The 7 best VR apps for iPhone – CNET
When it comes to smartphone-powered VR, Google Cardboard gets all the attention because, well, it’s pretty much the only game in town. Indeed, WWDC came and went without a single mention of virtual reality, meaning Apple will continue to sit on the sidelines.
Fortunately for iPhone owners, that doesn’t mean you need to switch to Android if you want to enjoy virtual experiences. In fact, you can dive into VR right now; all you need is a headset and some apps.
The headset is easy: Google Cardboard or anything compatible will work with just about any iPhone. To really do this on the cheap, head to Unofficial Cardboard, where you can score a simple, plain-white viewer for free. (You pay only $2.95 for shipping. If you want a decal and/or head strap, you can pay a few bucks extra.)
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Your iPhone can pull VR duty. You supply the viewer and the apps.
Rick Broida/CNET
As for the apps, look no further than the App Store. Mostly you’ll find games in there (and I’ll be back tomorrow to showcase the best VR games for iPhone), but that’s not everybody’s jam. If you’d rather explore the world, take center stage in a documentary or, you know, travel to the moon, check out these amazing iPhone apps.
Google Street View
Want to take a virtual tour of Stonehenge? How about downtown Chicago? Or your very own town? It’s possible thanks to Google’s Street View app.
Street View is the mobile version of Google’s ground-level Maps feature. Put the two together and presto: Now you get a virtual-reality view of anywhere you can visit in Street View.
And Street View has visited just about everywhere: the app showcases not only Google’s own mapping efforts, but also users’. In fact, you can use Street View to create your own 360-degree “photo spheres” and add them to the collection.
Jaunt VR
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Jaunt VR’s interface takes advantage of VR as well.
Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET
Music, sports, travel, film — the Jaunt VR app aggregates a wide variety of 360-degree and virtual reality videos, all housed in an attractive gaze-based interface (meaning you can navigate just by looking at various buttons and menu options). If you have kids, be sure to let them check out the adorable animated short, “The Invasion.”
NYT VR
Some of the most interesting virtual reality experiences are coming from the New York Times. The newspaper’s eponymous app is home to a number of exclusive cinematic experiences, including a dizzying climb to the top of 1 World Trade Center, a virtual visit to Pluto and a short documentary chronicling children displaced by war. There’s currently no better source for original VR-enhanced stories.
Orbulus Special Edition
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Pick an orb, any orb — then get transported to that location.
Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET
Orbulus is all about 360-degree photo spheres, in this case a collection of user-supplied destinations enhanced with sound or music. To choose a sphere from the gallery, you simply focus on it for a few seconds. Once you’re “inside,” you can zoom in or out by tilting your head right or left. It’s an interesting way to travel the globe, with destinations ranging from Hong Kong to San Francisco.
Vrse
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Vrse is all about the movies.
Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET
Sort of a mix between Jaunt and NYT VR (with some of the same content you’ll find in both), Vrse focuses strictly on VR cinema. There’s no organization to these curated videos, just a scrolling list you peruse before putting your phone into your viewer. Once you tap a selection, you have the choice of streaming or downloading it — the latter a nice option for offline viewing.
Virtual Reality Moon
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Goodnight, Earth.
Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET
Sad to say you’re not likely to ever visit the moon for real. The next best thing, at least for now: Virtual Reality Moon. On this free (but heavily ad-supported) trip, you’re instantly transported to the moon’s surface, where you can see both Earth and the International Space Station in the distance. You can also walk around, though this requires either a gamepad or a viewer that has an action button.
YouTube
Finally, we come to YouTube, which is home to an exploding number of 360-degree and VR videos. Just search the app for anything with “360” or “VR” in the name, or head straight to YouTube’s 360 Channel. But that’s not all: You can actually watch any YouTube video in VR mode. The experience isn’t always great, but it’s still a lot of fun to play around with.
Which VR apps would you consider essential for iPhone users?
Android N desktop mode shown off with new task bar, by official
Android N is set to bring new desktop style floating windows to smartphones and tablets, already seen in the preview, which has now been shown off officially with a task bar.
The SVP of Android, Chrome OS and Play, Hiroshi Lockheimer tweeted a photo of what appears to be Android N displayed in floating window mode.
At its most basic this mode is similar to multi-tasking except rather than layering the windows they can be moved about and resized. The advantage of this should be easier multitasking and, ultimately, a more desktop like experience on mobile devices.
Previously, in previews, the floating windows were shown on a wallpaper background. The latest photo reveals that there may also be an icon bar at the bottom, similar to Windows. This appears to have a search icon then apps that are open. Tapping these should bring them to the top or shrink them, presumably. There also appears to be status icons, like Wi-Fi, time, profile and more at the bottom right.
The photo was a screenshot so it’s difficult to know if this is tablet, phone or even output to a monitor. What has been made clear from the preview is that this mode will support a mouse cursor. Add in a keyboard and we could be looking at a fully functional computer mode all from an Android device.
Google has said that the final version on Android N will be available by the summer. Don’t expect it to arrive until later in the year, around October, when Nexus devices should get it first.
READ: Android N preview: Everything you need to know about Android 7.0
Apple will deactivate Flash by default on Safari 10
You know that Maya Angelou quote that says “Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option?” If Flash were a person following that tenet, then it now has to drop Safari from its dwindling list of priorities. In a post on the WebKit blog, Apple engineer Ricky Mondello has revealed that the company is deactivating Adobe Flash by default on Safari 10. That’s the version of the browser shipping with macOS Sierra this fall.
If you access a website that has both Flash and HTML5, the browser will opt for the latter. But if the page requires Flash to work, then a prompt will pop up asking if you’d like to switch it on. You can choose to active it just for that session or to keep it on for that URL forever. If you’ll recall, Microsoft and Google have been distancing themselves from Flash for quite some time, as well. Edge only displays Flash if it’s a central element on the page you’re looking at (say, a game or a video), while Chrome has started blocking Flash ads late last year.
On the mobile side of things, Apple has announced at WWDC that it’s requiring all iOS apps to connect to the internet via HTTPS by January 1st, 2017. That means developers have to switch on a feature Cupertino launched with iOS 9 called App Transport Security. ATS forces apps to use a secure connection to help keep your data safe.
Via: MacRumors
Source: WebKit, TechCrunch
BBC to put major new drama series on iPlayer before it airs on TV
While the BBC is increasingly choosing to air new programmes on iPlayer before they appear on TV, the broadcaster has typically restricted output to low-risk shows and specials. However, with its new supernatural drama, The Living And The Dead, the Beeb has decided it’s time to change that mindset — it’ll debut all six episodes this Friday (June 17th), two weeks before they start being broadcast on TV.
The show, created by Life on Mars duo Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham, will become the first primetime BBC drama to delay traditional broadcasts in favour of a “binge-watch” model utilised by Netflix and Amazon. Earlier this month, New Blood became the first drama series to make select episodes available online first, but Peter Kay’s Car Share was the earliest BBC programme to premiere exclusively on iPlayer.
Speaking at a press screening on Tuesday evening, Controller of BBC One Charlotte Moore said: “Part of my mission at the BBC is to grow iPlayer into the future, and I will be exploring more premieres like this. But it’s fantastic to be doing this with The Living And The Dead.”
It shows that the BBC is working hard to change iPlayer from the catch-up service it once was into a portal capable of rivaling other streaming giants. The Living And The Dead “box-set” will be available online from June 17th, with weekly episodes appearing on BBC One at 9pm from June 28th.
Source: AOL UK
Former Android chief is betting on quantum computing and AI
Andy Rubin — one of the people who invented the Android platform — left Google in 2014, but he’s still helping shape the future of technology. At Bloomberg Technology Conference, he revealed that one of the startups his hardware incubator is backing has a pretty lofty goal: finding a way to commercialize quantum computing devices with the manufacturing processes we use today. Rubin said new computing platforms “happen every 10 to 12 years.” He believes it’s time to start building quantum computers and using them to run AI.
Quantum computers, in a nutshell, will be able to perform tasks much, much faster than typical computers by harnessing the power of atoms and molecules. It’s a complex topic, but Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau might be able to help you out. The technology is still in its infancy, but a few organizations, including Google and MIT, managed to create simple versions that could lead something bigger.
As you can imagine then, a quantum computer and an AI make a formidable combination. During the event, Rubin said the resulting machine could be so powerful, we’d need only one to power every connected device, such as smartphones. “If you have computing that is as powerful as this could be, you might only need one. It might not be something you carry around; it just has to be conscious,” he said, according to The Verge.
The idea of an extremely capable and conscious computer is both intriguing and terrifying. Remember Skynet? Rubin said we shouldn’t “be worrying about Skynet coming online,” though. We “should be worrying about what it means to compute at these magnitudes.”
Source: Bloomberg
iScout HUD helps drivers with directions and blind spots
Heads-up displays (HUDs) for cars never really caught on, but it’s not for lack of trying. However, Garmin’s unit is proprietary, Hudway’s concept is cool but simplistic and Navdy is a year late and still hasn’t shipped. A new contender called iScout addresses many of those issues. It works with any smartphone, shows notifications from apps like WhatsApp, takes or reject calls with a hand-wave, and has blind-spot cameras. Now comes the gotcha: It’s launching on Kickstarter, so before breaking out your plastic, bear in mind that it may never ship.
With that bit of pessimism out of the way, the company does have a solid-looking prototype and a lot of nice features. The “photochromic” display works in day and night conditions, and it has its own app and GPS to display heads-up route guidance. However, the device also connects with your smartphone over Bluetooth, letting you take or reject calls by waving your hand, for example, while still keeping the GPS on the screen. You can compose texts via voice dictation and see notifications from apps like WhatsApp and Twitter, or control music from Spotify and other apps.
As iScout can link up with the vehicle’s ODB plug, you can also see information like fuel levels. If you’re running out of gas, for instance, it can give you a warning and guide you to the nearest service station. The premium model also has blind spot cameras that automatically activate when you use your turn signals, helping keep your eyes on the road. Speaking of cameras, the device has a forward looking dashcam, in case any of any accidents (or meteorites).
The company is marketing the product as a safety device, but receiving notifications on the device may be nearly as distracting as checking them on your phone. That said, the device is about as safety-friendly as you’re going to get in a connected car. The display, for example “is focused into the distance and shown just below your line of sight,” according to the company. That means it’ll require very little of your attention to check your GPS, speed and other info compared to any other device.
The iScout is on pre-order starting at $269 for the basic edition without blind spot cameras and $299 for the premium model with them. Those models are ambitiously scheduled to ship this November, but you can jump the line and get one in September if you’re willing to pay $499 and help with final testing. Despite the caveat emptors about Kickstarter, and assuming the company’s claims pan out, that sum seems a fair price to pay for jet fighter-like situational awareness.
Source: Kickstarter
IBM’s AI can predict how we’ll react to the weather
According to the “butterfly effect” theory, weather is inherently hard to predict. But IBM thinks that if you throw even more computing smarts and data at it, you should be able to at least improve forecasts. Big Blue is marrying its own hyper-local weather models with global ones from (its own) The Weather Company and creating Deep Thunder, the best-named forecasting system ever. To analyze all the data, the company is building new deep-learning algorithms and training them using petabytes of historical data.
On top of providing forecasting, IBM will help businesses by relating other data to the weather. With forecast accuracy down to 0.2 to 1.2 miles of resolution, it can tell companies in very fine detail how the weather affects things like consumer buying behavior, so they can stock and market products appropriately. Utility companies can also use the data to figure out if telephone poles will be damaged in a storm so they can plan accordingly, for instance.
The business forecasting helps companies quantify our behavior better than ever, in case you thought we weren’t being tracked enough already. But improved weather forecasts will be particularly useful with the recent severe weather weirdness due to climate change. “The new combined forecasting model we are introducing today will provide an ideal platform [to help us] understanding the impacts of weather … for all kinds of businesses and industry applications,” says The Weather Company’s Mary Glackin.
The Internet of Things is coming to your hydroponic garden
It was only a matter of time. The Internet of Things has already come for our vaporizers, now it is back for our hydroponic grow ops. Behold the Gro.io, an all-inclusive hydro system that’s nearly fully automated. The brains behind this system is the Gro.hub. This central computing tower runs an embedded Linux OS on a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 Processor and processes signals from ten separate remote sensors. These monitor things like water temperature, level, pH and flow.
The Hub uses all of this information to keep track of system conditions and disperse the appropriate amount of nutrients, light and water to keep everything in balance. Additionally, instead of outputting all that information to a local monitor, the Gro.io will push it to the branded iOS app on your phone via the tower’s integrated Wi-Fi receiver. The app allows you to monitor the long term growth of your plants (presumably all eight weeks of it), adjust nutrient and light levels and receive notifications if anything goes awry. Like conventional systems, the Gro.io uses 20 gallon buckets to house individual plants under an array of either three or five 60W LED bulbs — 180W and 300W total output, respectively. That’s enough light to grow up to six plants simultaneously.
The Gro.io is curently on pre-sale. The Hub itself will retail for $1000, the rest of the setup will cost you an additional $700 to $1775 depending on how many buckets you go with (also how big they are) and what sort of lighting setup you chose. Of course, the system is totally modular so if you want to forgo the Hub or already have a set of lights, you can totally buy it piecemeal. The Gro.io is expected to ship in August 2016, while a UK version is reportedly still in the works.
Nanoflowers can detect bacteria before they make you sick
You typically won’t know you’re infected with E. coli until it starts wreaking havoc on your gut. That’s why a group of scientists from Washington State University are building a handheld biosensor that can sniff out even tiny amounts of pathogen in food. The biosensor will rely on flower-shaped nanoparticles the team developed. These nanoflowers can trap bacteria enzymes and amplify them, so they can be recognized by a simple pH strip. According to team leader Yuehe Lin, they plan to use the nanoflowers to create a simple biosensor similar to a pregnancy test strip that anyone can use.
They’re not stopping with E. coli, though: the group is actively working to expand their creation’s capabilities. They’re switching out the particle’s components to give it the power to spot other pathogens, such as salmonella. The researchers are also tweaking it further in an effort to create a version that detects disease markers for various illnesses, including cancer.
Source: Washington State University, Small
ICYMI: An accidental invention could create clean water
Today on In Case You Missed It: Some of the greatest inventions of our modern age, from the pacemaker to super glue, got their start as accidental discoveries. That’s why we’re focusing today’s show on a find by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where scientists meant to make magnetic nanowires but created a kind of carbon nanorod instead. It might prove to be a wonderful mistake, since studying the nanorods shows they can harvest, hold and evaporate liquid from their fibers. The hope is that the material could create cheap and low-energy water purification systems, changing the game for clean water delivery.
We also showed you both the YouTube video where a ATM skimmer seller demonstrates how easy it is to scam money from those machines, and also a video of this dancing robot, because. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
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