Acer Switch 12 S preview: 2-in-1 with many talents
We found Acer’s swanky Switch 12 S on the showfloor at this year’s Computex and had a short play. It’s certainly a 2-in-1 laptop/tablet to be reckoned with.
The detachable Switch 12 S is mainly interesting for its innovative connectivity solutions. The otherwise aluminium back panel of the tablet has antennae discretely embedded along the panel towards the top area. This boosts the reception of your Wifi.
Also nifty are the two fold-out USB 3.0 ports in the keyboard. The design allows the 12 S to retain its slim footprint. The gold connection hinge for the tablet to the dock also serves as a 60GHz wireless connection between the two allowing for speedy data and power transfer.
The latch-free magnetic connection between the dock and the keyboard is quite sturdy. We think you’ll need two hands to detach it, but this allows for viewing angles of up to 135-degrees.
The tablet itself, which contains all the inner workings of the device, battery included, is just 7.8mm thick and weighs in at 800g – not too shabby for a 12.5-inch device. The dock pushes that up to a still acceptable 1.4kg.
Pocket-lint
We like the feel of the backlit chiclet keyboard. The connector adds a slight raise, giving a comfy typing angle, and the keys are well spaced with good travel. The keyboard is home to the aforementioned flip out USB ports.
Other ports include USB type-C/Thunderbolt 3 giving up to 40Gbps data transfer, DC power in (either the Thunderbolt or DC port can be used for charging), microSD and Mini HDMI. They are all on the tablet section.
The Switch 12 S is run on Intel Core M processors and boasts a 4K display.
There’s a 3D camera found on the rear of the tablet which permits users to capture movements or objects for 3D model generating.
Pocket-lint
The graphics dock is also quite interesting and adds Nvidia GTX 960M graphics to the mix. Acer claims that the dock is only compatible with the Switch 12 S and the Aspire R13, but we think if you do your homework it may well work with your other devices depending on the specifications.
It’s a nice looking machine, which can also be used tent style.
The back panel is a bit of a fingerprint magnet though, despite the matte finish. However, it’s a great 2-in-1 with good productivity potential and some really interesting connectivity solutions.
It’s already available in the UK with prices starting at around £900 or so.
GOG will add select Steam games to your library for free
Juggling multiple digital libraries can be complicated. Did you buy that game on Steam, or GOG.com? Depending on the game, it might not matter anymore. Today, GOG.com announced a new service that will automatically add select Steam games to your GOG library — for free.
For folks juggling a fractured library of digital content, the GOG Connect’s promise is enticing: link a Steam account to your GOG Library, get your Steam games on GOG. Actually redeeming the games is as easy as it sounds, but not every game available on both Steam and GOG qualifies for transfer — GOG says the selection of eligible games varies “depending on various agreements with our partners.” Right now, that limited selection includes games like FTL, Shadowrun Returns, Trine, Braid, Saints Row 2 and more.
Adding Steam games to your GOG account won’t remove them from your Steam library, but you might lose the ability to transfer them if you haven’t already — each eligible game seems to come with a time limit. GOG says the transfer eligibility period will vary from game to game, but once it transfers over, it’s yours forever. The rules may be a little complicated, and the selection limited, but ultimately it’s hard to complain. A free game is a free game, after all.
Via: Polygon
Source: GOG Connect
Ready at Dawn’s new game is nothing like ‘The Order’
While Ready at Dawn developers were working on The Order: 1886, they saturated themselves in big-budget single-player experiences. The office’s gaming nook was usually occupied by one person running through a gorgeous digital world as developers studied 3D environments, motion-captured facial expressions and cinematic cut scenes. In the end, Ready at Dawn created a beautiful game that was widely criticized for its lack of mechanical or narrative innovation. For many players, The Order was missing something.
That thing might have been a sense of pure, unadulterated fun — specifically for more than one person at a time.
Ready at Dawn co-founder and president Ru Weerasuriya missed the atmosphere that had pervaded the office’s gaming space before work started on The Order. Back then, groups of developers would play Bomberman or Mario Kart late into the night, laughing, yelling and trying to out-maneuver each other. In short, Weerasuriya missed co-op.
That’s one reason Ready at Dawn’s new game, De-formers, is such a drastic shift from The Order. It’s a cheery, multiplayer-only title starring a lineup of adorable boneless blobs that come in a rainbow of colors. The characters are called “Forms” and they use a variety of globulous moves to battle each other by rolling, jumping, shooting, dashing and throwing across a series of arenas. The Forms get bigger and stronger by consuming objects in the world — and the remains of their defeated opponents. It’s cannibalism combat in a 3D cartoon.
Matches in De-formers are short, just a few minutes each. The game supports up to eight players in a combination of local and multiplayer co-op, meaning you and some friends on the couch can jump together into an online game, or you can dive into a one-one-one round, local or online. There are no skeletons in the Forms’ characters models; they roll, distort and stretch based on a physics engine that responds to the specific elements in each match. Plus, they’re adorable.
With such an extreme shift from The Order to De-formers, Ready at Dawn should be nervous about disenfranchising its existing fans. Right?
“Not really,” Weerasuriya says.
As he sees it, Ready at Dawn has pivoted plenty of times since the studio’s founding in 2003. Its first game was a PlayStation Portable exclusive called Daxter, based on the cartoonish Jak and Daxter series. From there, the studio worked on both the God of War and Okami franchises before diving into The Order.
“We hope that people realize we make games for gamers,” Weerasuriya says. “We’ve always looked to, ‘What could be fun?’ Rather than, ‘What should we do?’”
He says De-formers is a deceptively complex game that’s easy to enter but hard to master, and it’s executed with the same polish as The Order. There’s no narrative in De-formers — its focus is pure competitive fun, coming “soon” to PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
Another reason De-formers is different is the partnership taking place behind the scenes: It’s made in conjunction with GameStop’s new publishing division, GameTrust. GameTrust promises a hands-off approach to publishing, allowing independent teams to create the games they want without bureaucratic influence. Insomniac’s Song of the Deep is also part of GameStop’s new program, alongside Trine studio Frozenbyte and Deadlight house Tequila Works.
Ready at Dawn owns the rights to De-formers, full-stop. This is the game Weerasuriya wants to make — a multiplayer combat experience with an old-school couch co-op vibe. Basically, it’s something that the entire Ready at Dawn office can enjoy.
Xiaomi’s Mi Band 2 comes with a display and a price rise
While you probably won’t see many people wearing Xiaomi’s Mi Band tracker, that doesn’t mean it isn’t popular. The bracelet, alongside a range of kids watches, has helped the Chinese electronics maker become the world’s second biggest wearable manufacturer behind Fitbit. To maintain its momentum, the company today took the wraps of the Mi Band 2, debuting a familiar wearable that features a 0.42-inch OLED display.
Like its predecessor, the Mi Band 2 tracks basic movements, monitors your heart rate, measures sleep, includes an ADI accelerometer and is waterproof. The screen, coupled with a thin anodized button, will display the time, step count and current heart activity, but comes at a price. Xiaomi has been forced to increase the cost of its wearable, pricing it at around $23 (£15), around $7 more than its older sibling.
The display will also take a toll on your Mi Band’s battery life. Xiaomi’s wearables are known for their distance between charges and the company has traditionally targeted 30 days of usage. For the Mi Band 2, that estimate has been rounded down to around 20 days, but we’re sure it’ll outperform the company’s conservative expectations.
Available in black, blue, green and orange, the Mi Band 2 will go on sale on June 7th in China — there’s currently no word on whether it’ll make it to Xiaomi’s international stores in the future.
Via: Engadget Chinese
Source: Mi (Facebook), Mi.com
Google makes it easy to find lost phones and access My Account
Back in 2015, Google launched a feature that displays a map showing your Android phone’s current location when you search for “find my phone.” Now, the big G is introducing another way to look for missing devices that sounds especially useful for absent-minded users. In the near future, searching for “I lost my phone” will take you straight to a portal called “Find your phone.” If you have an Android device, you can ring and locate it straight from the page. You can still remotely sign out of a Gmail account if you have an iPhone, but the page instructs you to visit iCloud.com to find it.
The tech titan is also rolling out new features that make it quicker to access your account hub. That’s the same page that shows your security settings, personal info and account preferences in one place. If you’ve already updated your Google app, saying “Ok Google, show me my Google account” takes you straight to the hub. In the future, searching for your name while you’re signed in will return a link to that hub at the top of the results list, as well. The company didn’t say when the feature will become available, but you can always access the page by going to myaccount.google.com.
Source: Google
Up close with Lian Li’s PC-hiding standing desk
Standing desks are the latest trend in office furniture and for good reason; sitting for hours a day can be pretty bad for your health. Lian Li, a case manufacturer that has built PCs into desks in the past, has taken that idea and incorporated into the DK-04, a PC chassis / desk combo that can be lowered and raised for both sitting and standing positions.
We had a chance to take a look at it here at Computex 2016, and like Lian Li’s previous PC-desk combinations, the DK-04 will house your PC components in the aluminum tabletop (It essentially doubles as the computer’s chassis). There are even vents on the rear of the desk for the hot air to dissipate. This particular one on the show floor has eight expansion slots, up to ten hard drive bays, four USB 3.0 ports and measures around 120cm wide. The top of it is a piece of tempered glass, which lets you admire your water-cooled PC rig from the outside.
Next to the USB ports and the dials are the adjustable height controls, which are very similar to other sit-stand desks. You can have it as low as 67.5 centimeters or as high as 116 centimeters. I tried it out for a few minutes and the desk does go up and down as promised, and at a pretty decent speed. I also really liked the look and feel of the desk-based PC in general — not having messy wires everywhere makes for one of the cleanest and most minimal desktop PC designs I’ve seen.
That said, the DK-04 is quite spendy, starting at $1,499 just for the barebones desk. Still, it makes for a pretty compelling option for those who want a DIY gaming rig that has potential health benefits too.
Tinder is helping Brits understand the EU referendum
Nothing gets a Tinder match swooning like a well-informed political debate. Quite fitting, then, that the dating app has added a new, temporary feature for UK users to help them to brush up on EU referendum issues when they’ve exhausted their daily Super Like allowance. In collaboration with non-profit Bite the Ballot, Tinder has created a true-or-false quiz covering key topics such as benefits and human rights — with the idea being you swipe your way to a better understanding of the key issues ahead of the referendum vote on June 23rd.
Once you’ve completed the quiz and have been labelled a commoner or crowned a King based on your score, you can get more info on the topics covered and even register to vote via the app. The new politically powered feature follows a similar experiment that debuted in the US a few months back, where users were matched with presidential candidates based on their stances towards various points of debate. So… are you in or are you out?
Via: Wired
Source: Tinder
Wanna hang out in zero gravity with George Takei?
We may not be living in the future that Star Trek promised us, but there are still perks available to us that the kids of the ’60s would have killed for. Like this opportunity to fly in a private version of NASA’s Vomit Comet with Captain Hikaru Sulu in Las Vegas this August. George Takei, along with Roddenberry Adventures, is offering 20 fans the chance to zoom through the skies of Nevada, completing 15 parabolic arcs offering up to 30 seconds of weightlessness a pop.
Creating a zero gravity environment is possible within the confines of Earth’s atmosphere, but it is pretty intensive. A plane is required to fly up at a 45-degree angle for 20 seconds before drastically topping out, at which point everything begins to float. You’re more likely to be familiar with the concept thanks to the fact that portions of Apollo 13 were shot using this method. More recently, OK Go used a Russian airliner to shoot the music video for Upside Down and Inside Out.
The event will take place on August 4th during the Las Vegas’ big Star Trek convention to celebrate the show’s birth back in 1966. If you can confirm the location of your wallet and confirm the existence of $6,825 within, then you should head over to Zero-G and book your flight. As part of the deal, you’ll meet Rod Roddenberry, get to keep your flight suit and get to mingle with George before and after the event.
Via: GeekWire, CNET
Source: ZeroG, Roddenberry Adventures
ICYMI: AI earbuds, 3D-printed casts and more
Today on In Case You Missed It: A Kickstarter project to give you artificial intelligence in earbud form is out in the world and we couldn’t help but make just a little bit of fun. A startup wants to create 3D-printed casts for the broken-boned masses, since previous versions have been too expensive for all but the most elite professional football players. And a new drone would have you up your selfie game in a way you didn’t even know you wanted.
As always, please share any great tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
NYPD’s smartphone program is shortening crime response times
The NYPD Mobility Initiative is paying off in spades for Gotham’s police. The force’s Deputy Commissioner for Information Technology Jessica Tisch recently revealed that thanks to the initiative that puts smartphones and tablets in police hands, response times to crimes in progress are down 12.6 percent. Gotham’s 36,000 officers are able to arrive at crimes in progress within 4 minutes and 26 seconds. According to a report by the New York Daily News, that’s the lowest the responses have been in more than half a decade. That expediency extends to 911 call responses as well. With a dedicated app, the police are able to start moving toward a crime scene before a dispatcher even contacts them.
In fact, Tuesday alone saw around 7,000 officers clicking on 29,000 emergency 911 alerts and performing 26,000 investigative queries, according to the News. Combined with the Hudson Yards neighborhood, upgrades to public WiFi and parking meters, America’s first city is becoming one of the country’s smartest
Source: New York Daily News
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