Are cellular smartwatches worth the extra subscription?

How important are your notifications to you?

While most of the connected world looks at smartwatches in general and tries to figure out if they’re worth the investment, a subcategory of these watches is emerging. A watch that’s connected to your phone has some uses for sure, but what about a watch that offers most of the same connected features without needing that Bluetooth connection? Perhaps more important, what if the reason you didn’t need Bluetooth was because that watch had its own cellular radio built in, adding the ability to make phone calls to the list of things it can do?

Cellular smartwatches have only just started to become available, and on top of the cost of the hardware you have to pay for a separate mobile subscription to use the cellular radios. Asking folks who aren’t sure about the value of the hardware itself to pay a monthly fee as well is a big ask, but first it requires a better understanding of what you actually get with that cellular connection.

No strings attached

The big benefit of these connected watches is the ability to not have your phone on you but still be able to wander off without missing anything. This is most commonly demonstrated through some sort of workout, meaning you can go for a run without missing something important. While the fitness aspect of this is significant, and those armbands that hold your phone really do look absurd on everyone, the primary purpose here is to keep the act of checking your phone from completely halting whatever you are doing. You can listen to music, and not just music stored on your never large enough watch storage. Streaming music services that support the watch naively — of which there are not many yet — work great, especially with Bluetooth headphones connected to the watch. Just having your phone sitting inside while you are working on a project outdoors or playing with your kids is remarkably freeing.

For the most part, having a cellular radio in your watch is peace of mind for those who need to be connected. If you don’t use a land line in your home and don’t want to keep your phone on you at all times, a cellular watch ensures keeps you from being tethered to your WiFi. It’s a small thing that clearly doesn’t apply to everyone, but having the option is a lot nicer than it may seem on paper.

Remote notifications

An idea that started in Android Wear over WiFi and is now also available in cellular form with cellular Android Wear watches and the Samsung Gear S2 is remote notifications. You can leave your phone somewhere, wander far away with your watch, and still get every notification the phone would normally pass to the watch over Bluetooth. This means you still get text messages, emails, Hangouts, everything. As long as you have the feature enabled before you are disconnected from your phone, your watch will receive notifications from your phone in the exact same way it does when connected via Bluetooth.

Interacting with those notifications is nearly as functional as it would be if you were connected via Bluetooth, on both Android Wear and the Gear S2. You can reply to Hangouts, triage email, and in most cases access all of the same data you’d normally be able to access from your phone if you were connected via Bluetooth. The biggest difference you’ll see is speech to text translation, which is noticeably slower when relying on just the watch to do translation on Android Wear. On the Gear S2 the experience is slow no matter what, so it’s not quite as noticeable.

Still early days

Having a cellular connected watch connected to your cellular connected phone means things can get kind of weird when it comes to making calls and sending text messages. Your watch has its own phone number, and depending on how you set it up on Android Wear or Tizen can make calls from either your phone number or your watch number. Same goes for text messages, which as you can imagine gets super confusing for the people you’re sending messages to. This can be fixed with appropriate forwarding configurations, most of which will be set up for you if you’re buying your cellular watch from your carrier, but out of the box it can be a little confusing.

There’s also a significant difference in call quality over your watch. It’s not quite as bad as talking via speakerphone on your phone when it’s a couple of feet away, but your watch microphone is incredibly sensitive. There’s not a lot of tech there to isolate your voice, so even something as simple as having an air conditioning vent in your car pointed at your wrist can have an effect on call quality. If you’re sitting in a room alone and everything is quiet, the call quality is often good enough to be passable on both sides of the conversation. If you’re outside on a jog and you get a phone call, you’re probably going to wish you had something like Bluetooth headphones connected to your watch.

Worth the monthly cost?

Ultimately you’re going to be spending anywhere from $10 to $15 extra every month for the privilege of accessing your phone without actually touching your phone. That adds up quickly for something that is a largely unnecessary convenience for most people, but it’s also highly functional for what it is right now. Over the next year, as Android Wear and Samsung’s Gear line continue to draw in developers, these connected platforms will create experiences that justify themselves for more people.

It won’t ever be everyone, there will always be people who can’t possibly fathom why you’d spend that money on something so frivolous, but convenience will always drive adoption for some people. If you’re one of those people, you may consider taking a closer look at a cellular connected smartwatch.

Get a 32GB Moto X Pure Edition for $350 at Amazon

If you’ve had your eye on the Moto X Pure Edition for some time, Amazon is currently offering the 32GB version of Motorola’s 2015 flagship for $50 off. If you’re keeping track, that drops the price of the Moto X Pure Edition down to just $350.

The only caveat with this deal, besides the storage option, is that the sale only applies to the black version of the phone. Still, this discount knocks the 32GB model down to the same price as the 16GB, so you’re essentially doubling your storage space.

If you’re interested, you can grab this deal at the Amazon link below.

See at Amazon

Verizon and Google said to be preparing bids for Yahoo

Verizon is reportedly preparing to make a first-round bid for Yahoo next week. Both Verizon and its AOL subsidiary are said to be in talks with three separate financial institutions about the bid. Google may also make its own bid for the beleaguered company.

From Bloomberg:

Verizon Communications Inc. plans to make a first-round bid for Yahoo Inc.’s Web business next week, and is willing to acquire the company’s Yahoo Japan Corp. stake to help sweeten the offer, according to people familiar with the matter.

Google, the main division of Alphabet Inc., is also considering bidding for Yahoo’s core business, a separate person said.

While AT&T and Comcast were considering bids for Yahoo, both have apparently dropped out of the running. Time, Inc. is still mulling over a potential purchase as well.

First-round bids for Yahoo’s web assets are thought to be due on April 11.

Mickey, Donald and more included in Disney Crossy Road for Android

Crossy Road, the fun 8-bit game where players have to cross the road without getting killed, now has a big spin-off. Disney Crossy Road has now been released for Android in the Google Play Store.

Yes, its the cool indie game from developer Hipster Whale combined with the huge Disney cast of characters and settings. Here’s a look at what’s included in the game:

• COLLECT over 100+ Disney and Pixar figurines, including Mickey, Donald, Buzz Lightyear, Rapunzel, Mufasa, Sadness, Wreck-It Ralph, Madame Leota, and other favorites (many with fun surprises)!
• JOURNEY through 8-bit depictions of Al’s Toy Barn, the Pride Lands of Africa, the Haunted Mansion, San Fransokyo, and more while enjoying 8-bit versions of familiar tunes like “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” and “I Just Can’t Wait to be King!”
• MASTER special themed challenges unique to each of the worlds, such as weathering blizzards, collecting cherries to earn special power-ups, avoiding thundering stampedes of wildebeest, staying clear of falling barrels, and then some!

While the game is free to download and play, Disney Crossy Road does have some in-app purchases to access some of its figurines.

Tesla took 325,000 Model 3 preorders, says EVs are now mainstream

Tesla Motors – and the entire EV industry – is having a good week, apparently.

Tesla recently unveiled its $35,000 Model 3 and opened up the ability for customers to reserve the electric vehicle. Now, one week after that event, Tesla has reported over 325,000 pre-orders (aka reservations). That’s more than triple the amount of Model S cars Tesla had sold by the end of 2015. These pre-orders represent potential sales of over $14 billion.

In a blog post, the Tesla team described this achievement as “the single biggest one-week launch of any product ever” and claimed interest in the car spread organically: “Unlike other major product launches, we haven’t advertised or paid for any endorsements. Instead, this has been a true grassroots effort driven by the passion of the Tesla team that’s worked so hard”.

The blog post, which is titled “The Week that Electric Vehicles Went Mainstream”, also noted the success means the world is taking a step toward a better future by “accelerating the transition to sustainable transportation”. Long before the Model 3 debuted, critics viewed the car as a make-or-break product for Tesla and argued it could drive EV growth if successful.

Tesla calls the Model 3 “our most affordable car yet”, and earlier today, Musk tweeted that only 5 per cent of Model 3 customers reserved two cars (the maximum allowed). He suggested this equaled “low levels of speculation,” which are buyers who want to flip the car for a profit.

Keep in mind the car maker’s flagship Model S sedan starts at $70,000 but can cost upwards of $100,000 when fully loaded.

Facebook makes finding your Messenger friends way easier

Facebook announced on Thursday that it is implementing three new features for its popular Messenger app. They’re designed to make finding and connecting with other users easier. Specifically the company is rolling out “Messenger Usernames,” “Messenger Links” and “Messenger Codes.”

Messenger Codes work in essentially the same manner as Snapchat codes; you simply scan the code that someone sends you to instantly connect with them. Usernames and links perform the same base function — giving other people a quick means of finding you on Messenger. Usernames can easily be added to business cards and other physical media, as the Facebook blog announcement suggests, while links are meant to be integrated into email signatures. The new features are being made available to businesses as well as individual users, which should dovetail nicely with the company’s rumored efforts to enable purchases directly through the app.

Source: Facebook Blog

FDA approves ‘world’s smallest’ pacemaker for heart patients

As consumer technology has trended smaller and thinner, medical devices have done the same. And now, the first transcatheter pacemaker has been approved for use with heart patients in the US. Medtronic gained FDA approval for its Micra TPS pacemaker, the first device to employ the miniaturized pacing tech to be approved by the US government. The company is calling the device the “world’s smallest pacemaker,” measuring just a tenth of the size of traditional technology. It’s about the size of large vitamin.

The Micra TPS attaches to the heart with small tines, delivering impulses with an electrode at one end. The device doesn’t require a “pocket” under a patient’s skin like traditional devices and it’s completely concealed from view. What’s more, this tiny pacemaker adjusts the impulse based on a patient’s activity level automatically. It’s also approved for use during full-body MRI scans, so patients will still have access to detailed medical imaging processes should the need arise.

During clinical trials, Medtronic says the Micra TPS was successfully implanted in over 99 percent of patients with no reported instances of it moving out of place. 96 percent patients didn’t experience any complications either, 51 percent lower than the numbers for more traditional pacemakers. The company also notes that over 98 percent of patients exhibited “low and stable” pacing after six months, a rate at which the Micra TPS could last for more than 12 years.

Source: Medtronic

Iceland resists Pirate Party push for early elections

Following the pseudo-resignation of its Prime Minister, whom the leaked Panama Papers tied to an offshore holding company, Iceland’s ruling coalition remains in turmoil. Despite appointing a new PM on Thursday, the government is facing calls for early elections. And, to make matters worse, the opposition Pirate Party is surging at the polls with more than half of Icelanders reportedly willing to vote for them over the current coalition.

BREAKING: Almost half of #Iceland would now vote for Pirate Party. https://t.co/CGgQudqExh #panamapapers @birgittaj pic.twitter.com/vewjGhPCjG

— Iceland Monitor (@IcelandMonitor) April 6, 2016

Icelandic citizens have held massive protest rallies everyday since the Panama Papers were published. They’re demanding the resignations of both the current government’s finance and interior ministers, both of whom were named in the Papers.

This political shitshow has, however, proven a boon for the country’s fledgling Pirate Party. The group grew out of the Pirate Bay movement and has since become a major player in Icelandic politics. “This is all interconnected,” Pirate Bay rep Ásta Helgadóttir told The Intercept. “Internet freedom is about how to practice fundamental human rights in the 21st century, and democracy is one of those rights.”

In a related post on the Pirate Party’s official website, Helgadóttir and two other party reps further expounded on their position:

The confidence of the Icelandic people we believe rests in us, not only because we are a party that has not been a part of government, but also we think it is because people sense that we stand for enacting changes that have to do with reforming the systems, rather than changing minor things that might easily be changed back. Our policies therefore stand in stark contrast to what appears to be the pattern of modern politics; minor changes but always the same dysfunctional system. We do not define ourselves as left or right but rather as a party that focuses on the systems. In other words, we consider ourselves hackers – so to speak – of our current outdated systems of government.

Though the current government is resisting calls for early elections, the Pirate Party and its opposition coalition introduced a motion of no confidence which will be debated on as early as Friday.

Source: The Intercept

Everything hinges on ‘Final Fantasy XV’

Final Fantasy XV has to be perfect. After a decade of development hell, a name change from Versus XIII to XV, a complete mechanical overhaul and a director swap, die-hard series fans aren’t just hungry for the game; they’re reeling.

Many players who were excited about Final Fantasy Versus XIII as teenagers remain interested in Final Fantasy XV as adults. After all, the Final Fantasy series debuted in 1987 and played a pivotal role in plenty of fans’ young lives. But as the years have dragged on, a ripple of discontent has nudged against this fierce loyalty. In the decade of delays, some longtime players have simply declared the franchise dead.

Director Hajime Tabata is aware that some people consider Final Fantasy to be “over the hill.” That’s one reason he’s so focused on attracting new players with FFXV when it finally hits PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on Sept. 30th. Tabata even once considered getting rid of the numeral part of the title entirely, fearing it might scare off fresh faces.

“For XV, I sort of changed my mindset to make our aim of getting new players, and growing this global brand and appealing to sort of the mass-market new users,” Tabata says.

Tabata doesn’t want to alienate old fans, but he knows that new people need to dive into FFXV for the franchise to continue growing. It’s a tricky balance. He’s taking cues on how to market FFXV from Western developers, specifically The Witcher studio CD Projekt Red and Fallout house Bethesda. He’s looked at the size of the audiences they target, how they create their advertising campaigns and how they handle localization.

The Square Enix team working on FFXV, called Business Division 2, is 300 people strong, and some of them are international, meaning they have direct experience in Western markets. Tabata sees this as a positive.

“With XV I think we’ve really strived to get the point across to especially our traditional, older fans that we are modernizing,” Tabata says. “We are taking modern approaches so that they can hold interest in this title.”

Last week, Tabata and Business Division 2 confronted their skeptical fans head on.

Square Enix held a massive event at Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium, where it promised to reveal a ton of new information about the game. Six thousand fans showed up and went wild as Kinda Funny co-founders Greg Miller and Tim Gettys unveiled an animated prequel named Brotherhood, a 3D tie-in movie called Kingsglaive and a real-life FFXV-styled Audi R8.

A-list actors Lena Headey (Game of Thrones), Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) and Sean Bean (The Lord of the Rings) each have roles in Kingsglaive; Headey and Paul showed up in person to talk about the movie while Bean provided his insight in a recorded segment. FFXV’s theme song is a cover of “Stand By Me” by Florence and the Machine, and Square Enix showed off a mini-documentary about its recording, starring lead singer Florence Welch.

The event was an apology and an invitation for long-suffering fans to get excited about FFXV again, all wrapped up in an unprecedented AAA spectacle.

The show’s main conceit was a big red button that, once pressed, would finally reveal the game’s release date. However, the date had leaked online just hours earlier. That didn’t stop the crowd from cheering like mad when “Sept. 30, 2016” finally flashed onstage amid a hail of confetti and music. “Apology accepted,” the crowd roared.

Part of this intense fan reaction comes down to the series’ roots: It’s been around for nearly 30 years on dozens of classic, mobile and modern platforms. Many fans have played the games since childhood, growing up within their dense sci-fi and fantasy worlds. For these players, Final Fantasy is more than a video game series. It’s a part of who they are.

That’s especially true for 30-year-old Akira Beebee. I found her standing in line right before doors opened for the big event and asked her to explain her lifelong commitment to the franchise.

“I had an illness where I couldn’t go outside because I was allergic to the sun; I have phototoxicity,” Beebee said. “So, my dad bought me a Nintendo. One of the first games we got was Zelda and the other was Final Fantasy. It really helped me escape my room. Then VI and VII came out and those really helped me to figure out a lot about what it is to be human, and that was really important to me, especially around that age. I was like nine or ten.”

A handful of other people in line shared similar stories with me; most of them had been playing Final Fantasy games for more than 10 years. They saw the games as an escape, a way to connect with family and friends or a safe lens through which they could dissect their own maturation.

“Being introduced to it by my older siblings, it was something I grew up with and I admired.” –Ernesto Serrano

“I met a lot of great friends that way, My brothers, my sisters, my cousins, even my mom is a huge fan of XII and Rasler. It’s a big thing for me and for everybody that I know.” –Shemella Humphryes

“That was very important to me during that same level of where I was developing as a person in middle school and high school. … You don’t have to be a stereotype to be a hero.” –Gregory Hanson

“The character development is really fantastic, I think. It stands up, it has that charm like when I was a kid watching cartoons and stuff. I grew up playing it.” –Travis Dickinson

One fan in line, Melody Asghari, started playing Final Fantasy when she was four. She enjoyed the imagination of the series and the way it toyed with real-life ideas of technology and society.

“But I’m not fond of this one,” she said.

Asghari wasn’t convinced that FFXV was on track to be a good Final Fantasy game — but she showed up to the event anyway. She was giving the game, and the series, another chance to win her back.

Asghari represents Tabata’s hardest market to reach, those fans who think FFXV could be a nail in the franchise’s coffin. This may be why he’s focusing on attracting new players rather than winning over jaded ones. Part of this strategy relies on the supplemental materials like Brotherhood and Kingsglaive, which are generously peppered with big-name celebrities.

“Our real, main goal is to optimize FFXV,” Tabata says. “It’s not to maximize profit margins and revenue flow from our core fans. It’s an honest approach of we want to give our fans various entry ways to enjoy this, and have more people enjoy and experience this game and brand.”

FFXV represents a clear shift for the franchise, led by a director with his eyes on the future. It’s not just the game that’s new; the people making it have a different perspective, too, thanks to Tabata.

“In past games, our staff typically thought that a numbered FF game is a very special game and brand,” he said. “And that because they were working on it, they were special themselves. And we got rid of that idea completely with XV. We don’t think that way at all.”

‘The Walking Dead’ studio will publish ‘7 Days to Die’ on consoles

Telltale Games is best known for its emotional point-and-click adventure games The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us and Game of Thrones, but the studio’s publishing division is just getting started. Telltale Publishing will bring The Fun Pimps’ first-person zombie survival game 7 Days to Die to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in June for $30. This is the second game from Telltale Publishing, following its work on the retail edition of the Jackbox Party Pack.

After a successful Kickstarter campaign, 7 Days to Die debuted on Steam in December 2013 and has since attracted more than 1.5 million PC players, according to The Fun Pimps. The console version of the game includes a new multiplayer mode that supports split-screen play, plus additional online multiplayer modes. Pre-ordering the console version of 7 Days to Die nets customers five character skins from Telltale’s The Walking Dead series, including Michonne and Lee.