‘TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan’ kicks some shell on May 24th

If you’re a fan of Raphael, Donatello, Leonardo and Michelangelo — the heroic green Turtles that is, not the artists — we’ve got some good news for you. The upcoming Mutants in Manhattan game from Bayonetta developer Platinum has a release date now and a fresh trailer showing off some of the gang’s high-octane battles. The action brawler will be available digitally and physically on May 24th — just before TMNT 2 hits theaters — and promises a stylised blend of cel-shaded graphics and lightning fast combat.

The new trailer is fairly similar to the first, building on a few of the key moments we saw between the Turtles and their iconic enemies, including Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady. A few story cinematics give you a flavour of the voice work, before giving way to some gorgeous glimpses of the game’s boss battles. There are plenty of moves that have the Turtles teaming up and combining their ninja skills, which appear to be both crucial to success and plain old fun to perform during online co-op.

Source: IGN

AirJamz is a wristband that turns air guitar into wear guitar

The tagline reads: “AirJamz is the wearable Air Guitar that you have to see to believe.” To be fair, you probably can believe it, especially if you’re familiar with Zivix. The company is best known for Jamstik, a small wireless guitar that helps you learn to shred, or play more than just axe-sounds, with your iPhone and iPad. AirJamz is for those that want to forego the whole playing part altogether, and just pretend they’re slaying. Imagine Guitar Hero boiled down into a $50 wristband with an accelerometer and an app that “plays” guitar if you strum along in time and you’ve basically got it. We got to see it in action at SXSW, demoed by some of the world’s finest fictional fretboard aficionados.

The technology is about as simple as it is to use. The cuff looks a lot like a watch or fitness tracker, with a single button on it. Pair AirJamz with your iOS or Android device, and load up the companion app, and you’re basically good to go. Choose a song from the list on offer (no details on how many, or what songs, just yet), and strum along in time to keep the guitar part playing. You can also sound use AirJamz to trigger sound effects, and multiple users can (air) jam along together, so you can create your very own (air) band.

As for the demo, well it made the point of it pretty clear. Four air guitar “experts” took turns to rock out in front of the well-oiled SXSW audience, giving it everything they had. Wrists shaking up and down at an intense rate, complete with exaggerated rock-star posturing. It’s basically karaoke for metal-loving beer fans. It’s a little goofy, sure, but clearly just a bit of fun. The $50 price tag is low enough to make this the ideal novelty gift for that failed guitarist in your life, but you can pick it up on Kickstarter on March 29th and save yourself a little (not Johnny) cash.

Source: Air-Jamz

Whatsapp encrypted voice chat is reportedly coming soon

While much of the tech community has already come out in support of Apple over its ongoing encryption battle with the FBI, you can also expect the conversation to lead to even more secure products. Whatsapp, which has been offering end-to-end encryption for text chats since 2014, plans to encrypt voice chats in the “coming weeks,” The Guardian reports. The company might also start marketing its secure capabilities more, something that it’s downplayed in the past.

The news comes on the heels of Brazil’s detention of a Facebook VP, who was held after failing to give up Whatsapp messaging data. Since the app, which is owned by Facebook, encrypts text messages completely between the sender and recipient, it has no records to give to authorities. Brazil also shut down access to Whatsapp back in December, reportedly over similar security concerns. The addition of encrypted voice chat, while a boon for users, could make Whatsapp an even more problematic app in Brazil and other countries where authorities demand access to consumer data.

The Guardian also notes that Google, Facebook and Snapchat have other encryption-related products in the works, but details are light at the moment. Google’s VP of security says it’s focusing more on encryption — we might see something similar to the End to End Chrome add-on soon. And while this is just speculation, I also wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook takes a few notes from Whatsapp and works towards bundling encryption into chats.

Source: The Guardian

Microsoft Updates iOS Outlook App With Security-Enhanced Touch ID Support

Microsoft recently updated the iOS version of its email client Outlook [Direct Link] with the ability for users to enable Touch ID when accessing the app. Outlook is the first of the major email apps on iOS — including Gmail and Apple’s own stock Mail app — to support the fingerprint security features of Touch ID.

To set up Touch ID in Outlook, navigate to the “Settings” tab within the app, and then toggle on “Require Touch ID.” In addition to basic email features, Outlook provides a calendar feature and the ability to send and view documents via sharing apps like OneDrive and Dropbox, without having to actually leave the app. All of these features can now be guarded by Touch ID as well.

You can now protect your inbox with Touch ID and get the privacy you deserve. Keep your messages away from prying eyes by requiring your fingerprint or device passcode in order to access your Outlook account. To enable Touch ID, take a look at the app Settings under Preferences. (iOS 9 users) Your inbox – and dare we say it, the world – is now at your fingertips.

For anyone looking to switch to Outlook to try out the Touch ID enhancement, the Microsoft app does support other email services including Yahoo! Mail, iCloud, and Gmail. Other basic updates in version 2.2.2 of the app introduce profile photos of event attendees in agenda view and a shortcut in the day and 3-day view that lets users create a new event by simply tapping and holding.

Microsoft Outlook is available for free from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Tag: Microsoft Outlook
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Autonomous cars to hit UK roads in 2017, says government

Driverless cars are set to make a huge impact on the UK roads as soon as next year. According to chancellor George Osborne the UK will push ahead with the technology soon.

Speaking to The Guardian, Osborne revealed some of what he will be announcing at his budget delivery this Wednesday. One way in which he plans to push the UK, to help boost the economy, is self-driving cars.

He said: “Driverless cars could represent the most fundamental change to transport since the invention of the internal combustion engine. Naturally, we need to ensure safety, and that’s what the trials we are introducing will test.”

Some road lanes may be closed in order to allow trials to take place.

Work is already underway in preparation for trials on roads in Bristol, Coventry, Milton Keynes and Greenwich. There are also plans for a “connected corridor” between London and Dover. This should allow the freight route to offer a communications network that can be tapped into.

Nissan has said it will make its first mass-market autonomous cars at its UK plant in Sunderland. Jaguar Land Rover has said it will begin self-driving car testing on the West Midland roads as soon as later this year.

READ: Google is testing wireless charging for self-driving cars

Philips’ latest Hue lights help you sleep

Philips has smart Hue light bulbs that produce flashy colors, but what about bulbs that change just enough to give you a good night’s rest? You’re set after today. The lighting firm is trotting out Hue white ambiance lights that offer color temperatures which mimic natural light, helping you sleep naturally. Combined with new “routines” in an upcoming version of the Hue app, they can shift gradually to reflect day and night cycles — a sleep mode can use dimming light to replicate the sunset, for example, while “wake up” brightens the area. There’s even a nightlight mode to help kids get back to sleep after wandering the hallway. Logically, the new Hue offering should also be useful for creating different moods. You could have cool, crisp lighting in a workspace, or warmer temperatures in the living room.

The Dutch firm hasn’t mentioned prices yet, but it’ll offer individual bulbs, integrated lighting (such as lamps) and a starter kit that includes two bulbs, a HomeKit-friendly controller and a dimmer switch. The white ambiance bulbs will arrive sometime this spring, and the integrated lights should be ready in the fall. Philips is relatively late to smart lighting like this, but the launch is still good news if you’ve had a hard time finding pseudo-natural lighting in stores.

Source: Philips

ICYMI: Drawing bot, 3M’s future plan and an orb with a soul

Today on In Case You Missed It: Artist Sougwen Chung creates art with help from a robotic arm, take a tour of 3M’s exhibit, which visualizes the challenges the earth will face by 2050 and finally, bask in the glow of a large orb with AI that changes its display depending on what the humans around it are doing.

There will be one more SXSW-dedicated ICYMI episodes this week, but we’ll be back on Thursday from the studio. As always, please share any interesting science or tech videos, anytime! Just tweet us with the #ICYMI hashtag to @mskerryd.

Microsoft wants you to train AI with ‘Minecraft’

AI has mastered the complex game Go, and if you’re willing to teach the machines to beat you at Minecraft, too, Microsoft wants your help. Researchers from Project AIX want to use the open-world game to improve its artificial intelligence systems. Unlike Go, which is very rule-specific, Minecraft requires what researchers call “general intelligence,” a formidable challenge for deep learning systems. “Minecraft is the perfect platform for this kind of research because it’s this very open world,” says Katja Hofmann from Microsoft’s Cambridge labs.

To help its AI systems master the block-building game, the team made its AIX platform available to researchers in a small, private beta. For now, the experiments run on users’ local machines, sectioned off from general users. “People build amazing structures that do amazing things in Minecraft and this allows experimenters to put in tasks that will stretch AI technology beyond its current capacity,” Hoffman told the BBC.

Microsoft’s AIX research team playing Minecraft

However, Microsoft aims to make the AIX platform, including the Minecraft code, available to anyone via an open-source license. It’s not clear what mainstream users will be able to do with it, other than perhaps let it observe their moves. However, it could one day become a digital assistant that helps you out. “Eventually, we will be able to scale this up further to include tasks that allow AI agents to learn to collaborate with humans and support them in a creative manner.”

Another attraction to Minecraft is the endless situations it simulates from a first-person perspective. “It can actually be inside, looking out through the eyes of something that is living in that world,” says chief engineer Matthew Johnson. It’s also ideal for reinforcement learning, where machines combine experimentation with previous knowledge. All told, Microsoft hopes to use its popular game to accelerate AI at a pace that may make Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking uncomfortable. “This provides a way to take AI from where it is today up to human-level intelligence, which is where we want to be, in several decades time.”

Via: BBC

Source: Microsoft

Adobe’s Monument Mode gets rid of would-be photobombers

We’ve all been there. You arrive at the Lincoln Memorial only to encounter hordes of other tourists eager to snap a photo. Chances are you’re never going to get a shot that doesn’t have a bystander in the background. Adobe’s senior computer scientist Ashutosh Sharma realizes this, and he’s working on a new software tool that will help remedy the issue. Back at Adobe’s Max design conference in October, Sharma demoed Monument Mode: a software feature that makes those annoying photobombers disappear.

Monument Mode uses a software algorithm that distinguishes between moving (people, cars, etc.) and stationary objects to help you get a clean shot. When a person or vehicle is moving, it won’t appear in the image that your phone captures. By analyzing a camera’s live view, the software gets rid of anyone who may wander into the frame before a still image is taken. The time it takes to get a good photo depends on how long those photobombers remain stationary, of course.

“I travel a lot and I like to use photo apps, but I found that whenever I tried to take a good photo at a tourist spot, there would be a number of people coming into the shot,” Sharma explained. He says that he had the idea to take a collection of images of a monument or landmark and merge them together in Photoshop or another program. That’s all well and good, but using a handful of photos to compose a single good image takes a few minutes to complete, even with something like Photoshop Elements’ built-in features designed specifically for getting rid of unwanted people.

“It struck me that the best way to do this would be right in the camera,” he continued. “That’s when the idea came for people to be able to do this live. If I wanted to get a clean shot of a monument, all I would need to do is stand still for a few seconds.”

While it may sound simple, Sharma explained that there’s a good bit of heavy lifting going on underneath the hood. In order for the software to work, it has to analyze each frame every few milliseconds, demanding a great deal of computing power. However, Sharma and his team optimized the app to efficiently use GPU power. This means the act of capturing a good image won’t be too taxing on a device. “Speed is key for the user to get instant feedback on the screen and achieve the result they really want,” he said.

“Speed is key for the user to get instant feedback on the screen and achieve the result they really want.”

The Monument Mode demo at Adobe Max was driven by software on a mobile device. However, the team isn’t sure what the final implementation will look like or when it’ll be available to lend a hand with your vacation photos. It makes sense for the final product to arrive on phones, though, as that’s how so many people capture images nowadays. Sharma said standalone cameras that allow for third-party applications and better image quality, like Sony’s RX100, are also a possibility.

“On the desktop, it’s entirely possible that, after putting together 10 shots, the final photograph is still not what I wanted,” Sharma explained. “When I’m doing it live, I know how long I need to wait. If I see that there are people moving too slowly, I can adjust to make sure that I get the shot I want.” So what happens if someone walks into the frame and stops in the middle of your capture? By increasing the capture time to add a few more frames, Monument Mode can capture one that the person won’t be in, even if they walk into the frame and stand still.

Adobe has made a big push into mobile photography over the last few years. It released Lightroom mobile for both Android and iOS and regularly added new features that delivered more desktop-like functionality to those who like to edit on a phone or tablet. With that focus on its mobile apps, it’s easy to see how something like Monument Mode would further boost those efforts.

The mobile device that was used to show off Monument Mode last year was affixed to a tripod, but how long would you need to stay still in order for the software to do its thing? “We are still not at a point where this works handheld — there are still a few things we need to work out,” he said. However, you will definitely be able to do so in the final version. “As long as you’re holding the camera as steady as if you were taking a regular photograph, it should work fine,” he added.

Sharma isn’t planning to rest easy once he’s banished interlopers from your vacation pics. He’s already looking ahead to other uses for the tech, too. Monument Mode works by analyzing the dominant pixel values of an image or frame, so it could potentially be used for things like reducing noise in images taken in low-light environments. Image quality tanks in dimly lit conditions, and a feature like that could offer a welcome improvement.

The team is also looking into the potential for using video footage rather than the live camera feed to nab that perfect image. But again, you’ll have to wait a while to be able to put Monument Mode through its paces. “We’re still trying to work out how and where all of these features come together before we release this feature,” Sharma admits. “It might not be really good for a standalone application, so we’re still trying to work all of that out.”

WD’s PiDrive gives your Raspberry Pi 314GB of storage

Sure, you can already add storage to your Raspberry Pi, but it’s usually an exercise in trade-offs: SD cards don’t hold much data, and USB drives (even the portable ones) tend to be too big and power-hungry for a mini PC. WD doesn’t think you should have to compromise, though. It’s shipping a new PiDrive that stuffs 314GB into a slim design that won’t overwhelm the Pi’s power system, but is fast enough to make full use of the USB connection. It even has a special version of BerryBoot (a multi-operating system tool) to help you load your platform of choice and fill that abundant space with apps.

The PiDrive is relatively expensive. Its normal $45.81 (£39.50) price is higher than that of the Raspberry Pi itself, and even a “limited-time” cut to $31.42 (£27.09) may have you thinking carefully before pulling the trigger. If you have a media server or another Raspberry Pi project that simply can’t get by on a few dozen gigs, though, it might be worth shelling out a little extra.

Via: Western Digital (PR Newswire)

Source: WD PiDrive (US), (UK)