it comes to AT&T and BlackBerry. AT&T was the first carrier to sell a BlackBerry back in 1999, and they’ve had a pretty strong relationship ever since. AT&T sold the first GSM-enabled BlackBerry and exclusively sold the BlackBerry Torch, and even with BlackBerry’s last attempt at selling a device (the Z10) AT&T was the first carrier to sell that, too. Maybe that’s a good sign for BlackBerry going forward.
source: AT&T
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AIVAnet 