YouTube makes it cheaper to store videos offline in India
Eighteen months ago Google launched an offline mode for YouTube users in India. Now, the company is finessing the feature with a “Smart Offline” option that schedules videos to be downloaded overnight. That’s useful in India because many carriers offer cheaper data rates during the early hours. So when a user finds a clip they like, they can add it to their queue and go to bed knowing it’ll be ready the following day. It sounds pretty handy, especially for people who live or travel to places with poor connectivity. The new option is rolling out to Airtel and Telenor customers today — Google says it hopes to bring it to everyone in India “eventually.”
Via: VentureBeat
Source: Google India Blog
Play Xbox online for free this weekend
Microsoft has offered its Free Multiplayer Weekends before, but at the end of this week, the promotion will be available to both Xbox One and Xbox 360 together for the first time. In fact, it’s the first time the free trial has been available on Microsoft’s current-gen console. This means that from Thursday to Sunday (June 9-12), you’ll be able to play with your pals online free of charge if you don’t have an active Xbox Live Gold subscription. During that same period, Rocket League for Xbox One will also be free to play, so we hope you didn’t already have plans.
Starting Sunday, all Xbox Live Gold members will be able to play games from the EA Access library for free until June 22nd. That’s usually a $5 monthly or $30 annual fee for titles like Battlefield, Titanfall, Madden NFL 16, FIFA 16, Dead Space and more. If you decide to splurge for a subscription after the trial period is up, you’ll be able to pick up any saved progress from where you left off.
Source: Major Nelson (1), (2)
Engadget giveaway: Win an UMI Super smartphone!
Apparently we’ve been missing out on a world of mobile devices, but in the last few years we’ve seen an influx of previously unfamiliar names hitting US shores and beyond. Among these is UMI, a smartphone brand that’s just released the Super, its “4GB flagship killer.” This handset packs a ton of quality ingredients including a Sharp 5.5-inch display, a quick-charging 4,000mAh battery from Sony and a 13-megapixel camera courtesy of Panasonic. The Super runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow inside its aluminum unibody exterior and includes a fingerprint reader along the back and a USB-C cable for charging and data transfer. All this will be available for $250 in the near future, but if you get in on a pre-order, that price drops to just $180. There’s also a variety of discounts and info available on the company’s blog. This week, however, one lucky reader will get an UMI Super smartphone and case for free. All you need to do is head to the Rafflecopter widget below for up to three chances at winning.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
- Entries are handled through the Rafflecopter widget above. Comments are no longer accepted as valid methods of entry. You may enter without any obligation to social media accounts, though we may offer them as opportunities for extra entries. Your email address is required so we can get in touch with you if you win, but it will not be given to third parties.
- Contest is open to all residents of the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), 18 or older! Sorry, we don’t make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so direct your anger at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
- Winners will be chosen randomly. One (1) winner will receive one (1) UMI Super smartphone (Grey, GSM/WCDMA/LTE) and case.
- If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of being contacted. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen. Make sure that the account you use to enter the contest includes your real name and a contact email. We do not track any of this information for marketing or third-party purposes.
- This unit is purely for promotional giveaway. Engadget and AOL are not held liable to honor warranties, exchanges or customer service.
- The full list of rules, in all its legalese glory, can be found here.
- Entries can be submitted until June 10th at 11:59PM ET. Good luck!
The free ‘Street Fighter V’ story mode treads on familiar ground
Just as Capcom promised, the first-ever story mode for the Street Fighter series will arrive later this month. “A Shadow Falls,” a five-chapter, story-based addition to Street Fighter V, will be available at the end of June as a free download. Based on the time I spent playing the first chapter, hard-core Street Fighter V fans should be happy to get the story mode they’ve been asking for — but from a gameplay perspective, Capcom played it safe.
As with other story modes in games like the recent Mortal Kombat, “A Shadow Falls” basically consists of standard, one-round Street Fighter V matches bookended by lengthy cinematic scenes to tell the story and explain why those fights are happening in the first place. So if you’re familiar with SFV gameplay, you’ll feel right at home. I was a little disappointed not to see more innovation or new gameplay styles here, but on the other hand, that’s probably not what fans of the series are looking for. It’s more about letting you play some matches with your favorite characters while getting more backstory than any other SF game has offered thus far.
Again, though, how much you get out of that story will depend on how well you know the Street Fighter universe. As someone who only knows the basics (M. Bison is bad, obviously), I felt a bit lost in the game’s mythology as the story started. That said, a lot of the mystery comes from the way the presentation unfolds. By the end of the first chapter, I had a decent sense of what was going on, though the motivations for many of the characters still weren’t clear. That’ll likely become more obvious as the game goes on, but those with less SF experience should expect to be in the dark at first.
The gameplay, however, will be familiar to anyone who has played a recent Street Fighter game. The match-ups are identical to other battles in the game, except for the fact that they only last one round (rather than best of two out of three). What does make the fighting interesting is that from fight to fight, you don’t know the identify of the character you’ll be controlling. A few times, I found myself in control of one of the “good” guys for several battles only to have the viewpoint switch up as I needed to dispatch the character I was previously in control of. Although that formula is standard in story mode for fighting games, it was still fun to see how your next match would get set up.
This update will also contain a few other bits of new content beyond story mode. Most notable is a new character named Ibuki. She’s showed up in other Street Fighter games, but her style and moves have been revamped for SFV. Probably the most notable thing about her gameplay style is that she has to “reload” her projectile weapons. She holds five knives at a time and can fire them all off at once or in various combos — but once she’s out, you’ll need to find a quick break in the action to initiate a reload.
You’ll also be able to purchase in-game items using cold, hard cash rather than earning in-game “fight money” as you play. Capcom also says there will be a handful of new stages and costumes and teased a few surprises that I didn’t get to see just yet. The exact launch date hasn’t been finalized, but Capcom promises the mode will be available by the end of June.
‘Minecraft: Education Edition’ launches in early access
A new version of Minecraft developed for the classroom is now available in early access. Minecraft: Education Edition was announced back in January alongside Microsoft’s acquisition of MinecraftEdu, a team that had already been tweaking the game for teachers. The replacement is available for free this summer before a per-student pricing model is introduced for the academic year. As a small thank you, Microsoft has promised existing MinecraftEdu customers a year of free access to Education Edition — presumably that will kick in once the early access trial wraps up.
Education Edition has a few advantages over the vanilla version of Minecraft. Right off the bat, up to 30 students can learn and collaborate in the same world, negating the need to set up a private server through a service like Minecraft Realms. Teachers can create non-player characters (NPCs) to create a more guided experience, and equip them with web links so that students can access additional resources. There’s also a chalkboard item for providing instructions and a camera that students can use to take snapshots of their work, building an in-game portfolio along the way.
Microsoft says it’s still working on a bunch of other features that the community has requested. These include a new interface which gives teachers a map (with markers for every student), the ability to teleport users (should they start to mess around or wander off accidentally) and a chat window for managing both private and classroom-wide conversations. Minecraft has already proven itself to be an effective education tool, teaching art, geology and coding — with an official version for school, its potential and successes are almost certain to grow.
Source: Minecraft: Education Edition
GIF whatever is on your Android screen with ‘Mirror’
Recording your Android screen isn’t easy, and unless you have a Chromecast device, mirroring it is also a pain. Koushik Dutta, formerly of Cyanogen and now with ClockworkMod, has updated his Mirror app to make screencasting easier and let you record your screen as a GIF. It works on any device running Android 5 or higher and can mirror out to Fire TV, Apple TV and AllCast receivers on Chrome and Android. Though the app is from ROM-maker ClockworkMod, your phone doesn’t need to be rooted.
You can screencast to nearly any device, including other Android phones or tablets, as long as you have a newish phone. It worked well on my Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, letting me watch videos with nearly no lag, as the photo above shows. In addition, I was able to capture a GIF and video of actions on the phone, which could be handy for creating tutorials. The only drawback for that is the prominent watermark, because there’s apparently no way to get rid of it. The app is now available on Google Play.
Source: Koushik Dutta (Google+)
We’re live from Lenovo and Motorola’s joint phone unveiling!
Well, this is new: Lenovo and Motorola have had US launches before, but this year they’ve basically transplanted their entire Tech World event right into the heart of San Francisco. The festivities (if that’s the right word) will begin at 10AM Pacific/1PM Eastern and we’ll be covering all the day’s news as it breaks, so stay tuned. Expect to get your first look at Lenovo’s first Project Tango phone very shortly, and if we’re lucky, maybe Motorola’s new flagship phone will finally break cover too. Not a bad way to spend a Thurday morning/early afternoon, right?
Get all the news from today’s Lenovo and Motorola event right here!
Domino’s will track customers on their way to pick up pies
Domino’s already lets customers monitor the status of their pizzas for delivery, but on Monday it will reverse that service, allowing pizza-makers to track the location of customers coming in for a pie pick-up. The program rolls out across Australia starting on Monday, according to CNBC. Anyone in the country who orders Domino’s from a smartphone will be prompted to enable location-tracking on themselves, plus choose whether they’re coming by bike, car or on foot. Domino’s will start cooking the appropriate pizza once the customer is in range, so it comes out as fresh as possible, CEO Don Meij said.
Domino’s launched its pizza-tracking service for online orders in 2008 and the company plans to continue blending technology into its business. Another new service set to go live in the coming months is a “zero-click order” wherein customers simply open the Domino’s app and, after a 10-second countdown, their favorite or most recent order is sent to a nearby store. There will be safeguards in place to prevent accidental orders, including the ability to lock the app, Meij promised.
Source: CNBC
Facebook’s 360-degree photos invade your News Feed tomorrow
We knew they were coming, and now they’re here: 360-degree photos on Facebook are rolling out on the social network starting tomorrow. The new feature spans across Android, desktop and iOS and thankfully uploading your panoramic and spherical shots doesn’t sound much different from how you’d share 2D photos. In the News Feed, you’ll be able to differentiate between the two thanks to a compass icon denoting what photos you can drag around to get a different perspective. Folks with a Gear VR-compatible device (Facebook owns Oculus, remember) can even check out the fancy new uploads in virtual reality.
Zuckerberg and Co. know that there won’t be a ton of folks taking these new-fangled shots with high-end gear, so they’re leaning on the likes of Paul McCartney, NASA and The New York Times for that. Each respective page plays host to 360 images of concerts, various space-related items and the Supreme Court, respectively. So, if you’ve ever had a hankering to peer behind the highest court in the nation’s hallowed halls, your dream is almost a (virtual) reality.
Lenovo gives a sneak peek at a phone that wraps around your wrist
At Lenovo’s big announcement in San Francisco today, CTO Peter Hortensius introduced a bendable phone that snaps around the wrist like an old school snap-band. Youtube star Megan McCarthy, planted in the audience, got up to wrap a fully active screen on her arm.
Developing…
Get all the news from today’s Lenovo and Motorola event right here!
AIVAnet 