What we’d like to see next on the Gear VR

Samsung’s Gear VR already does a whole lot right, but here’s what we’d like to see happen next.

Over the last year, Samsung and Oculus have rapidly transformed the Gear VR from nerdy tinker toy to full fledged VR platform. There’s no shortage of great content, both in (/ncaa-march-madness-heads-samsung-gear-vr-final-games) and gaming formats, and the new hardware is performing well for just about everyone. It has gotten easier to use, and with more users adopting the platform every day it’s clear this isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. While VR has been growing in popularity everywhere, the Gear VR is clearly the most improved over the last year.

That said, there are a few things we’d like to see Samsung and Oculus tackle next to take the Gear VR even further into the future.

Desktop view

Right now if you get a notification in VR mode from something else happening in your phone, there’s nothing you can do about it in VR mode. That is, you can’t act on it at all. You have to take the headset off, remove the phone, act on the notification, and then go back into VR. Samsung would be well served to work with Oculus on a Desktop View in the Oculus environment, something that let the user see the phone home screen and interact with notification inside of VR mode. Basic things like answering phone calls or replying to messages is something you can already do through the Gear S2, so why not in VR?

Finger controllers

Samsung started 2016 with a demo of the Rink finger controllers for the Gear VR. They weren’t perfect, but putting your fingers in the virtual environment was an incredibly compelling idea. The current Oculus environment doesn’t really need a different input, but for gaming alone these controllers would be cool. Make it happen, Samsung!

Augmented reality

The Gear VR camera passthrough mode is terribly under-utilized. Where are the Terminator Vision apps or live vision filters to make everything around you look like you’re in the Iron Man suit? While not nearly as purposeful as some of the current features in the Gear VR, it feels like a mistake to not wield the exceptional camera on the back of Samsung phones for some kind of Augmented Reality experience. Even if it’s something as simple as QR-code AR stuff, through the Gear VR those experiences would be terribly surreal.

Total experience bundle

Samsung sells the Gear VR for $99, but it doesn’t take many users long to realize you need a good gamepad, some Bluetooth headphones, and probably a battery backup if you’re going to be taking this VR experience with you everyone. Samsung should put together a full bundle with everything you’d need to fully appreciate the experience, complete with a nice carrying case like the original developer kit for the Gear VR had. It’s clear Samsung worked hard to hit that $99 price point, but there are absolutely people out there who will see the experience their friends have and want to dive in with a full kit of their own.

Samsung Gear VR

• Gear VR review
• Five Gear VR games that shouldn’t be missed
• Inside Samsung’s Gear VR web browser
• Gear VR vs. Google Cardboard
• Where to buy Gear VR

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Facebook shows how VR can let you hang out with friends from anywhere

Facebook is already in the virtual reality business, thanks to its acquisition of Oculus and its Rift headset. However, the company is working on some other VR-based technology and it demoed some of it today at its F8 conference.

Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer and Social VR team member Michael Booth got together virtually in the demo. As Booth writes on Facebook:

Today at F8, Schrep and I demonstrated a simple exploration we’ve hacked together which shows the potential of VR for social interactions. Physically, he was in San Francisco and I was 30 miles away in Menlo Park, but as soon as we both put on our headsets we were together, sharing the same virtual space. But it was more than just an awesome conference call – we could visit faraway places, literally stepping into 360 photos, touring the sights of London, and visiting the hangar where Facebook’s Aquila unmanned aerial vehicle is housed. We could be creative together, using virtual pens to draw objects and decorate our avatars. We could create new memories, and even take a VR selfie and post it back to News Feed.

Booth added that the Facebook Social VR team is working to improve the experience, including the creation of a more detailed and expressive model of a human rather than just a floating head and hands.

Chrome 50 heads to the stable channel for Windows, Mac and Linux

Chrome version 50 is now available on the stable channel for Windows, Mac and Linux. With the update to version 50, the desktop version of Google’s browser includes a total of 20 security fixes. And while Google hasn’t revealed the full list of bugs — and won’t until a majority of users are updated — several researchers are credited with some high and medium-level bugs through Google’s bug bounty program.

Chrome 50 also includes a number of bug fixes and performance improvements as well. Of particular interest is that bugs in the rendering engine were patched up, which should make for fewer errors on pages with lots of images. Some code related to developer and beta build testing was also removed, as it is not necessary in the stable channel release.

If you have Chrome installed, it should update automatically in the background. If you’d like to check manually, you can head to the “About” section of the Settings menu.

How to turn off annoying Galaxy Apps notifications on your Galaxy S7

The notification shade is for useful information, not your crappy ads.

It’s already confusing enough that Samsung offers its own Galaxy Apps store in addition to the default Google Play Store, and it just makes things worse when Galaxy Apps starts dropping useless notifications on you. If you’ve had a Galaxy S7 or S7 edge for a little while, you’ll notice Galaxy Apps dropping ad-like notifications on you pointing you toward featured apps in the store … not exactly what you want to see, especially turned on by default.

Thankfully, with a few taps in the Galaxy Apps store you can turn off these annoying notifications, while keeping on the useful notifications when you actually have apps to update. The steps are quite easy:

Find Galaxy Apps in your app drawer
Tap More and then Settings in the top-right corner
Tap the toggle next to Push notifications
While here, you can also turn off notifications for app updates if you wish

Now you won’t be bothered by Samsung trying to push its latest app partnership on you, and you’ll still receive notifications from Galaxy Apps that are actually useful.

Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge

• Galaxy S7 review
• Galaxy S7 edge review
• Here are all four Galaxy S7 colors
• Should you upgrade to the Galaxy S7?
• Learn about the Galaxy S7’s SD card slot
• Join our Galaxy S7 forums

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Nest CEO Tony Fadell reportedly defends division during recent Google meeting

Recent press reports of trouble at Alphabet’s Nest subsidiary apparently got so bad that its CEO, Tony Fadell, reportedly made a rare appearance earlier this month at an all-hands meeting at Google.

According to Re/code, Fadell showed up at Google’s “TGIF” meeting on April 1. His appearance came after earlier, but unconfirmed, reports that claimed sales of Nest’s smart devices came in below Google’s expectations in 2015. There have also been claims that Fadell has a poor management style.

Re/code’s transcript of the meeting claims Fadell address those concerns:

First and foremost, you know, the articles that you see and read about either me or about Nest — they are incredibly disheartening because we don’t believe — and I don’t believe specifically — that those articles represent our culture, represent our work ethic, represent the respect we have for each other inside the team. And so it’s really — it really hurts us a lot when see those things.

Of course, we’re not perfect. No company is. Nest isn’t perfect. I’m not perfect. No one’s perfect. But we know what our problems are. We have been addressing them over the last two years. And, frankly, we have more room to go.

He added that reports that Nest doesn’t respect its employees are “absolutely wrong”. He also defended sales of Nest’s products:

Every single year our annual sales have gone up nicely, nice growth every year since our inception. We have not had any slowdown in our sales growth. It continues. And, in fact, this quarter we actually beat our numbers. Well, let’s hope in the next two days we’ll be our numbers.

Get hyped for Game of Thrones season 6 with this 360-degree tour of Westeros

If you’re a Game of Thrones fan, you’ll no doubt be familiar with the show’s iconic title sequence that glides through a unique map of Westeros. And if you’ve ever wished you could explore that map in more detail, now’s your chance thanks to a new interactive 360-degree video posted to Facebook.

The video glides through the iconic map, giving you a close-up look at the entirety of the lands of Westeros, ranging from Dorn to King’s Landing and even The Wall.

While Game of Thrones’ season six premier is just under two weeks away, this interactive video should give fans another reason to keep the hype alive. Be sure to give the video a watch and let us know what you think in the comments below.

These are the new ‘human-looking’ emoji in Android N’s latest big update

Google has updated the developer preview of Android N.

The update, called Developer Preview 2, brought a number of cool features, including the new Vulkan 3D rendering API, which should help developers give their heavy apps a significant boost in performance. It also introduced launcher shortcuts that allow apps to create shortcuts in Android’s launcher. These shortcuts lead to specific actions inside the app (such as playing the next episode of a TV show in a media app).

But the coolest new feature of the update is Emoji Unicode 9 support: “We are introducing a new emoji design for people emoji that moves away from our generic look in favour of a more human-looking design. If you’re a keyboard or messaging app developer, you should start incorporating these emoji into your apps. The update also introduces support for skin tone variations and Unicode 9 glyphs,” Google explained.

Google

Some of the new glyphs include the bacon, selfie, and face palm. Factory images of Developer Preview 2 can now be downloaded and manually installed on your device (Nexus 6P, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6, Nexus 9, or Pixel C). However, if you’re part of the now-public Android Beta Program, simply to the settings menu and download the over-the-air update when it becomes available today.

Android N is the upcoming, next version of Android (Android 7.0). Google names its Android versions after sweet treats. That’s run on for years, recently taking in Kit Kat, Lollipop, and Marshmallow. So what will be the name of Android 7.0? All we know is that it is currently going by the codename N and should be unveiled at Google I/O in May 2016. We usually get our first glimpse of the next version of Android at this conference.

Android N won’t land for consumers until later in the year, however, around October. This is usually timed with the release of a new Nexus handset. A developer preview of Android N, which is a “work in progress” build, has already been released to developers prior to a consumer rollout of the final software. Google offers a preview to collect and incorporate feedback.

Go here to learn more about how to get the preview now. The beta program is the easiest way to get the latest Android N preview update. 

World’s largest coal mining firm declares bankruptcy

It won’t shock you to hear that the coal industry is facing tough times lately. Job cuts, mine closures and other signs of financial trouble are par for the course. However, that downturn just reached an important milestone: Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private coal mining company, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy across most of its US divisions. The firm says it didn’t have much choice between steep drops in the price of coal, a weak Chinese market, overproduction of shale gas and “regulatory challenges” (read: better environmental policies). In plainer terms, people just aren’t as interested in coal energy as they were in years past.

This isn’t the end for Peabody, let alone the industry. It’ll be business as usual while the company reorganizes, and this doesn’t include Peabody’s Australian (steelmaking-focused) business. As Bloomberg notes, developing regions like India and Southeast Asia still lean heavily on coal. Even in the US, where many are shifting toward renewable energy, about 28 percent of power comes from coal.

Nonetheless, the bankruptcy shows just how far the coal business has fallen. While the industry has tried to remain relevant with “sustainable” practices (such as restoring land), it’s just not as desirable as it once was — especially not in a world where carbon emissions are becoming enemy number one. And when clean energy sources like solar and wind power are almost as cheap as the dirty kind, it’s doubtful that coal will ever return to its heyday.

Via: Bloomberg

Source: Peabody Energy (PDF)

Carbon fiber strings protect buildings against earthquakes

The problem with earthquake-proofing a building is that it usually involves grafting on a lot of support — not really an option with historic buildings or other particularly delicate structures. Komatsu Seiren Fabric Laboratory might have a better way, however. Its carbon fiber-based CABKOMA Strand Rods can protect a building against quakes by tying the roof to the ground, making sure that the whole building moves together — and thus stays together — during a tremor. The fibers are both very strong and very light (you can easily carry a 520-foot strand by yourself), so it’s more like draping spiderwebs over a building than anchors.

As you might have gathered just by looking at the photo above, the technology has its limits. It won’t work for tall buildings, or those in dense urban areas where there’s simply no room. This is more for mid-size structures that have plenty of free space. All the same, it might be the key to saving lives in areas where conventional bolts and braces just won’t work.

Via: Gizmodo

Source: Komatsu Seiren Fabric Laboratory

Android N Preview adds launcher shortcuts and new emoji

A month has passed since Google released its Android N developer preview, and today the company rolled out an update to the in-progress OS. In addition to split-screen support, quick message replies and a battery-saving tool, the preview version gained a handful of new features with this new release. Among the tools are launcher shortcuts that allow you to navigate to a specific area of an app. For example, a shortcut that would allow you to quickly skip to the next episode of a TV show in a streaming app or navigate home in Maps with a tap.

The updated developer preview also includes support for Unicode 9 emoji. Google says the goal here is to nix the generic-looking images for more human-like graphics, including variations in skin tone. This version also includes support for Vulkan, a 3D rendering API that aims to boost GPU and CPU performance. As you might expect, the update also includes an updated API for things like multi-window and bundled notifications as well has the usual collection of unnamed bug fixes. If you’re not feeling adventurous enough to give the preview version of Android N a go, consult our hands-on to read up on the software.

Source: Android Developers