T-Mobile publishes Super Bowl 50 ad to YouTube featuring Drake and “Hotling Bling”
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T-Mobile published the ad it will be airing during the Super Bowl to YouTube today, further following T-Mobile’s agenda that “carrier’s ruin everything.”
The Un-carrier earlier released a teaser for this ad, citing that carrier’s will hate the ad they plan on airing during Game Day.
In the ad, Drake is seen performing his hit song “Hotline Bling,” where he is then interrupted, and asked to implement specific marketing terms into the ad. One lady in the ad asks Drake to add “device eligible for upgrade after 24 months” after he sings the line “call me on my cellphone.” He’s given other marketing terms to add to his song, where he jokingly says “these changes don’t ruin the song at all!”
It’s an entertaining ad that subtlety grabs your attentions with Drake’s “Hotline Bling” and advertises its free music streaming at the end.
The ad will air live on Sunday, February 7, during Super Bowl 50, which starts at 5:30pm Central on CBS.
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Apple’s iPad Air 3 and ‘iPhone 5se’ Event May Take Place March 15
Apple’s next media event, where it is rumored to announce updates across three product categories, is tentatively planned for Tuesday, March 15, according to 9to5Mac. The date could change over the next six weeks.
As the scheduled event is still a month-and-a-half away, the date could conceivably still shift or turn into an online announcement. The media event would be Apple’s first since September, and much like the fall event, is planned to touch on three major product categories for the company.
At the media event, its first since September, Apple CEO Tim Cook and other executives are expected to introduce the new 4-inch “iPhone 5se” and iPad Air 3, alongside minor Apple Watch updates, including new bands.
Apple’s new 4-inch iPhone is rumored to feature an A9 chip with M9 motion coprocessor, 1,624 mAh battery, 1GB of RAM, Bluetooth 4.2, Apple Pay, VoLTE, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and 16GB and 64GB storage models, but 3D Touch appears unlikely.
The so-called “iPhone 5se” will reportedly ship in late March or early April, and will likely replace the iPhone 5s. Apple’s smartphone lineup come September is expected to be the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, and iPhone 5se.
Details surrounding the iPad Air 3 are less clear, but leaked design drawings and aftermarket cases suggest the new 9.7-inch tablet could have a rear-facing LED camera flash, Smart Connector, and four speakers like the iPad Pro.
Taiwanese website DigiTimes also said the iPad Air 3 will have a high-resolution 4K display and up to 4GB of RAM, but the report is questionable due to the publication’s mixed track record at reporting on Apple’s upcoming product plans.
Last, earlier rumors suggested an “Apple Watch 2” could debut around March, but the wrist-worn device will likely only receive minor updates, including new bands and possibly a FaceTime camera, at next month’s purported media event.
Buyer’s Guide: iPad Air (Don’t Buy), Apple Watch (Neutral)
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Nintendo Confirms Second Mobile Game Will Be Focused on a ‘Familiar’ Character
Nintendo today gave new hints regarding its mobile game plans, which will see the gaming giant release five games in total before March 2017 in a partnership with developer DeNA. During a quarterly profit meeting, the gaming company confirmed that its second mobile experience will be built around one of its popular and established characters, but no word was given specifically on which Nintendo franchise that would be (via The Wall Street Journal).
“The second game won’t be another communication app, and we plan to adopt one of our characters that fans are very familiar with,” Nintendo CEO Tatsumi Kimishima said.
In October, Nintendo revealed details about the first game to be released from its DeNA partnership, an app called “Miitomo” that will focus on social network-like interactions with the company’s customizable Mii avatars. Miitomo will be a free-to-play experience, but the company has said that subsequent games will be pay-to-download games.
The partnership with DeNA was announced in March of 2015, with initial expectations suggesting the first official Nintendo-published mobile game to be released before the end of 2015. Nintendo decided to push back Miitomo’s launch to better explain what the app is and earn the mobile game a better promotional push. Miitomo is expected to launch sometime in March, and there was no time window given for the company’s second game.
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‘Knights and Bikes’ is a charming co-op game set in ’80s Britain
Every so often we’ll spot a game in the bowels of Kickstarter which, despite all of the problems associated with crowdfunding, grabs our attention and won’t let go. Knights and Bikes is one of those projects because, well, just look at the screenshots. Everything about it is just adorably British. Conceived by Rex Crowle and Moo Yu, two fellows from LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule, the pitch promises a co-op adventure about two friends on an island near Cornwall. Set in the late 1980s, they’re tasked with saving their quaint town from spooky spirits and financial ruin. Think The Goonies, with a sprinkling of Earthbound and Secret of Mana.
The art style looks top-notch and the island, filled with rickety old caravans, mobile libraries and sweet stores, does a good job of evoking the time and place. In the game you’ll be pedalling around on your trusty bike, helping villagers and battling through “dungeons” with an assortment of crazy weapons, such as frisbees, wellington boots and power gloves. Completing quests and collecting treasure will help you acquire new abilities, such as bike upgrades (the saddle of command! Spoke trinkets!) that will help you explore more of the island and its mysteries.
Crowle was the creative lead on Tearaway and a key artist for the LittleBigPlanet franchise. Yu, meanwhile, was a lead gameplay programmer for Sackboy’s adventures and the Insomniac title Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction. Despite their combined experience, there’s no guarantee the game will materialize. That’s the way with all Kickstarters and, looking back on previous failures and delays, we wouldn’t blame you for being skeptical. Still, if you want to support the pair, you can back the project right now and help it towards its £100,000 goal.
Via: Kotaku
Source: Knights and Bikes (Kickstarter)
ICYMI: Animal vs. drone, 3D-printed living bone and more
Today on In Case You Missed It: Dutch police are training eagles to attack drones in areas deemed off-limits while simultaneously being way more rad than other antidrone solutions that use nets.
A US-based company is testing a way to grow bones with stem cells and a 3D printer. The idea is that at first it could be used for smaller bones, for example if someone broke a cheekbone and needed surgery to repair it.
Japan is showing off a prototype for a new stealth fighter plane to replace the country’s aging F-2 fighter jets.
You can find the video from BeyondSlowMotion here, and as always, please share any interesting science or tech videos, anytime! Just tweet us with the #ICYMI hashtag to @mskerryd.
Cast your vote for March’s free PlayStation 4 indie game
With the Iowa caucuses behind us, it’s understandable if you want to make your voice heard again before this November. Well, PlayStation has your back because Vote to Play is making a return. Starting February 9th, you can once again vote for which of three indie game candidates will be a free PS Plus download for March. The program’s been on hiatus since August for whatever reason, but this month’s crop looks pretty solid.
First up we have Action Henk, a charming 2D platformer/racing game of sorts that looks like it’s set in Andy’s room from Toy Story and has you careening around Hot Wheels tracks and butt-sliding over building blocks. It’s a little reminiscent of Joe Danger, if you ask me.
Then there’s Assault Android Cactus which is a fast-paced twin-stick shooter at its core (think Geometry Wars or Everyday Shooter), with a cast of doe-eyed lady androids and support for four local co-op players. Or! in a strange twist of a publisher or developer not blocking the futuristic feature, Cactus supports Shareplay seeing as the game doesn’t have native online co-op.
Lastly, BroForce (pictured above) is an over-the-top ’80s action flick (think Rambo or any of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s repertoire from that era) packed into a pixelated 2D shooter of yore. Because we all know that Contra could’ve been a little better with some self-referential jabs and maybe a few less cheap deaths.
Unlike political elections, this isn’t so much of a “lesser of the evils” situation as it is actually, you know, picking the candidate that’s genuinely the best one for you.
Source: PlayStation Blog
Keep your data encrypted and private with a Lifetime Subscription to ZenMate VPN
Let’s say you’re hanging out at your local Starbucks, using their free Wi-Fi. You come across something you want to purchase, so you input your credit card information, and get yourself something awesome. A few days later, you look at your bank statement, and realize that there’s quite a few more charges on there, and at places you’ve never been to or heard of. Unless, you just handed over your credit card info to someone, the chances are that your information was stolen.
There are ways to avoid this enormous inconvenience and headache, while still being able to hang out at your local coffee shop. That’s where a Virtual Private Network comes into play. Over the last few weeks, AndroidGuys has taken a look at what a VPN is and how it works, and have even reviewed a VPN application to give everyone a taste about how these services work.
For those that haven’t already checked out the great posts about VPN’s, and don’t even know what one is, here’s a little blurb from the informational post by Jason Botha here at AndroidGuys:
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a type of connection that “burrows” a tunnel through all this unwanted infrastructure and provides an almost direct encrypted connection between you and the Internet. It can completely bypass that annoying firewall, prevent that cafe hacker from stealing your personal data and give a false location on where you are.
So now that you have a better idea about what a VPN is, you’ll need to know about some of the services that provide a VPN. The service that we are looking at today is ZenMate VPN. With a Lifetime Subscription to ZenMate VPN you will be able to keep your information private, have three devices connected at the same time, and have a VPN service that works across multiple platforms.
- Encrypts your browser traffic to safeguard your data
- Includes a browser extension to easily switch locations
- Protects you & your data while using public Wi-Fi hotspots (or at home!)
- Unblocks restricted sites like streaming services, news publications & social media
- Unblocks restricted YouTube videos
- Hides your IP by changing your location
- Secures all your devices w/ desktop clients & mobile apps
- Choose from 11 countries: Germany, Romania, Hong Kong, United States, France, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Canada, Singapore, Netherlands & Spain
- Browse swiftly w/ turbo-speed Internet connections
- Block malicious sites
Not very many VPN services offer Lifetime Subscriptions, but ZenMate VPN still has this option available. If you want to learn more about ZenMate VPN, just head over to their website, and check them out. In the meantime, if you’ve liked what you’ve read about ZenMate VPN, head over to the AndroidGuys Deals page and sign up for only $49.99. Normally, a lifetime subscription to ZenMate VPN would run you about $840, but with this deal, you’ll save over 90%.
As for VPN’s themselves, if you have any questions, feel free to drop us a line below and we’ll be more than happy to help guide in the right direction.
You can find this, and many other great tech bargains through our Deals page. Backed by StackCommerce, there are daily promos, giveaways, freebies, and much more!
AndroidGuys Deals: ZenMate VPN: Lifetime Subscription
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Apple Patents Hover-Sensing Multi-Touch Display for Macs and iPhones
The United States Patent and Trademark Office today published a patent filed by Apple last March, which details how inline proximity sensors could be used in tandem with a touchscreen display to detect non-contact hover gestures (via AppleInsider).
The patent, titled “Proximity and multi-touch sensor detection and demodulation”, reveals how photodiodes or other proximity hardware work in parallel with traditional multitouch displays to extend user interaction beyond the screen surface.
One embodiment of the patent describes a capacitive sensing element, using a range of proximity sensors and an LCD display, that would let users deploy gestures above a traditional keyboard, resulting in a “virtual keyboard”.
With multiple proximity arrays deployed on every touch sensor or pixel of the panel, the system can detect a finger, palm or other object hovering over the display surface. The detected motion is then translated to a GUI by which users can “push” virtual buttons, trigger functions without physical touch, toggle power to devices and more.
Various configurations of the technology are outlined in the patent, including one which describes a MacBook featuring assistive hover-sensing displays that augment typing and trackpad input.
As with any filed patent, the technology is unlikely to appear in any product soon, if at all, especially given that Apple only recently introduced 3D Touch support and is still actively encouraging app developers to make more use of the feature.
Apple has expressed interest in non-contact user interfacing and motion control for some time. In 2013, for example, the company acquired PrimeSense, the firm responsible for the original technology used by Microsoft for its Kinect platform.
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WhatsApp now has a billion monthly active users (and so does Gmail)
It wasn’t all that long ago – March 2015 in fact – that WhatsApp crossed the one billion install threshold on Google Play. Fast forward 10 months to now and the world’s most popular messaging service has just announced it has one billion monthly active users. Installs are one thing, but active users are the holy grail for demonstrating popularity.
Speaking of popularity, Alphabet also announced it has one billion active monthly users of its Gmail service at the exact same time as WhatsApp. If you want to get competitive about it, Alphabet’s earnings call actually dropped the news first, with WhatsApp’s post appearing a few moments later. Needless to say, both services deserve a pat on the back.
See also: 10 best messenger apps for Android
If you want to continue the competitive angle, Gmail hit the billion installs mark in May 2014, that’s 20 months ago, or double the amount of time it took WhatsApp to convert downloads into monthly active users. It sometimes feels like everyone is using Gmail and WhatsApp, but this rapid uptake shows there is still plenty of room for growth, even when a seventh of the world’s population is already using your product on the regular.
Motorola deals on Moto X Pure Edition, Moto 360 and more
To get in early on Valentine’s Day celebrations, Motorola, in keeping with its recent “relationship” marketing angle, is offering up some special deals on the Moto X Pure Edition, Moto 360 and Moto G. So if the only way you know how to say “I love you” is with consumer products, there are a couple of nice sweetheart deals on offer.
The biggest and best of the three deals s a $75 discount on the Jonathan Adler-designed Moto X Pure Edition, down to just $399.99. When you purchase a Moto 360 (2nd generation) with a metal band you’ll also score a free leather band. The last offer is on the 2015 Moto G (3rd generation), where you’ll pick up an extra pair of colored shells.
All the Valentine’s Day offers from Motorola are valid from now until 10:59 AM CT on February 16. The bonus items or discounts will be automatically applied at the checkout without the need for a discount code. What will you be buying for your Valentine this year?
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