Lutron adds Alexa support to its connected home devices

While Amazon’s Alexa-enabled devices get more and more features to play music and order goods from the online retailer, it’s IoT that’s making it the must-have device for the home. With it, instead of reaching for a smartphone and launching an app, you can simply say, “Alexa” and control an increasing amount of connected devices. Now Lutron’s Caseta Wireless lighting system is ready to be told what to do.

Lutron joins Philips Hue, WeMo, Nest, Insteon and Samsung’s Smart Things with Alexa support. Users can add Lutron devices via the Alexa app.

Once set up, in addition to turning the lights on and of with their voice, users can adjust the brightness of Lutron bulbs by varying percentages.

Hasbro and Indiegogo want your board game ideas

Despite the ever-growing number of screens at our disposal, there’s still a desire for traditional board games that rely on paper, card and plastic. Hasbro, an industry titan that owns Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit and other tabletop classics, is now looking to the community for fresh ideas. The company is teaming up with Indiegogo for the “Spring 2016 Next Great Game Challenge,” an open competition to find and publish a user-created board game. Any enthusiast designer from Canada, the US, France, Germany and the UK can submit their ideas online, up until May 15th.

Once the deadline closes, Hasbro’s game designers will review each submission and choose 15 favorites based on their visual style, “narrative” and mechanics. The shortlist will then submit prototypes, which, after careful consideration, will be whittled down to five finalists. Hasbro will give each contestant $2,000 and help them set up an Indiegogo campaign, designed to raise funding and awareness. Hasbro will mentor them throughout the process and the winner will receive an extra $25,000, a trip to Hasbro HQ and, of course, the chance to have their game published.

A similar competition was held last year, but it was only open to designers in the US. The winner was the Mr Toast Card Game, developed by Dan Goodsell, which will be released by Hasbro later this year. Indiegogo’s involvement might raise a few eyebrows, given that Hasbro has enough funds to publish any game that’s submitted for the competition. However, it’s not uncommon for companies to use crowdfunding sites as a means to test public interest in a product. It’s also led to some phenomenally well-funded games, including Exploding Kittens and Zombicide: Black Plague.

Source: Next Great Game Challenge

Group of 10- to 14-year-olds win $15,000 playing ‘Minecraft’

If your kids are going to play video games anyway, then you may want to make sure they’re really good at it. Why? Well, take for example this group of grade and middle school kids from Maryland who got a $15,000 shared college scholarship for winning the second Super League Gaming World Championship in Minecraft. Super League Gaming is a four-week league wherein participants play games in theaters. The 10- to 14-year-old players calling themselves Live2Craft bested 450 other groups of all ages (mostly grade- to high school-aged, though) from 68 cities across the US.

While the 5-person team won the scholarship prize, the top-scoring player in the league is from another team in California: a 10-year-old kid named Julien Wiltshire. He was also the first season’s top scoring player and even took home a $5,000 scholarship prize. This time, he defeated almost 2,000 other gamers — twice the number of the first season’s participants — earning him the right to brag that he’s now a two-time Minecraft champ. He might also be gearing up for the third season starting on April 30th, so if your younglings want to join, it may be wise to start training them pronto.

Source: Super League Gaming

Stream Android games to Twitch without a smartphone

Twitch committed to mobile gaming in a big way by sponsoring a Vainglory tournament and it’s making streaming easier by partnering with Bluestacks. As a reminder, Bluestacks makes an Android emulator for PC (or Mac) that lets you run most any mobile app or game on the desktop. The new venture, called Bluestacks TV, goes both ways. First off, you’ll be able to watch selected Twitch streams on Bluestacks, as if you were watching a Twitch Stream on mobile. At the same time, mobile game broadcasters will be able to stream directly to Twitch via the Bluestacks emulator without using a smartphone.

The latter feat is by far the most difficult of the two, according to Bluestacks, and will be a boon to mobile game broadcasters. Normally, you need a phone or tablet, wires to connect to a PC and a webcam. “A lot of people have tried to crack mobile game streaming, but the multiple-device issue makes it really hard,” says Bluestacks VP John Gargiulo. “This consolidates everything onto one PC, which is the device of choice for gamers anyway.” To show off the tech, Bluestacks TV will host a mobile Hearthstone tournament on Twitch that kicks off today at 9 AM ET.

Purists might argue that streaming mobile games from a PC via emulation isn’t exactly in the spirit of things. Nevertheless, Bluestacks reportedly has 130 million users, so the partnership exposes a lot of those folks to Twitch and vice-versa. It will also make things easier for mobile Twitch broadcasters and developers alike. “We’ve been approached to put an SDK in our games, but that’s bandwidth we don’t have,” developer Mark Zhang told Bluestacks. “The fact that millions of people can stream Castle Clash to Twitch without us doing anything is massive.”

ICYMI: Pollution concrete, EV wireless charging and more

Today on In Case You Missed It: Scientists at UCLA have made concrete by first extracting greenhouse gases from power plant smokestacks. An EV prototype to wirelessly charge cars is making the rounds, and the group’s big plan is to design a 50 kilowatt charger that can juice up cars as they drive. You could put that future charger inside your garage where a new opener comes with extra modules that can detect obstacles and about 10 other things.

Finally, we were tickled by the idea of a robot that can best you at Settlers of Catan, so please check that out. As always, please share any great tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.

Reddit Launches Official iOS App With Free Gold for Early Adopters

Reddit today released an official iOS app for browsing, searching, commenting, and upvoting within subreddits on iPhone or iPod touch.

Reddit for iOS replaces Alien Blue, which has now been removed from the App Store, as the website’s official mobile app for Apple users.

Alien Blue previously served as Reddit’s official iOS app after the company acquired it from developer Jase Morrissey in 2014. Alien Blue Pro users recently received four years of Reddit gold for free to help bridge the transition.

The new app is split into four tabbed sections:

– Timeline: Browse and comment on the latest stories from the front page and subreddits that you are subscribed to. Photos appear in line, while videos and external links open in a new window when tapped. There are also upvote and downvote buttons and options to share or hide posts. Tap on the three dots in the top-right corner to choose between compact or card view, or sort posts based on Hot, New, Top, or Controversial. Tap on the pencil icon in the top-left corner to submit a text, image, or link post. Swipe down to refresh.

– Subscriptions: A list of subreddits that you are subscribed to, along with a Discover option to find new subreddits based on a number of topics: animals, art and design, ask, books and writing, business, comics and hobbies, DIY and crafts, driving and vehicles, entertainment, fashion and style, food and drink, funny, gaming, health and fitness, interesting, life and advice, local, meta, military and survival, music, news and politics, philosophy, pics and GIFs, relationships, science, shopping, sports, stories, technology, trades, travel and outdoors, videos, and more.

– Inbox: View your private messages, comment replies, post replies, and mentions. Tap on the pencil icon on the top-left corner to compose a private message to another user. Swipe down to refresh.

– Profile: View your user profile, including an overview of your account karma and creation date, browsing history, saved posts, personal posts and comments, upvoted posts, friends, hidden topics, and image uploads. Tap on the settings icon in the top-right corner for account management, customizable themes, a safe for work browsing toggle, option to clear local history, and quick links to Reddit’s content policy, privacy policy, user agreement, help FAQ, and bug reporting.

Reddit is automatically gifting users that download and sign into the new app with a free three-month Reddit gold subscription during its launch week.

Reddit gold provides perks such as turning off ads, custom themes, custom avatars, new comment highlighting, subreddit filtering, saved posts and comments categorization, and more. A subscription normally costs $3.99/month or $29.99/year, or you can mail Reddit a postcard to receive a one-month subscription for free.

Reddit for iOS [Direct Link] is free on the App Store for iPhone and iPod touch. The app does not have universal iPad support, and availability appears to be limited to the U.S., U.K., Canada, and select other countries upon launch.

Tag: Reddit
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Coachella 2016 Announces Apple Pay and Square Support, Exclusive Prize Deliveries With iBeacons

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival recently announced a partnership with contactless payment company Square, letting attendees at the outdoor event pay for merchandise and food with the help of Square’s new NFC and chip card reader (via AppleInsider).

Launched late last year, the compact device lets any small business — or any vendor at Coachella — adopt contactless payments with support for services like Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay, and even accept payments through chip-enabled credit cards.

According to Square’s blog, the company will be supplying “every vendor” with the Square Reader, allowing for simpler payments of food, drinks, and festival memorabilia, or easing the pain of anyone who might forget their wallet.

With just a tap of your phone or Apple Watch, you can pay for everything from pizza to beer to festival merch. An added plus: contactless payments like Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay are way faster than credit card payments (not to mention cash), so you can check out quickly and get back to the music or your beer.

Apple has always been a proponent of Square’s payment accessories, and began selling the NFC reader within Apple Stores earlier in February.

Coachella is also continuing support for iBeacons during the festival, which it began implementing in 2014. The location-targeting technology was first used to send push notifications when attendees were in certain areas of the festival and give them info on artists and vendors. This year, iBeacons will send out “Surprise and Delight” rewards to those who sync an American Express card with the Coachella iOS app. [Direct Link]

Varying on where they are at the festival, prizes will be given out including backstage passes, artist meet-ups, free Ferris Wheel rides, VIP upgrades, and tickets for Coachella 2017. The Square partnership announcement comes a little over a week before the start of Coachella, which kicks off on April 15, and runs for two weekends, in Indio, California.

Tags: iBeacons, Square
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Huawei P9 vs Huawei P9 Plus: What’s the difference?

Huawei has announced two new flagship smartphones – the heavily rumoured P9 and its bigger, badder brother, the P9 Plus. 

The two devices are almost identical but there are a couple of differences between them and that’s what this feature is all about. How does the Huawei P9 compare to the Huawei P9 Plus? Read on to find out.

Huawei P9 vs Huawei P9 Plus: Design

The Huawei P9 and P9 Plus both offer full metal bodies, constructed from one piece of metal. There is a fingerprint sensor on the rear, along with a dual camera setup.

The P9 is a little smaller and lighter than the P9 Plus, as you would expect, measuring 145 x 70.9 x 6.95mm and hitting the scales at 144g. The P9 Plus measures 152.3 x 75.3 x 6.98mm and weighs 162g, meaning it is almost identical in slimness but a little larger elsewhere. It also offers stereo speakers.

The P9 comes in four colours comprising Rose Gold, Prestige Gold, Titanium Grey and Mystic Silver, with a P9 Deluxe model available in Haze Gold and Ceramic White. The P9 Plus comes in four colours, comprising Haze Gold, Quartz Grey, Rose Gold and Ceramic White.

Huawei P9 vs Huawei P9 Plus: Display

The Huawei P9 comes with a 5.2-inch Full HD LCD display that delivers a pixel density of 424ppi. It offers a 96 per cent colour saturation and 500nits brightness, along with a 1.7mm bezel.

The Huawei P9 Plus ups the size slightly to 5.5-inches, but it sticks with a Full HD resolution for a pixel density of 401ppi meaning images should be crisper on the smaller handset. Huawei opted for a Super AMOLED display for the P9 Plus however which should mean colours are richer and more vibrant.

The P9 Plus’s display is also a Press Touch display like the top-of-the-range Mate S. It will offer two levels of pressure sensitivity and there will be 18 native apps supporting the feature, along with a pop-up shortcut menu.

Huawei P9 vs Huawei P9 Plus: Camera

The Huawei P9 and Huawei P9 Plus both offer the same camera capabilities with the exception of one extra feature on the P9 Plus.

Both have dual rear cameras comprising two 12-megapixel sensors, one of which is RGB and the other monochrome. They also both come with laser-assisted AF on the rear, Leica technology including standard, vivid and smooth film modes, as well as full manual control.

The front snappers on both is an 8-megapixel sensor, but the P9 Plus offers laser autofocus for selfies too, while the P9 doesn’t.

Huawei P9 vs Huawei P9 Plus: Hardware

The Huawei P9 and the Huawei P9 Plus both come with the octa-core 64-bit Kirin 955 chipset. The company claims this processor is 100 per cent faster than the P8 and offers a 125 per cent improvement on 3D graphics.

The P9 is available in two models, one of which has 32GB of internal storage with 3GB of RAM, while the other has 64GB of internal memory and 4GB of RAM. Both come with microSD support, USB Type-C and a 3000mAh battery.

The P9 Plus on the other hand only comes in one model, which offers 64GB of internal storage and 4GB of RAM. MicroSD and USB Type-C are both on board again, but the P9 Plus has a slightly larger battery at 3400mAh.

Huawei P9 vs Huawei P9 Plus: Software

The software experience on the P9 and P9 Plus will be largely the same in that they both launch on Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Huawei’s EMUI 4.1 skin over the top.

There will of course be a few extra features on the P9 Plus thanks to those that come with the pressure-sensitive display but on the whole, these two devices will offer a very similar experience in terms of interface.

Huawei P9 vs Huawei P9 Plus: Conclusion

As we said at the beginning of this feature, the P9 and the P9 Plus are almost identical aside from a couple of differences. The P9 is smaller, lighter and has a sharper display but it has less RAM and storage in its standard model and a smaller battery.

The P9 Plus offers a larger screen with pressure sensors, a bigger battery, more RAM as standard and it offers AF on its front facing camera, as well as stereo speakers.

The P9 is cheaper though, starting at €599, while the P9 Plus will set you back €749.

Nike Free trainers sport new tech to deliver a more natural run

Nike has announced its new Nike Free running shoe range for 2016, ditching the Free 3, 4 and 5 models for a more universal approach that should appeal to a wider audience of runners.

While the range now looks to offer separate features for different runners and athletes, core to the new flagship trainer in the line is a new sole that, according to Nike, makes huge advancements over previous shoes that the company has released over the last 12 years.

While the sole still works around being as flexible as possible, it now takes a similar approach to how sports compression gear works.

Nike, being Nike, call this technology “progressive geometric auxetic”. Put simply, it is the ability for the sole to stretch in all directions rather than just one.

The midsole is now designed to enable an athlete’s natural motion and develop strength, whether they are running or training.

Pocket-lint

The reason, says Nike, is because studies have revealed that the foot expands and contracts upon impact with – and lift off from – the ground. Trying to either take advantage of this or combat it (we aren’t sure), the now splaying, auxetic midsole mimics how the body and foot react to force.

Nike adds that the tech “absorbs shock while accounting for the dual-plane expansion in foot size (approximately one size in length and two sizes in width) that occurs throughout an athlete’s foot strike”. It claims that the resulting flexibility puts the foot, rather than the shoe, in control.

We got a chance to try the tech in practice, during a 7.5km test run with Nike around Victoria in London.

The Nike Free RN Flyknit shoes certainly feel very natural. They give a good balance of cushioning and feeling the ground you are running on, without being overly “spongy”.

It is not a soft run by any means, and we aren’t wouldn’t feel comfortable running more than 10km in them for fear of our calves and an overal lack of ankle support, but there was plenty of spring to cope with bursts of acceleration. A balancing exercise on one leg proved fairly difficult. 

Sitting in the middle of the range, the RN Flykint is probably most akin to the Nike Free 4.0 from 2015. It features a lightweight Flyknit upper, this time in blue, that delivers a sock-like fit with a classic silhouette that moulds to the foot.

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The midsole features the same expansive auxetic technology, but with IU foam for additional underfoot comfort compared to the Nike Free RN Motion Flyknit that ops for a 3D ribbing sole from the forefoot to heel.

Those not taken with the Nike Flyknit approach can go for a more traditional upper made with mesh.

There is also a low-profile training shoe featuring a 5/8-height Flyknit upper designed to promote a feeling of support, while Flywire locks down the foot during lateral cuts and an integrated heel counter ensures stability during hard cuts. It’s called the Nike Free Train Force Flyknit.

The new trainers are now available, with the RN Motion coming in May.

Google puts money into cementing green energy standards in Asia

Plenty of big tech companies are looking to source green energy whenever they can for their substantial energy needs, and Google is the same. But it looks like it’s hard to find the renewable energy you’re looking for in Asia — specifically China, which is why the company says it’s offering seed funding to the Center for Resource Solutions. The non-profit is going to bring its experience in setting up and running renewable energy certification programs to Asia, starting in Taiwan. That’s good, because that’s right where Google needs green power for its data center.
While its parent company tries all kinds of things to chase renewable energy, its Google itself that is coaxing certification and standardization along here. However, it’s not stating outright how much cash it’s putting down: “The system for getting proper credentials for renewable energy sources is virtually nonexistent on the continent.”

Via: Recode

Source: Google Asia Pacific