Ellen Degeneres launches a network with YouTube, Snapchat stars
Ellen Degeneres is leveling up with the launch of her own network, the Ellen Digital Network, which will create content for online platforms and television. YouTube powerhouse Tyler Oakley has signed on to help build original programming for the web and TV alike, while the two stars behind the viral “Damn, Daniel” videos are building an original series for Snapchat. This new venture is a partnership with Warner Bros. Television.
Degeneres has a massive presence on the air (surely you’ve heard of The Ellen Degeneres Show) and online, including 16 million subscribers on YouTube and 59.2 million followers on Twitter. Oakley has 21 million followers across social media, including 8.1 million subscribers on YouTube, where he creates diary-style videos about his life and LGBTQ issues.
The new shows on tap for EDN include Damn, Daniel Boyz, an original series about that viral sensation debuting on Snapchat this year, Ellen’s Pet Dish, an animated show featuring Degeneres’ pets, and She’s Brielle-iant, a series for EllenTube starring 4-year-old Brielle Milla discussing educational topics such as world geography and the human body. Damn, Ellen.
Via: Mashable
Source: Variety
FDA will regulate e-cigarettes like tobacco products
As the debate over the health risks of e-cigarettes rages on, the FDA is stepping in to “improve public health and protect future generations.” To do that, the US government will regulate e-cigs and vaping gear like it does any other tobacco product. Until now, these products haven’t been subject to government oversight. With the FDA’s changes, the federal law that already forbids tobacco sales to people under 18 will now apply to vaping as well. Sure, this age limit was already being enforced in some places, but this more formal announcement makes it a nation-wide law.
What’s more, vaping products will be subject to the same regulations in terms of packaging and production. Manufacturers will have to register with the FDA and provide a list of products to the agency. Companies will also be required to disclose ingredients, including any harmful or potentially harmful substances, and they’ll have to get approval before putting new tobacco products on the market. In terms of packaging and advertising, e-cigarette and vaping products must also feature a health warning label — just like the brands selling regular cigarettes.
“This final rule is a foundational step that enables the FDA to regulate products young people were using at alarming rates, like e-cigarettes, cigars and hookah tobacco, that had gone largely unregulated,” Mitch Zeller, who leads the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, said in a press release.
The US isn’t the only country clamping down on how e-cigarettes are regulated. This week, an EU court upheld new regulations that banned advertising of the newfangled tobacco products. What’s more, the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive will oversee e-cigarettes for its members from now on.
Source: FDA
Sonic grabs top honors as World Video Game Hall of Fame inductee
After getting snubbed in the inaugural class of World Video Game Hall of Fame inductees, 25-year-old Sonic the Hedgehog is finally getting the recognition it deserves. Along with Grand Theft Auto III, The Legend of Zelda, The Oregon Trail, The Sims, and Space Invaders, Sega’s 1991 release is on the list of 2016 hall of famers at the National Museum of Play.
Narrowed down from a field of 15 finalists, this year’s winners come from multiple decades and platforms, but all get the nod for their significant contributions to “the video game industry, popular culture, and society in general.” Sonic and Zelda are ingrained in popular culture with their countless sequels and spin-offs, but GTA III was groundbreaking for its 3D, sandbox-style open world. Likewise, The Sims’ “virtual dollhouse” proved games didn’t need a concrete plot to achieve universal appeal. On the older end of the spectrum, Space Invaders was a runaway success that introduced the “high score” box, and at 45-years-old The Oregon Trail has undoubtedly taught generations of American children to fear dying of dysentery.
The 2016 nominees that didn’t make the cut this year include: Elite, Final Fantasy, John Madden Football, Minecraft, Nürburgring, Pokémon Red and Green, Sid Meier’s Civilization, Street Fighter II, and Tomb Raider. While anyone can nominate their favorite title, the museum notes that final selections are made by a panel of “journalists, scholars, and other individuals familiar with the history of video games and their role in society.” There’s always next year, Lara Croft.
On the Brink of Greatness: Tech conferences
For new tech startups, the world’s biggest trade shows are all about making connections. The folks from Bambu visit one of the largest industry events of the year to preach the gospel of data. Unfortunately, things don’t go according to plan.
The Wirecutter’s best deals: $20 off the Amazon Echo
This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. Read their continuously updated list of deals at TheWirecutter.com.
You may have already seen Engadget posting reviews from our friends at The Wirecutter. Now, from time to time, we’ll also be publishing their recommended deals on some of their top picks. Read on, and strike while the iron is hot — some of these sales could expire mighty soon.
Logitech Type+ iPad keyboard case
Street price: $80; MSRP: $100; deal price: $61
Here’s the first price drop of the year on this iPad keyboard case from Logitech. This is the best deal we’ve seen on this product, beating the previous low from last spring by about $3.
The Logitech Type+ is the runner-up keyboard case pick in our guide on the best accessories for your iPhone, iPad, and more. Dan Frakes said, “Its folio-style design provides an impressive amount of protection, yet it’s thinner than most all-over-protection competitors. It has very good keys in a good layout, and it provides a nice array of dedicated iOS-special-function keys. And when you don’t need to use the keyboard, a seam in the top cover lets you fold the iPad over the keyboard to hold it tablet-style.”
Moto X Pure Edition 16GB smartphone
Street price: $350 (new); MSRP: $400 (new); deal price: $250 (refurb)
This refurbished deal through Best Buy comes in at $250, a full $50 under the best price we’ve seen on a new model of this phone, and $100 under the current street price. This deal comes with a 90-day warranty.
The Moto X Pure Edition is the customizable Android phablet pick in our guide on the best Android phones. Ryan Whitwam said, “You can choose from different colors and materials for the back, pick a metallic accent color, and even customize the startup message. It’s more comfortable to hold than other phablets despite its big, 5.7-inch LCD, plus it has a microSD card slot that it can adopt as internal storage. If you take a lot of selfies, we have still more good news: This phone has a front-facing flash paired with a wide-angle 5-megapixel camera.”
HP x4000b Bluetooth mouse
Street price: $18; MSRP: $35; deal price: $13
If you need a bare bones wireless mouse, this is the deal for you. This is the best price we’ve seen on this budget mouse, and it’s the first drop under $18 in over a year. It’s a previous pick, and there are some design problems, but it makes a great secondary or back up mouse for just $13.
The HP x4000b is our previous Bluetooth pick for the best wireless mouse. Kimber Streams said, “The HP X4000b was our previous pick for best Bluetooth mouse, but it has only three buttons and our panel had a variety of complaints about its design. It’s still the best option if you need a cheap Bluetooth mouse, but we recommend saving up for our the MX Master—or putting up with the wireless dongle of our main or portable pick instead.”
Amazon Echo
Street price: $180; MSRP: $180; deal price: $160
While about $10 higher than the best price we’ve seen, sales on the Echo tend to be rare so we consider $20 off the street price a worthwhile deal.
We’ll be recommending the Amazon Echo in a future guide. Here’s a preview of why we like the Echo, “Echo acts as streaming music player, personal assistant and smart home butler, all without making you pull out your phone every time you want to hear music, switch something on or check the weather forecast.”
Deals change all the time, and some of these may have expired. To see an updated list of current deals, please go to The Wirecutter.com.
‘Overwatch’ beta signups live throughout the weekend
Overwatch, Blizzard Entertainment’s team-based shooter, is now available as an open beta for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. So if you’ve been seeing the endless stream of commercials online and were curious about what the World of Warcraft developer had to offer with this raucous adventure, you can get in on it now for free.
While previously the beta was open this week to those who had preordered the full version, anyone can hop online and join the fight now through May 9th. There’s a pretty large spread of content to wade through too, with all 21 heroes available upon download and Quick Play, Play vs. AI, Custom Game and Weekly Brawl modes on tap for maximum carnage. If that’s not enough, you can hone your craft with Tutorial, Practice Range and Practice vs. AI modes as well.
As far as duking it out with other players, there’s a selection of 12 maps and four multiplayer modes. For Assault, you can head to Hanamura, Temple of Anubis and Voskaya Industries. For Escort games, there’s Dorado, Route 66 and Watchpoint: Gibraltar. If you’re into Assault/Escort mode, you can hit up Hollywood, King’s Row and Numbani. Lastly, for Control games, you’ll be exploring Ilios, Lijiang Tower and Nepal.
The full version of Overwatch comes out on May 24th, so if you’re interested in previewing it ahead of the end of the month, you’d better jump on it fast. It should make for a good weekend play.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment
Apple and SAP Announce New Enterprise Partnership
Apple today announced a new partnership with SAP to “revolutionize” the mobile work experience for its enterprise customers by combining native iPhone and iPad apps with the SAP HANA Cloud Platform. Under the partnership, Apple and SAP will create a new software development kit and training academy to help developers and enterprise customers create tailored business-focused iOS apps.
“This partnership will transform how iPhone and iPad are used in enterprise by bringing together the innovation and security of iOS with SAP’s deep expertise in business software,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “As the leader in enterprise software and with 76% of business transactions touching an SAP system, SAP is the ideal partner to help us truly transform how businesses around the world are run on iPhone and iPad. Through the new SDK, we’re empowering SAP’s more than 2.5 million developers to build powerful native apps that fully leverage SAP HANA Cloud Platform and tap into the incredible capabilities that only iOS devices can deliver.”
The new SAP HANA Cloud Platform SDK will be developed exclusively for iOS and will give enterprise customers simple tools for “quickly and efficiently” building apps for iPhone and iPad based on the SAP HANA Cloud Platform. According to the press release, the native apps will provide access to core data and business processes on SAP HANA while also taking advantage of Apple hardware features like Touch ID, Location Services, and Notifications.
Under the partnership, a new SAP Fiori iOS design language will be created, and SAP will also develop a suite of native iOS apps for “critical business operations” built on Apple’s Swift programming language.
Tag: SAP
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Tim Cook’s Charity Lunch Auction Raises More Than $500,000 for RFK Center
Apple CEO Tim Cook’s fourth annual CharityBuzz auction ended this afternoon, raising more than $500,000 for the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. The auction, which garnered more than 40 bids, includes a one hour lunch date with Tim Cook At Apple’s Cupertino headquarters along with passes to a forthcoming Apple keynote event.
Two people are able to attend the lunch meeting with Cook, with the experience set to last for approximately one hour. While lunch is included in the price of the auction, travel and accommodations are not. The otter expires on May 5, 2017, and the winner will be able to schedule their appointment on a “mutually agreed upon date.”
In the final hours of the auction, bidding ramped up significantly, jumping from $275,000 yesterday afternoon to the more than $500,000 finishing price.
Image via 9to5Mac
At $515,000, the 2016 CharityBuzz auction brought in more money than it did in 2014 and 2015. In 2014, the auction raised $200,000, while in 2015, it brought in $330,001. In 2013, the first year the auction was held, someone paid $610,000 to have lunch with Cook.
It’s possible the auction winner will be able to use the keynote event tickets to attend the keynote for the Worldwide Developers Conference, where Apple is expected to debut new versions of iOS, OS X, watchOS, and tvOS, and perhaps new Mac models.
Proceeds from the auction will benefit the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights, a charity Tim Cook has supported for several years. Earlier in 2016, Tim Cook was elected to the RFK Center’s board of directors.
Tags: Tim Cook, CharityBuzz
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Columns Jungle: It’s a start (Review)
Overview
Match three gems in a row in this puzzle style game by switching the order of the color columns while they fall. But don’t let it catch up with you and fill up the play area.
Developer: Simply Apps
Cost: Free (Ad-free version is available)
Gameplay
There are four controls: left, right, down and rotate. You must use these controls to move the color columns around so you can try to get three of the same color in a row either horizontally, vertically or diagonally. There are also three game modes: arcade, timer, and play with friends – which play about as you’d expect.
Review
Profile
When I started playing this game, I thought it reminded me of Tetris meets match-three games, but my wife correctly pointed out to me that it was more Dr. Mario meets match-three games, except with three color columns instead of two. The first thing I noticed is the graphics. They aren’t horrible, but they don’t stick out as awesome, just mediocre.
Controls… Are a little wonky. There are four buttons, two on each side of the play area. There are so many games that use swipe to play and I really wanted to swipe. It wouldn’t take much to swipe left and right for moving and tapping the screen to change the colors around.
I never had the chance to play online against someone else, but I suspect that will take time for a user base to build. I must give kudos for not making the ads annoying. They are very unintrusive.
Gameplay
Conclusion
When it’s all said and done, Columns Jungle is off to a good start. A couple of tweaks to the game could really go a long way in making a very popular title. I would recommend this to puzzle gamers.
Download Columns Jungle in the Play Store
The best weather apps for Android
We can always talk about the weather … and weather apps. And these are some of the best weather apps for Android.
Unless you happen to live in a holodeck or maybe a climate-controlled biodome, the weather has ways of encroaching on our lives if we’re not prepared for it. Maybe you should’ve grabbed a jacket before that cold front blew through. Maybe today’s line of storms weren’t the best time to wear a white top. Maybe you should’ve shoveled the driveway now before the last cold blast blew through and froze your driveway solid. Save yourself from an ice slick, or a cold wind blowing through your thin shirt, and keep a weather app handy. Your phone may have come with a weather app or widget, but that should never stop you from checking out the competition.
And so while we’re about to showcase apps that will vary drastically in bells and whistles, keep in mind that if the weather data that app provides isn’t accurate enough for your particular place, then you should keep looking for something that does.
Originally published in February 2015, refreshed May 2016.
AccuWeather
AccuWeather is one of the more established weather sites out there today, and it has a sizable Android following not only because of a simple yet feature-rich app, but also because AccuWeather powers a plethora of widgets and third-party weather apps. AccuWeather’s first-party app is a bright affair, with lots of white backgrounds broken up with big pictures, charts, and ads, though those can be removed by upgrading to AccuWeather Platinum.
The detailed charts for both hourly and daily temperatures also scored big, making it easy for users to judge coming conditions more quickly and easily than reading a slew of numbers. AccuWeather also has regional video forecasts a la The Weather Channel and support for Android Wear, putting the forecast and conditions on your wrist for your convenience.
Download: AccuWeather(Free, $2.99)
1Weather
1Weather is a beautiful weather app with a dark theme after my heart and a simplistic but sensible side-to-side page layout to match. It’s easy to read, easy to understand, and easy to love. It even has Android Wear support, though rather than an app it comes in the form of three-card notifications for current conditions and immediate forecast and one-card notifications for alerts, each with customized background images.
If you have a child that’s interested in what the weather terms we often look at mean, 1Weather is an app that can help teach them a bit more about the weather. When you tap on any of the stats on the bottom of the main page, it will give you explanations of that term and some helpful hints as to what they mean — for instance, that when barometric pressure is dropping there’s a good chance a storm is coming. There’s even a collection of video links to help teach you about weather events and what the clouds outside your window mean for your forecast.
There are few flaws we’ve found in our extended use of 1Weather, and most of them can be attributed to the layout 1Weather uses, such as the disconnect between reaching the map and interacting with it, as you have to tap an expand button before you can zoom or move the map. There are ads in 1Weather that can be removed with a one-time in-app purchase, and while the black/blue UI is constant, the background it sits in front of can be changed between a dozen choices, including different weather states, space and cats, should you need a dose of adorability with your weather.
Download: 1Weather (Free, in-app-purchases)
The Weather Channel
The Weather Channel app has undergone some changes in recent times, and most of them have improved the app greatly. The layout is much slicker and simpler than before, having ditched its previous UI for one big, long continuous scroll.
As you scroll you get to more detailed information, like daily forecasts, radar, even social options and what the weather is like in some ski resorts. The Weather Channel is one of the most well known sources of forecast information on the planet, and their latest Android app takes out the complicated and makes it ultra simple to see what you need to see.
There are ads inside the app, but equally it’s free and they have to pay the bills. A paid upgrade would be nice, though.
Download: The Weather Channel (Free)
Weather Underground
Weather Underground is a weather service with a history most Android fans could admire. It grew out of the University of Michigan’s weather database, eventually growing into a professional weather data provider for numerous sources, including The Associated Press. And then after becoming the No. 2 weather site on the net, they were bought by The Weather Channel. The site still operates as a separate entity, and continues to be the top weather source for a great many users around the country, in no small part due to the network of over 100,000 personal weather stations.
Weather Underground is a busy little app, but it’s easy to get around and it’s easy to find the basics. You find the same vertical scroll layout used in many of today’s weather apps, but you also have a quick menu to switch between the weather and the WunderMap. The WunderMap provides radar, temps, and a slew of user weather reports from both the personal weather stations and from users like you, who can report their current geo-specific conditions right here in the app.
It is a flexible app in both layout and in settings, providing controls over the forecast source, over privacy in your ads, and even allowing for a choice between a light theme and a dark theme. And if you’re happier with a most compact format and a no-nonsense design, the Weather Underground will do you just fine. One quirk for Weather Underground is that to get rid of ads, you must be a paid Wunderground member or pay a yearly subscription.
Download: Weather Underground (Free, in-app subscription)
Yahoo Weather
Yahoo takes the honor in this humble writer’s eyes for being the prettiest weather app, but when it comes to weather apps, pretty can’t be all it has. Yahoo Weather is powered by Weather Underground, so it’s forecasts and data have the accuracy of its nationwide network of personal weather stations.
The background images for the app are pulled from Flickr, Yahoo’s picture service, so if you’re looking at picturesque locations like New York City or Disney World, you’re likely to get a new and beautiful image every time to go into the app. If you’re in a more remote location, those pictures will be more generic. The layout for Yahoo Weather is nice if you like to check multiple locations quickly, as you scroll up and down for the data about one location, then scroll side to side for each location’s data.
Yahoo is another weather app that doesn’t allow you to get rid of ads, but there are at least not that many of them, with a single ad between the forecast and radar and then a list of Yahoo’s many Android apps in the menu shade between your locations and settings.
Download: Yahoo Weather (Free)
Honorable Mentions
While there are lots of great weather apps out there, we had to stop somewhere. If you’re looking for something a little more off the beaten path, here are a few other apps and widgets suggested by our users that you may find more to your liking.
- Bright Weather: Another utterly simplistic weather app, Bright Weather has but three screens: the homescreen is the current temp and a graph with both the last day and next day’s worth of temperatures and rain chances. The second page holds the hourly and weekly forecast, and the next page has the radar map. Many users like the simplicity of this app, but it takes a little getting used to.
- Grumpy Weather Widget : Maybe it’s just the infantile side of my brain, but it can be miserable outside and I’ll still smile at this widget’s smarmy opinion of the weather. Grumpy weather is indeed very grumpy and very inappropriate for certain audiences. User discretion is advised.
- BBC Weather: BBC Weather’s app is quite pretty and quite good. It’s what our editors on that side of the pond use, and they seem happy with it.
- Weather Timeline : This material design weather app has a small but devoted following, and the app’s premise as a weather app is simple: summarizing the coming weather and putting it in an easy-to-digest timeline format. Weather Timeline also has Android Wear support and a low price of 99 cents.
Another trait we found among our readers during our poll on weather apps was that most users don’t limit themselves to one. Sometimes the weather needs a second opinion, or one app has a feature you need sometimes — like the Spark network on Weatherbug or the wave forecast on the Weather Channel — but another app fit your daily habits and tastes more. Don’t be afraid to mix and match — and don’t be afraid to tell us what you’re using for all your weather needs.
AIVAnet 