‘Resident Evil’ the play is better than I expected
The first Resident Evil games were my favorites. With comically bad dialogue like the now infamous “Jill sandwich” meme, tension built on scare tactics, gore and the thrill of a shotgun blast, simpler was better, or at least more fun. As soon as the franchise started to take itself too seriously, I stopped paying attention. So when Capcom decided to make the video game horror franchise into a stage play, I feared it’d either steer straight into closed-space melodrama (i.e., actors trapped in a room; one has a dark secret) or that it’d simply have little to no relevance to Resident Evil. So, with trepidation, I went to see Biohazard: The Stage (the series’ title here in Japan) when it opened for a limited one-week run right before Halloween. Was I going to be bored to tears? Despite an unnecessarily fashionable Tyrant and a severe lack of blood, I was hooked for all two-and-a-half hours of it. And that even included a pop-dance interlude.
Source: Biohazard The Stage
Watch TAG Heuer unveil its Android smartwatch at 11AM Eastern
After months upon months of hype, Intel and TAG Heuer are finally ready to show their Android Wear smartwatch to the world. The two are hosting a live stream at 11AM Eastern to spill the beans on the Carrera Wearable 01, billed as the first Google-powered luxury watch. We know a handful of details about the wristwear (such as its $1,800 price tag, Intel components and familiar design), but there are still a few things up in the air. Will it really get that vaunted 40-hour battery life? What kind of bands can you choose from? And will the software deliver anything beyond the usual Android Wear experience? We’re on the ground at the event to get the full scoop first-hand, but you can tune in below if you just can’t wait to get details.
Source: TAG Heuer (YouTube)
Xiaomi’s enhanced version of the Redmi 2A gets a price cut in celebration of shipping 10 million units
Xiaomi’s enhanced edition of the Redmi 2A has been a big hit, shipping over 10 million handsets. To celebrate that milestone, the Chinese-based company has cut the price down to a meager $78, which is about the same price as the regular variant of the smartphone.
Xiaomi originally announced this enhanced edition of the Redmi 2A a few months back. For $78, the Chinese-based company has put quite a package in this handset. It’s got a 4.7-inch 720p display, a Leadcore LC1860 quad-core 1.5GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 2MP front camera, and a 2,200mAh battery.
As you can see, the specs look similar to the original version, but this enhanced edition comes with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, whereas the regular model has 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage.
Xiaomi’s enhanced Redmi 2A also supports 4G LTE networks and has a dual-SIM slot, but unfortunately, it seems like it’ll only work on 3G networks in the US. The handset is set to go on sale in China for $78 (about CNY$499) on November 11, the same day Xiaomi has a press event scheduled for. Anyone interested?
source: GizmoChina
Come comment on this article: Xiaomi’s enhanced version of the Redmi 2A gets a price cut in celebration of shipping 10 million units
Samsung’s new Family Square app is a photo bulletin board for the Galaxy View
Samsung’s new Family Square app is the “command center” that wants to keep you connected to your family on the all-new 18.4-inch Galaxy View tablet. The intention of Family Square is to be able to create a bulletin board of photos and share those moments with friends and family.
There’s no telling how popular Family Square will be, as Samsung’s behemoth tablet is only selling at select retailers, and much like the iPad Pro, it’s confusing as to who the Galaxy View is intended for.
To setup Family Square, you’ll need to pair the Galaxy View with a compatible smartphone and create a group within the app. Users will be able to send notifications to family members and friends to download the Family Square app, and by downloading it, those people accept the invitation to your group. Once it’s all setup, you can begin sharing special memories to your group, where your friends and family will be able to see these moments.
It’s a neat little application, but it’s difficult to nail down an audience on who this app is intended for. After all, most people will just send photos over text, email, Facebook, and even show moments off with family and friends at a gathering. With that in mind, you can give Family Square a shot by hitting the download link below, but do keep in mind that this photo bulletin board is restricted to just Samsung devices, making Family Square a very limited app.
Come comment on this article: Samsung’s new Family Square app is a photo bulletin board for the Galaxy View
‘Steve Jobs’ Movie Pulled From Over 2,000 Theaters After Flopping at Box Office
The new Steve Jobs film faced another disappointing box office performance this past weekend, with the Danny Boyle-directed movie dropping more than 69 percent in profit from the previous weekend to a $823,000 weekend gross. Most surprising, however, is the movie’s removal from 2,072 theaters across the country in one single weekend, after initially premiering in 2,411 just over three weeks ago (via Cult of Mac).
When the film was in limited release and preparing to go wide on October 23, the projections for its debut box office weekend were between $15 and $19 million. According to Box Office Mojo, to date, the overall lifetime gross of Steve Jobs is just hitting the projections for its opening weekend: $16,684,073. In the two weeks the movie was in a limited run in Los Angeles and New York, it displayed impressive numbers, earning the fifteenth spot as the highest grossing per-theater average film in movie history.
Unfortunately, when Steve Jobs debuted wide, it earned only the 7th spot at the weekend box office with about a $7.3 million take in its first three days. The disappointment of the film’s performance is in direct contradiction to a bevy of positive reviews, even ones that hinted at Oscar nominations for Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet over a month before the movie released.
Currently, Steve Jobs sits at 85 percent on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, with a total of 156 positive reviews to 27 negative. With the holiday movie season kicking into gear after a slow October at the box office, it seems that Universal has ditched its initial plan of a word-of-mouth build-up for the movie. If Oscar talk continues for its stars, there’s a possibility it could return to a few more theaters closer to the awards show.
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Fallout 4’s Pip-Boy is a glorified smartphone case
“The Pip-Boy is an important part of Fallout and we love it so much we made a real one.” Those words, delivered by game director Todd Howard at developer Bethesda Softworks’ first-ever E3 media briefing this year, triggered cheers around the world. And thus, the Fallout 4 Pip-Boy Edition was born: a $120 special edition peripheral bundled with Fallout 4 that aims to mimic the game’s wrist-bound menu and stat-tracking system. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the premium version of the game proved insanely popular, prompting Bethesda to apologize when it couldn’t make any more units to meet demand. Not bad for a rather awkward looking piece of light brown plastic that sits on your arm and holds your cellphone. But is it actually worth the hype and high price?
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Apple’s iPad Pro goes on sale on November 11th
Two months ago, Apple announced the impending arrival of its gigantopad iPad Pro, but wouldn’t be drawn on when we could actually buy it. After some pushing, a mumbled hint of November was coaxed out of reps, and rumors began to circulate that the device would ship on November 11th. Now the company has confirmed that the rumors were true, and so the first-generation iPad Pro is ready for the big stage as of this Wednesday. For the first 24 hours or so, the device will be an online-only affair, with product reaching stores “later in the week,” which is a euphemism for Apple not knowing if the delivery van will arrive on Thursday or Friday.
MIT’s shape-shifting bot can be a phone, lamp or exoskeleton
MIT’s Media Lab has created LineFORM, a “Shape Changing Interface” that presents new ways for us to interact with technology. LineFORM is a serpentine robot that has the ability to form a number of shapes, mixing flexibility with rigidity. The lab’s Tangible Media Group believes it opens up “new possibilities for display, interaction, and body constraint,” and has demonstrated its potential for all three on video.
Via: Prosthetic Knowledge
Source: MIT Media Lab
‘Enhanced’ Xiaomi Redmi 2A boasts double RAM and ROM
Xiaomi is gearing up to sell an ‘enhanced’ version of its Redmi 2A smartphone, which is heading to China. The handset offers improved hardware at the same ultra-low price point as the original handset, which falls under $80 (RMB 499).
The enhanced model comes with twice the RAM and flash memory space of the regular model. The handset comes with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of ROM, so the phone should run a little smoother and will give consumers extra storage space for apps, etc. Xiaomi’s Lei Jun has previously said that these specifications are the minimum required to give the best user experience.
Other hardware specifications remain unchanged from the regular Redmi 2A. The phone features a 4.7-inch 720p display, a Leadcore LC1860 quad-core SoC, an 8MP rear camera, 2MP front facing shooter, dual-SIM card slots, and a 2,200mAh battery.
The Redmi 2A has been a popular handset for Xiaomi, mostly due to its incredibly low price point and acceptable hardware. Over 10 million units have been sold so far, although Xiaomi is still expected to miss its total smartphone sales target this year. Doubling up on some of the key components should keep the model competitive for the foreseeable future as well.
The enhanced Redmi 2A will be going on sale on November 11th in China. The handset will hopefully appear in other regions in the coming months too.
Opera Max signs up three new OEMs, eyes 100 million installs by 2017
The Opera Max data compression software has become a useful feature packed into some of this year’s lower cost smartphones and Opera has today declared that the company has partnerships with a total of 14 Android handset manufacturers.
We have already seen Opera Max appear in recent handsets from Samsung and Xiaomi, among others, and Opera has just announced three new partners: Acer, Hisense and TWZ. This means that additional handsets with compression support pre-installed should be heading our way soon. As a result, Opera expects that its software will be installed on more than 100 million Android phones by the year 2017.
Opera boasts that its software can save on as much as 50 percent of a user’s data consumption for general browsing, while specific services from the likes of YouTube and Netflix can reach up to a 60 percent saving. If you’re curious about how the system works, Opera Max acts as a server that intercepts unencrypted data traffic, routing it through Opera’s servers where bandwidth-saving compression is applied to images and video, along with website loading optimizations. See the video below for more details.
While not really useful for those with unlimited, high-speed data connections, Opera Max can help consumers with limited data squeeze the most out of their plan, while those with questionable connections can also benefit from lighter, faster loading web pages and videos.
Keep your eyes out for more devices with Opera Max support out of the box in the near future.
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