Beyond Ink Pen tries to mesh pens with technology

Beyond Ink makes a passable attempt at combining a pen, stylus, charger and flash drive.

The Beyond Ink Pen aims to bring writing instruments into the future by combining the ballpoint pen we’ve all used for years, with the new technology that has become integral to our lives. You get access to a ball point pen, stylus, battery, charger, and flash drive all in one place. The Pen is well designed in that it looks like you’d expect a pen to look, right until you look up close.

It is a bit larger that your normal writing instruments though, something you might not realize until you pull it out of the box. It’s longer, heavier, and bigger in your hand, which can feel bulky. The design is done in black and grey with steel and brass, with a smooth feel that is really well done. There aren’t any buttons, rather getting access to various features involves twisting the appropriate portion of pen.

In that respect it works about as well as any other pen you could pick up at the store.

At it’s core, Beyond Ink is a ballpoint pen. In that respect, it works about as well as any other pen you could pick up at the store. There aren’t any issues with ink running dry or skipping, and the mechanism is a simple twist to engage. The problem that crops up is when you’re using the pen for more than just a few lines at a time. If you’re just jotting down notes, then you probably won’t have any issues.

The thing is, Beyond Ink is quite heavy and bulky in your hand comparative to a normal pen. It’s not just the weight of the pen that becomes problematic either, it’s much bigger around than most writing instruments. The bigger size combined with the increased weight means that if you try to write out a few pages you’ll really be feeling it. It makes the pen something that you might use to sign checks, but tends to somewhat limit it’s use as a pen for extended writing sessions.

Using it as a stylus is slightly different, because you aren’t using your hand quite the same way. You can certainly use it for longer than you can when writing out things longhand. However eventually the same problems of becoming uncomfortable, or starting to hurt your hand after prolonged use. It’s a shame, but not necessarily a surprise. Located inside the pen is a 1000mAh battery which you can use to charge your phone when you’re out and about.

The microUSB is nestled underneath the pen clip to keep it out of your way when you don’t need it. When you do it’s pretty easy to access and easily gets the job done. Popping it out from under the clip wasn’t particularly difficult, but there’s likely to be some damage-related anxiety as you go to use it. The included cable is dainty, you can actually see the individual wires under the thin rubber protector. That means when you do plug your phone it, it’ll be practically on top of the pen. Still, having the ability to quickly top up the charge when you’re in a hurry is quite handy.

What will happen is entirely dependent on whether the pen clip is facing up, or down.

Underneath the screw off pen cap, you’ll find the 16GB USB flash drive. When you plug the Beyond Ink into your laptop, what will happen is entirely dependent on whether the pen clip is facing up, or down. The pen clip facing up will charge the 1000 mAh battery, giving you a green indicator light to show when it’s charging. Plugging it in with the pen clip facing down, will let you access the flash drive itself. The flash drive itself works as well as any USB 2.0 flash drive that you can pick up today, this one just happens to be attached to a pen. While it works as well as any other flash drive, you aren’t going to find any bells and whistles here. For example, connecting the microUSB cable to your phone does not allow you to access the storage, it’s only for power.

Beyond Ink is available in white or the black pictured here for $70, and gets you access to several different features that may come in handy during the course of your day. You’ll have to decide for yourself if having a charger, 16GB flash drive, pen and stylus, all in one place, or if you’d prefer to deal with each of those features separately.

See in white at AmazonSee in black at Amazon

The massive cloud of things we call VR is here to stay

You already are a VR user, even if you don’t own any VR hardware.

There are three kinds of people when it comes to the current wave of virtual reality. You’ve got the early adopters who are all about throwing down money on one of this generation’s VR helmets, curious techies who are waiting to see if any of this sticks before putting money down, and the rest of the world. Much like previous iterations of VR, that third group either has no idea what VR is or only knows about it because Lil Wayne and William H. Macy keep showing up on their TV wearing one.

A casual observer may look at the new world of VR hardware that has exploded over the last year and shrug it off as something that will never reach “mainstream consumers” with the current pricing and availability. It seems more likely that those casual observers aren’t looking at the whole picture. VR is absolutely here to stay, because it is significantly more than just hardware you strap to your head now.

VR content is everywhere, and everyone loves it

Looking at VR as just hardware you wear ignores all of the cross sections, and that’s where things are becoming truly important. While most of the VR gaming experiences require a headset and some kind on interactive setup, the passive experiences can be enjoyed in several key ways. What we once viewed as a unique experience crafted by Motorola in its Spotlight Stories can now be enjoyed on YouTube and Facebook with little more than an app on your phone or a browser on your PC. Go find any 360-degree video on Facebook and the initial reactions from folks who have never seen this kind of thing before are basically looking at magic. Content creators and advertisers are diving into ways to capture your attention with this video format, and it’s working.

It couldn’t be more clear that there’s a lot more to VR right now than the hardware.

Consuming this content is only part of the equation. The real fun is in capturing it. Google’s early efforts with photospheres and the ease with which you can upload 360-degree video to YouTube has created a space for all kinds of users to think about ways to enjoy capturing these experiences themselves. This time last year, that meant a lot of money and a lot of experience editing video to make it work well, and in that short time we now have $200 options with quality that comes dangerously close to the professional experiences we’ve seen come to Google Cardboard and the Gear VR recently. Unlike action cams, which are only different from the camera in your phone when you’re flying down a snow-covered hill at 30 mph, 360 cams are perfect for anyone who sees anything cool, and wants to capture the whole moment instead of just a window into it.

With the recent push from Google making it easier to embed these 360 photos and videos into websites and apps, a set of tools they call VR View, it couldn’t be more clear that there’s a lot more to VR right now than the hardware. The content surrounding these experiences is what’s really important, and that content is getting cheaper to capture and easier to share on an almost daily basis. This is an enormous amount of VR-ready photos and videos that don’t require a headset to enjoy, complete with the knowledge that a VR component will take this cool experience and make you feel like you’re there as the photos and videos are being captured.

Hardware variety can’t be ignored

Previous generations of VR experiences were basically impossible to install in your home. They were prohibitively expensive, required a lot of space in your home to function well, and a lot of folks had some fairly significant problems with nausea and headaches after using them for more than a few minutes. This new generation of VR experiences offer quite a bit of variety. Google Cardboard works on just about everything, and can be used anywhere to get a more immersive feel from a 360 degree video. Samsung’s Gear VR requires a Samsung phone, but there are quite a few of those in the world today, and the platform has grown at a remarkable pace to include great games and quality video.

This isn’t an accessory to an existing market, this is creating a new market for users looking for new experiences.

Stepping up from that portable experience is Sony, which announced a VR headset more expensive than the game console required to power it. PlayStation VR appeals directly to the PlayStation 4 owners of the world, of which there are many. As the most popular console of this current generation of game consoles by a considerable margin, Sony has a massive user base to sell this headset to and a significant list of game publishers willing to support it out of the box. While this setup certainly isn’t cheap by any means, it can be used in the living room or bedroom with ease and can be easily put away when finished.

Where things get a little less portable and universal is the desktop-class VR experiences. Oculus and HTC have built incredible, future-forward experiences that require a considerably powerful — and also expensive — desktop PC. In a world where portability is king and the traditional Windows-based PC is slowly losing marketshare to iPads and Chromebooks, the number of people in that vague “average consumer” bracket with a powerful gaming PC is dwindling. On the other hand, in a world of overpriced console ports and a lackluster list of exclusive titles, there hasn’t been a huge reason to build a nice gaming PC in recent years until the Rift and Vive.

While the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive aren’t inexpensive or simple, they are absolutely consumer-ready. Much in the same way that a new Pokemon game sells Nintendo 3DS handhelds and a new Halo game sells Xbox consoles, the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift are selling gaming PCs. This isn’t an accessory to an existing market, this is creating a new market for users looking for new experiences. This isn’t going to be a big dramatic shift in how the world uses computers, and it’s not trying to breathe life into anything that was already deflating. Desktop-class VR is pushing forward, and the people who choose to be a part of that are doing so because it’s something new.

‘But my thing isn’t supported so this other thing is going to fail.’

The bottom line is this — VR isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It’s not going to fall flat like 3D content did, because actual people can easily and inexpensively make their own VR photos and videos. It’s not limited to expensive PCs, and most of these experiences require the same amount of room in your home that you’re already dedicating to watching television or playing games every day.

What happens next isn’t about adoption, because on some level that has already happened.

VR isn’t one thing right now, and that’s significant for a couple of reasons. No one company is big enough to kill VR by failing in some spectacular fashion, and there are new ideas hitting each of these platforms every day. We’re seeing VR used in schools, in homes, on the train to work (seriously, please don’t do this), and very soon on vacations and even just out to lunch.

This thing we call VR right now is a giant changing mass of ideas and products and experiences, and it doesn’t matter if your phones isn’t supported or your brand of choice doesn’t have a competing product out. This is ground zero for the new thing we call VR, and it’s already everywhere. What happens next isn’t about adoption, because on some level that has already happened.

Don’t forget — BB-8 can now watch The Force Awakens with you

Your BB unit wants to watch a movie with you.

Now that Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been released everywhere, both in physical and digital versions, it’s a good time to remind those of you with a BB-8 by Sphero droid of a recently added feature. If you set BB-8 down in front of your television with The Force Awakens on the television, your happy little robot will watch the movie with you.

Here’s how it works.

Set BB-8 in its charging cradle down near your television, and fire up the BB-8 app on your phone. The new “watch with me” mode lets you point BB-8’s head at the television, and then the app keeps your phone awake to listen to the movie and sync up with BB-8. While the movie is playing, BB-8 will shake and chirp along with the action in the film, and the app will offer up BB-8’s thoughts on things that are happening in the movie. For example, the first time you see FN 2187 take his helmet off, BB-8 lets you know that it has detected a member of the Resistance. Obviously BB-8 knows a few things you don’t if you’ve yet to see the movie.

It’s cute, and kind of a battery hog, but if you’ve got kids or you want another excuse to bust out BB-8, this is a fun new option in the app. Also, with the recent price drop, If you have been waiting for the right time to pick up a BB-8 of your very own, now seems to be the time.

See BB-8 at Amazon See The Force Awakens at Amazon

Marshmallow’s share doubles to 4.6% in latest Android distribution numbers

Google has released its latest update to the distribution numbers for each version of Android, with data that was collected on April 4. The latest version, Marshmallow, doubled its share compared to March, up from 2.3% to 4.6%.

Google’s data shows the previous Android version, Lollipop, went down slightly from 36.1% in March to 35.8% in April, retaining its hold as the version of Android with the most installs. KikKat slid from 34.3% in March to 33.4% in April. Jelly Bean went down from 22.3% to 21.3%, while Ice Cream Sandwich is down slightly from 2.3% to 2.2% and Gingerbread remained the same at 2.6%. Froyo is still hanging on with just 0.1% of all Android devices.

‘Eve: Valkyrie’ is coming to the HTC Vive this year

With the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive now available for consumers, the virtual reality wars have officially begun. But depending on your headset choice, the content options will vary. So if you had your heart set on playing CCP Games’ multiplayer dogfighting space shooter Eve:Valkyrie, but worried it’d be tied to the Rift, you can breathe a sigh of relief. The Icelandic studio announced on Twitter today that the VR title will be heading to the Vive in 2016. Beyond that very vague release window, we don’t have much more in the way of specifics. So while you wait patiently for your chance to take part in CCP’s epic space battle, why not check out the plethora of content just waiting for you on Vive’s launch day.

Congratulations to HTC & Valve on launch! We’re excited to confirm #EVEValkyrie is coming to #Vive in 2016. pic.twitter.com/B6QHFjSu0H

— EVE: Valkyrie (@EVEValkyrie) April 5, 2016

NVIDIA’s insane DGX-1 is a computer tailor-made for deep learning

NVIDIA has moved its GPU business far beyond just powering gaming computers. For several years now, the company has been focused on using its technology to power advanced machine learning technology, and today the company announced the positively wild $129,000 DGX-1 supercomputer. NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang called the DGX-1 the equivalent of 250 servers in a box — it has 7TB of SSD storage, eight of the just-announced Tesla P100 GPUs and two Xeon processors. It’s an insane amount of computing power (170 teraflops in a single machine), and it’s a 12X improvement over what NVIDIA announced last year.

As for who might be buying these computers, NVIDIA is positioning this machine for serious research purposes — the first machines off of NVIDIA’s assembly lines will go to ten universities including MIT, Stanford, NYU and Berkeley. The company is also positioning the DGX-1 as a key component of its new AI Driving machine-learning system called Drive PX, which helps to enable vehicle recognition at 180FPS.

The goal of having such a relatively system is to make deploying such massive computing power much easier. “Data scientists and AI researchers today spend far too much time on home-brewed high performance computing solutions,” Huang said in a press release. “The DGX-1 is easy to deploy and was created for one purpose: to unlock the powers of superhuman capabilities and apply them to problems that were once unsolvable.”

For the companies and organizations that’ll take advantage of these computers, the pricing is surely not a concern — and with machine learning and artificial intelligence crucially important from companies like Google and Microsoft as well as the research organizations Huang cited, there’s likely a pretty big market for NVIDIA’s all-in-one deep learning supercomputer.

Source: NVIDIA

A VR video made me rethink my relationship with meat

Barbarism. That’s the best word to describe the events depicted in iAnimal, a 360-degree video that takes you inside a pig farm. Shot by animal welfare charity Animal Equality, the experience lasts seven minutes and may cause you to rethink the food on you put on your plate.

Narrated by BAFTA-winning actor Peter Egan — perhaps best known internationally as Downton Abbey’s Hugh “Shrimpie” Flintshire — it starts in a tiny cell, with not enough room to even turn around in. “You don’t know what you’re in for,” says Egan, “but you’re behind bars … it’s been this way for as long as you can remember.” Rust is everywhere, and you’re flanked by countless pigs on either side. First-person perspective is a tried-and-tested VR strategy, but I’ve never seen it used to such arresting effect.

The next scene shows a dozen or so piglets nursing from their mother. On the other side of the cage, a piglet lays motionless. It’s not clear if it’s asleep or dead, crushed under its mother’s weight. The adult pig is pinned down by harsh metal bars. We then move to a piglet being held by its rear legs while it’s castrated without anaesthetic. The film continues with grotesque scene after grotesque scene, charting the animal’s life from birth all the way to slaughter. No matter your position on the meat industry, it’s an extremely upsetting video.

While anyone can watch the film on YouTube, it’s best viewed through a VR headset like Google Cardboard or, as I tried it, Samsung’s Gear VR. If you’re at a computer, I recommend watching the interactive tour instead. It’s more informative and less emotive than the video itself, but without the immersion of a VR headset it’s probably a better desktop experience.

Where iAnimal differs from many animal welfare videos (aside from its VR presentation), is that it’s not the result of an undercover investigation, and the events depicted aren’t illegal. Shot in the UK and other parts of the European Union, the footage was captured almost entirely with the permission of the farms, all of which are obeying the letter of the law. Everything you see can and does happen at perfectly legal farms on a daily basis.

I have always loved animals and worked at a veterinary clinic for several years after college. During that period, I slipped in and out of vegetarianism, but since becoming a journalist, I’ve managed to yet again disconnect meat from the animals that suffer for it. iAnimal brought me back to reality with a jolt.

Have I stopped eating meat because of the video? The short answer is “no” though I have changed my behavior a little. I’ve always tracked down “free-range” and “organic” meat whenever possible, but in the weeks since watching iAnimal, I’ve been substituting meat with vegetables in some meals, and cutting out non-free-range meat entirely. I’ve even become that guy who calls a takeout place to ask where their meat is sourced from.

I also solicited some advice on the various types of “free-range” labels for pork and which is best. Turns out, a lot of the labels are very sly in their wording. “Outdoor bred,” for example, means that breeding sows live outdoors and give birth outdoors, which is great, but the pig you ate was actually taken away from their mother after a month or so and raised in a factory farm. “Outdoor reared” is the opposite: After month or so, pigs are reared outdoors, but they’re born in factory farm conditions, and the sows are trapped indoors for their entire lives. In the UK, the best label to look for is Soil Association-certified organic, which means that pigs are born and raised outdoors. But even that isn’t perfect: The pigs are still slaughtered in the same way as any other.

Animal Equality’s executive director Toni Shephard made it clear that the organization does not endorse organic meat. “Some aspects of animals’ lives are better on organic farms,” Shephard clarified, “but ultimately they go to the same slaughterhouses and die in the same way as other pigs.” Instead, its goal is to encourage people to give up meat or greatly reduce their meat consumption. “By cutting meat consumption by 50 percent or more and then choosing certified organic meat for the remaining meat consumed, people can make a huge difference for animals,” she said. The overarching thinking seems to be that if demand for organic meat increases, and consumption of factory farmed meat decreases, the meat industry will shift towards the former.

To that end, iAnimal has almost been a success, at least for me. I’ve probably not eaten meat more than four days a week since watching it and am attempting to transition to the right types of organic meats. So far, though, the video has mostly been preaching to the converted and a couple of curious journalists. Online, the Peter Egan-narrated version has more than 60,000 views while a second video narrated by No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal has around 15,000. Animal Equality isn’t targeting online views, though. It’s targeting people on the street.

The organization has a number of Gear VR headsets and is embarking on a tour around the UK and US. It’s starting with universities (the shot above is from University of California, Davis) and will then move to public demonstrations on the street, ideally in areas busy with shoppers.

Animal Equality’s use of VR for iAnimal is extremely intelligent. Many people have never used a VR headset, and seeing someone wearing one is likely to make people stop and at least ask a few questions. And once they’re inside the headset, they’ll see an extremely powerful film in a medium that they may never have experienced before.

Building on the pig video, Animal Equality wants to create similar experiences for other livestock, building the iAnimal brand. The exact focus on the next video hasn’t been decided, but just the thought of being stuck inside a factory farm chicken cage is already giving me nightmares.

France wants Apple to pay $55 million over strict carrier deals

Have you noticed that many carriers give prominent placement to the iPhone in their catalogs, with virtually identical marketing? That’s because Apple gets to dictate some pretty strict terms to providers that want the iPhone in their roster… and France isn’t happy about it. The country’s competition regulators have launched a complaint against Apple that asks the tech giant to pay a total of €48.5 million (about $55.3 million) and change carrier deal clauses that are reportedly illegal. If you ask officials, these pacts are extremely lopsided.

Carriers have to order a minimum number of iPhones, pay for ads (including in-store displays), cover some of the costs of repairs, let Apple use some of their patents and offer their branding as Apple sees fit. At the same time, they give up control over using Apple’s brand and lose power over payment plans. If the crew at 1 Infinite Loop likes, it can also void a contract without any heads-up.

We’ve asked Apple for its take on the complaint, and we’ll let you know if it has something to share. However, there’s little doubt that the company frequently has carriers over a barrel. The iPhone is still a staple of most big phone networks’ lineups, and they ignore the device at their peril. If this legal action succeeds, it could not only reduce that competitive pressure in France, but inspire other countries to demand similar reforms.

Via: 9to5Mac

Source: BFM.TV (translated)

‘The Last of Us’ and ‘Uncharted’ movies could be in trouble

The Last of Us and the Uncharted series are known for their cinematic feel and spectacular set pieces, so it’s not surprising that Hollywood wants to adapt them for the big screen. If you’re sold on the idea of a live-action search for El Dorado, or a painstaking journey across a Clicker-infested America, we’ve got some bad news however. In an interview with IGN, Neil Druckmann, creative director at Naughty Dog, hinted that both projects are in trouble. Regarding a movie version of The Last of Us, he said:

“I know I said in an interview a while back we had a table read, got the script to a good place and it kind of entered development hell like these things tend to do. There hasn’t been any work done on it in over a year and a half.”

Needless to say, that doesn’t sound promising. If you’re itching to see a flesh-and-bones interpretation, however, there’s always “One Night Live,” a stage rendition featuring the game’s original voice actors Troy Baker (Joel) and Ashley Johnson (Ellie). It was only performed once, but thankfully a recording is free to watch on Sony’s PlayStation YouTube channel.

An Uncharted movie, meanwhile, is supposed to hit theaters in June 2017. Little has been said about the project, however. Druckmann revealed that Naughty Dog is occasionally visited by the movie’s creative team, but hinted that these consultations have started petering out. “Every once in a while they’ll come in and they’ll present to us: here’s the script, here’s what we’re thinking. We’ll tell them what we think works, what we think doesn’t work,” Druckman said, “That’s where we’re at. Last I heard is they got a new screenwriter, but we haven’t seen anything in a while.”

Again, not the most promising update. He later explained that Naughty Dog’s role is to “steer” the movie team towards the relationship between Nate, Elena and Sully, which has slowly formed the emotional core of the series. The trio have spent three games (or four, if you count the PS Vita title Golden Abyss) finding exotic treasures, but underlying these escapades is a growing sense of doubt. Should they keep searching for new adventures when their loved ones are being put at risk? It’s an intriguing concept and one that could suit a condensed, well-acted movie adaptation.

Oh well. In the meantime, there’s always Uncharted 4.

Source: IGN

Google’s calendar reminders are coming to the web

Google announced on Tuesday that it will begin rolling out the calendar reminders found in its mobile app to its web interface this week. The reminders will behave identically online as they do in-app — in fact, they’ll sync across all of your devices and platforms including Keep, Inbox and the Google app. This means that you’ll be able to manage your tasks throughout the day regardless of whether you’re at your desk or on your phone.