House sit-in shows the power and potential of livestreaming
Forget the final few minutes of the NBA Finals. Forget BuzzFeed tying rubberbands around a watermelon until it exploded. Forget a woman trying on a Chewbacca mask in a car. Sure, these are all moments that have been livestreamed, sometimes to millions of viewers. But it’s events like the sit-in by House Democrats that have truly shown the power and potential of live internet video.
When the sit-in protest started, House Republican speaker Paul Ryan called for a recess and turned off the cameras and microphones. That means that C-Span, the network that typically broadcasts congressional sessions, wasn’t able to show the protest in progress. But in the age of smartphones, this wasn’t a deterrent.
Aside from taking to Twitter with the #NoBillNoBreak hashtag, a few representatives opted to livestream the event. In particular, Congressmen Scott Peters and Eric Swalwell broadcasted the sit-in via Periscope, while Congressman Beta O’Rourke did the same over Facebook Live.
Suddenly, not having cameras wasn’t a problem. This was a momentous occasion, and the only way anyone could see it, was through their computers or their smartphones. Soon, C-Span simply changed its feed over to the congressmen’s livestreams, because that was the only source of the news. CNN and MSNBC reported the event with that same broadcast.
LIVE on #Periscope https://t.co/WRxWGI67xH
— Scott Peters (@ScottPetersSD) June 22, 2016
This is the potential of mobile livestreaming realized. As long as you have a smartphone and an internet connection, you can offer a window into a world immediately, no camera crew required. Paul Lewis, a reporter for The Guardian used Periscope to broadcast interviews from the Baltimore riots last year. Christal Hayes from the Orlando Sentinel did the same in the aftermath of the shooting in Orlando.
Of course, livestreams don’t always have such noble purposes. More often than not, livestreaming videos tend to veer toward the trivial, like behind-the-scenes footage of a Jimmy Fallon show or silly antics to promote a particular brand. Most of the time people tend to use it just to broadcast their lives, which certainly could be interesting — perhaps it’s a video of a skydive or a Beyonce concert — but they’re still just using it like a personal vlog. Worse still are those that use livestreaming to broadcast horrific deeds like rape or suicide. It becomes a cry for attention in the worst way possible.
And yet, if it wasn’t for livestreaming, nobody would have seen yesterday’s historical sit-in take place. The same way social media like Twitter and Facebook was crucial to the Arab Spring movement, Periscope and Facebook Live have the potential to be a powerful democratizing force. It’s unclear if livestreaming will be particularly sustainable or profitable going forward, but as the House sit-in demonstrates, it’s important — perhaps even vital — that it exists.
How to set up, control Family Profiles with an Eero Wi-Fi system – CNET
Eero’s Wi-Fi System began shipping earlier this year, with the promise of fixing Wi-Fi in users homes. Our own Dong Ngo found the system to “create a seamless Wi-Fi network that covers a large area with reliable Internet access,” but ultimately was left disappointed by Eero’s lack of features, such as parental controls in his review.
Recently, Eero updated its system to include a new Family Profiles feature. Within this new section of the app, you can label and assign devices to a specific family member, or device group and set schedules to disable or enable Wi-Fi access.
First things first
You’ll need the latest version of the Eero app on your Android or iOS device. The update was released in mid-June, but it’s a good idea to double-check you’re running the latest version through your respective store.
Creating profiles, identifying devices
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Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET
Open the app, then slide out the menu from the left side of the screen. Tap on Family Profiles, followed by the “+” symbol.
Give your profile a name. For me, I set up a profile for each of my kids, along with another profile specific to our Xbox One. After naming your profile, a list of devices currently connected to your network, followed by devices previously connected to your network. Scroll through and select the device(s) you’d like to add to the profile.
To make it easier to identify devices on your network, you can add a nickname to each device. You can do this by tapping on a profile, then a device assigned to the profile. Alternatively, you can tap on the connected devices section on the main screen of the app, then select a device and add a name.
Create a schedule, or hit pause
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Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET
With devices assigned to your freshly created profiles, you can create a schedule to disable Wi-Fi access for specific profiles. For example, say you want to keep your kids off of their tablets after bedtime — create a schedule that disables access at bedtime, and turns it back on in the morning.
Another handy use of Family Profiles is the ability to pause Internet access on demand by tapping the pause button within a specific profile.
Kids haven’t done their chores for the day? Ah, that’s too bad…turn off their connection.
How to make your Android look like a BlackBerry
In recent weeks, I’ve shown you how to make your phone feel like a Nexus, a Windows Phone, even an iPhone. Next up was BlackBerry, but in all honesty, some things just can’t be replaced and replicated. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few tweaks that bring back a little of that old BlackBerry magic — and I’m gonna share them with you — but there’s no magic icon pack or launcher that just pulls it together into a real complete BlackBerry theme.
That’s a testament to BlackBerry’s unique design — and its (sometimes painful) simplicity.
BlackBerry fans, if you haven’t jumped over to Android yet (or you jumped over a few years ago and are in the market to upgrade), you can buy a phone that’s entirely Android yet distinctly BlackBerry. The BlackBerry Priv has the best physical keyboard on an Android phone in years, is getting security updates just as fast as Google’s Nexus phones. And there are decent deals to be had if you know where to look. So if you want BlackBerry design, BlackBerry security, and a BlackBerry keyboard, this is your answer.
If you don’t have that much room in the budget for a phone, or the Priv just isn’t an option for you, all hope is not entirely lost. You won’t have an exact BlackBerry theme, because BB10 was — how do I put this delicately?— unique. Even our friends over at CrackBerry who gave me the reference material for this post said BB10 was rather basic. And to that end, here’s how to bring some of that basic beauty back to your phone.
Home screen
While it’s not quite the same system as BlackBerry 10 (which was little more than a recents page and an app drawer), the closest I’ve come to the BlackBerry layout for a launcher is the newly beta’d ADW.Launcher. ADW is still very much a beta, but contains the numbered home screen and app drawer pages. If you really want it to feel like a BlackBerry, you’ll keep the first home screen page clean except for maybe a date/time widget, and you’ll put all your apps on pages 2-5.
For icons, you can take one of two paths. The first path is to download what few stock BlackBerry icons you can and apply them to system apps as custom individual icons and then just take the stock Google icons for the rest, the same way BlackBerry itself has done on the Priv. The second path is to forget the BlackBerry icons and just grab a consistent, good looking icon pack that’s dark, has depth, or both. Here are a few often touted among the CrackBerry community and of our own choosing:
Belle UI Icon Pack, left, and Moko icon pack
Retro icons pack, left, and Stealth icons pack
- Belle UI Icon Pack (Free) is all very rounded squares with soft shadows and subtle depth to them. Belle UI supports an impressive number of launchers and while we always wish it themed more icons, it’s a beautiful pack to start with.
- Moko – Icon Pack ($1.00) is another rounded rectangle icon pack, but this one is a bit more pastel, a bit more a bit flatter, and absolutely adorable. It features over twice the number of icons Belle UI does, and has supports icon masking on most launchers to keep things consistent.
- RETRO ICONS Pack (Free) gives all its icons a faded, far-out, retro vibe (hence the name), and is based off the awesome, now open-sourced Moonshine icon pack. It’s a definite departure from the polished, businessy look of BlackBerry, but this was a pack that was recommended a fair bit in our CrackBerry forums.
- Stealth Icon Pack ($1.99) however, was the most recommended icon pack we came across on CrackBerry, with the dark, shadowy pack showing up time and time again in icon pack recommendation threads and home screen threads.
I’ll repeat it as long as I have to, but I implore you to use a wallpaper that brings some personality and life to your device. But if your heart is set on using one of BlackBerry’s wallpapers, they’re all right here… Please at least use one of the fun ones!
Lock screen
The lock screen that best brought back the BlackBerry magic — and used by CrackBerry editor-in-chief Chris Parsons in his own quest for a BlackBerry theme — is Next Lock Screen by Microsoft, another company that knows a thing or two about productivity. We covered it last week in our Windows theme, it’s not so much a lock screen replacement as it is a layer atop your lock screen, and so long as you’re using a fingerprint to lock your phone or frequently using Smart Lock, you shouldn’t notice the dual layers much.
Next offers a quick launch bar for your most-used apps and shows your latest notifications and appointments on your lock screen, giving you a glanceable way to check your phone without having to unlock it during a meeting or do a lot of swiping. The only major change for most users will be swipe down to unlock rather than the traditional swipe over/up.
A quick word on BlackBerry apps
I would love nothing more than to direct you to all of BlackBerry’s apps for Contacts, Passwords, Calendar, and all their other services. Unfortunately, while they’re all listed in the Play Store for easy updating, they are not available for any other device besides the BlackBerry Priv. Sorry, folks, but BlackBerry really wants you to buy a Priv, as opposed to Google or Microsoft who want you to use their services in the hope that you’ll buy more services or hardware from them. The only BlackBerry app available to non-Priv Androids is BlackBerry Messenger, which is actually published under a different account.
It’s not as though the Priv is a bad phone, it has the best keyboard on the Android smartphone market and is one of the most secure phones to boot. It’s just not a phone everyone can use, or afford. But whatever phone you’re using, you’ve got plenty of options for bringing a bit of BlackBerry nostalgia to your handset.
So, what BlackBerry touches have you been missing on your Android phone? Are there are more tweaks you have for getting that old BlackBerry magic on your device? Share you tips, tricks, wants and desires in the comments below!
Enter to win a Moto G4 Plus from Motorola Canada and Android Central!
Do you live in Canada? Want to win a Moto G4 Plus? You’re in the right place!
We’ve teamed up with the awesome folks at Motorola Canada to give away an awesome Moto G4 Plus to one lucky Canadian. As we’ve talked about already, the Moto G4 Plus is a great phone for its price, or any price, and is a big improvement over the company’s previous Moto G line. With a fingerprint sensor, a huge 32GB of internal storage, and an excellent 16MP rear camera, even the most critical of Android users will be happy with this handset.
The Prize: One new-in-box Moto G4 Plus (also known as the Moto G Plus) in black, unlocked.
How to win: That’s easy! Just head to the widget at the bottom of the page and complete as many tasks as possible. You’re automatically entered if you comment on the post below, but there are a number of ways to increase your chances to win, including following Android Central and Motorola on various social media platforms.
The contest ends on Thursday, June 30th! Good luck to everyone who enters!
Win a Moto G4 Plus from Motorola Canada and Android Central!
Please note that service is not included with the phone. Also, this contest is only open to Canadians. If you don’t live in Canada, instead of complaining — we have lots of international-friendly contests — tell your Canadian friends about the awesomeness that is Android Central, and bring them here.
Best T-Mobile prepaid phones
Shopping T-Mobile’s prepaid plans? Get the best phone to match.
What’s awesome about T-Mobile’s prepaid plans is that you can shop their selection of phones or bring your own unlocked phone. We’re running down the best phones you can buy or bring to T-Mobile to use with its prepaid plans.
- Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge
- LG G5
- HTC 10
- OnePlus 3
- iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus
Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge
Of course, the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge top our list of the best T-Mobile prepaid phones. Samsung built on what was already outstanding about the Galaxy S6 and made it even better.
The camera is at the top of the Android phone game, especially when it comes to low-light shots and the Quad HD Super AMOLED displays on both phones show off your photography skills in crystal clarity, which makes video watching a vivid experience.
The battery life has been improved significantly so your phone will keep up with you, no matter how busy your day gets. Samsung still has a way to go with some of their software but overall its Galaxy S7 and S7 edge are tops.
Need to know more? Check out our reviews of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge.
See at T-Mobile
LG G5
Another contender in the great camera category is the LG G5. The two rear-facing cameras take excellent shots; one is the 16-megapixel main camera and the other is an 8-megapixel wide-angle camera, though the front facing camera still snaps terrific selfies.
The modular design from LG is unique and the removable battery is an added bonus. The 5.3-inch Quad HD quantum display is ideal for video viewing and game playing and the Snapdragon 820 processor is powerful and makes multitasking a breeze.
Added perk? You’ll be able to enjoy the benefits of LG’s Friends ecosystem, which is set to expand in the near future.
Want to learn more about the LG G5? Have a look at our review to get in the know.
See at T-Mobile
HTC 10
If music is your soul food, you should get your hands on the HTC 10. The BoomSound Hi-Fi set up gives you a front-facing tweeter and a bottom-facing woofer, each with a dedicated amp and the headphone jack has a dedicated amp that makes earphone listening an impressive and powerful experience.
The HTC 10 is powered by a Snapdragon 820 processor and 4GB of RAM and also supports adoptable storage, which lets you mount your microSD card as a permanent part of your phone.
The 5.2-inch SuperLCD5 screen is well laid-out but a bit challenging in bright, outdoor light. The phone features a fingerprint scanner that doubles as a home button, but watch for the back and recent apps keys surrounding the home button; their order is in reverse compared to Samsung, if that’s a style you’re used to.
Learn more about the HTC 10 by reading our extensive review.
See at T-Mobile
OnePlus 3
The latest phone from upstart manufacturer OnePlus offers superb value, selling for just $400 unlocked and SIM-free. And naturally, the U.S. version of the phone will work great on T-Mobile with prepaid service.
So what does your 400 bucks get you? How about the latest Snapdragon 820 processor, a premium metal design, a 5.5-inch 1080p Optic AMOLED display and a 16-megapixel camera with OIS (optical image stabilization.) Meanwhile OnePlus’s proprietary Dash Charge tech lets you charge to 60 percent in just 30 minutes.
So that’s more hardware than is on offer from many rivals around this price point. What’s more, the OnePlus 3 also boasts OnePlus’s OxygenOS software, which closely matches the look of stock Android, while adding useful shortcuts and tweaks throughout.
For even more on the OnePlus 3, check out our full review.
See at OnePlus
iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus
We may be on Android Central but we can’t leave out the offerings from Apple when we’re looking at the best phones for T-Mobile’s prepaid plans.
First and foremost, let’s talk size. The iPhone 6s has a 4.7-inch screen and the iPhone 6s Plus screen comes in at 5.5 inches. Both feature the Retina HD display that has become Apple’s calling card.
If you can’t do without photo and video-taking on a daily basis, the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are just as much cameras as they are phones. For example, the iPhone 6s shoots in 1080p, which is already outstanding, but the iPhone 6s Plus shoots in 4K and features optical image stabilization to compensate for the subtle movement of your hands when recording.
There’s more to know about both phones. Check out iMore’s reviews of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.
See at T-Mobile
The more you know
Still not convinced by any of our selections? Have a look through a few more options suitable for T-Mobile on our list of the best unlocked phones and take your pick.
Never Alone: Ki Edition is rolling out to the Google Play Store
E-Line Media is now rolling out Never Alone: Ki Edition, the Android adaptation of the acclaimed PC and console adventure game, to the Google Play Store.
The Android version includes new touch controls, along with revamped menus and gameplay hints. It also has some optimized graphics. Here’s a quick description:
Play as a young Iñupiat girl and an arctic fox as they set out to find the source of the eternal blizzard which threatens the survival of everything they have ever known. Guide both characters in single-player mode or play cooperatively with a friend or family member as you trek through frozen tundra, leap across treacherous ice floes, swim through underwater ice caverns, and face numerous enemies both strange and familiar in the journey to save the girl’s village.
Since Never Alone: Ki Edition has just started rolling out, it many take a few hours before it is available on your Android smartphone or tablet. The game is priced at $4.99 in the Google Play Store.
Best Chrome extensions for staying in touch
What are the best Chrome extensions for staying in touch?
If you spend a lot of time on the internet and you love using Chrome, you probably know about extensions. With the amount of messaging and email utilities out there, some of the best can be lost in the pile. Maybe you want to schedule emails for future release, or maybe you want to quickly share articles or pictures with friends and followers. Maybe you need some help with your grammar while you write that email, or need some help translating sentences for friends you met while traveling. No matter your reason, here are the best Chrome extensions for staying in touch.
- Facebook Messenger
- Point
- Google Hangouts
- Boomerang for Gmail
- Grammarly
- Google Translate
- WhatsApp Messenger
- Buffer
- Giphy for Gmail
- Share on Twitter
Facebook Messenger
Anyone familiar with the mobile Facebook Messenger app will immediately realize the benefits of this extension. A small window showing your friends and recent chats opens up at the side of your browser; share pictures, video, and text, and receive alerts when you receive messages.
See at Chrome Web Store
Point
Sign into this extension with your Google account and begin sharing articles with friends. Share the article, highlight text while your friends are viewing, and chat in real time in a pop-out window. It’s like you’re sitting around a newspaper, holding a highlighter, talking about the subject. This app makes discussing news in the information age more effortless than ever before.
See at Chrome Web Store
Google Hangouts
What you have here is a built-in text, voice, and video chat extension for Chrome. Best part? It’s all free. Chat with multiple people at once (great for meetings or family gatherings), send images and photos, and use over 850 emojis to express yourself. Hangouts even keeps a record of chats so you can go back and see who you should catch up with.
See at Chrome Web Store
Boomerang for Gmail
Boomerang allows you to take complete control over your Gmail inbox. Imagine: you’re going to be offline for a couple of days but don’t want your dear mother to worry about you. Schedule a reassuring message to send sometime during the period you’re offline. This extension also lets you track messages and set reminders within Gmail, so you’ll never forget to send an important email again.
See at Chrome Web Store
Grammarly
Although the internet does its best to destroy all languages, Grammarly is putting up a fight. Use their built-in text editor to ensure your writing is up to snuff before publishing or emailing, and receive real-time suggestions as you type around the internet. You can also copy and paste text from anywhere to verify grammar. The free version of Grammarly does a suitable job, but if you want to upgrade to Premium (deeper grammar check) it will cost you about $30 a month.
See at Chrome Web Store
Google Translate
Wish you could read web pages published in a foreign language? You can! With the web page open, just click the Translate button and choose to translate the entire page. If you’d like to translate a sentence or two, highlight the text and click the translate button. You can even hear how the words are pronounced in the specific language you’re translating from. This is a great extension for anyone who loves to travel — keep up with friends you made in faraway lands.
See at Chrome Web Store
WhatsApp Messenger
This WhatsApp extension pops out from Chrome in its own little window. It allows you to text friends also using WhatsApp as though you’re using your phone, great for locations with internet but no cell service.
See at Chrome Web Store
Buffer
Buffer lets you take content from the web and post it on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. Just right click on an image or article and click on Buffer from the menu. You can also schedule posts and tweets for a later time, and you’ll be able to track traffic around your content. This is a great extension for people who put out a lot of content on social media sites.
See at Chrome Web Store
Giphy for Gmail
Giphy lets you search GIFs by keyword to be inserted into your emails. Adding this extension to Chrome puts a small button in new Gmail messages; just click the button, search for a suitable GIF, and click it to insert. This is a fantastic way to spruce up your emails and is a big hit with everyone who uses it.
See at Chrome Web Store
Your choice?
What is your favorite Chrome extensions for keeping in touch? Let us know in the comments section below!
Volkswagen Golf 1.0-litre TSi first drive: Fore!
We already know that the Volkswagen Golf is an excellent family hatchback. In fact, we’d still rate it as best in class — and three years on, still deserving of the 5-star review we gave it back at launch in 2013.
But just how much Golf do you need? That’s the question posed in this first drive. Because Volkswagen has just introduced a very interesting new addition to the Golf range: the 1.0-litre TIS. At first sight you might dismiss it as not worthy of consideration, but you’d be foolish to do that. Here’s why.
Volkswagen Golf (2016) first drive: Cubic capacity, squared
The joy of the Golf is that there’s one for everyone. The stonking, 911-bating R, the brilliant all-rounder with spangly-bits GTD, the motorway-plodding TDI, and the sensible shoes TSi petrol.
Pocket-lint
Up until now, in the lower reaches of the petrol range you’ve been able to choose from an 85bhp 1.2 TSi, a 125bhp 1.4 TSi and a 150bhp version of the same TSi engine. All are good: we loved the 150’s mix of flexibility, frugality and speed back in 2013. But could you cope with a Golf that had just three-cylinders, and a cubic-capacity of just 1.0? That’s usually the type of engine reserved for tiny city cars.
Or at least it used to be. With everyone downsizing and engine technologies improving all the time, this tiny engine actually kicks out a whopping 115bhp (i.e. more than its bigger 1.2-litre brother). That’s pretty impressive given its physical size. Or lack of it. Not only that, but it produces only 99g/km of CO2 and will strop to 62mph in a sprightly 9.7-seconds.
Volkswagen Golf 1.0 first drive: Setting the standard
Not available in the base spec “s” trim, the 1.0 is available as a Match Bluemotion edition, with either a 6-speed manual gearbox (like we drove) or a 7-speed DSG automatic.
Pocket-lint
Match trim is good news too, because — going against the cliché of VW’s being underspecced against the competition — it has front and rear park sensors, adaptive radar cruise control, heated front seats and the Discover Navigation system with a 5.8-inch touchscreen, and a proximity sensor all as standard.
Jump on board and the cabin architecture of the Golf is just starting to show its age. The dash feels slightly cliff-like, the interior looks sparely appointed and the trim running down the centre console looks (and feels) cheap. An Audi A3 or Merc A-Class it ain’t.
Nonetheless, in a very Germanic way, the joy of it is that anyone can jump on board and quickly work out how to adjust wheel, seats, mirrors and get comfortable. Everything falls to hand and only the electronic parking brake is there to fox the unfamiliar — but even this auto-releases much more happily as you try to pull away than many competitors we could mention.
Pocket-lint
Volkswagen Golf 1.0-litre TSI first drive: Refined drive
Speaking of pulling away, the most intriguing thing about the 1.0 Golf is its refinement. Start it up, and but for the briefest chunter from the starter motor, this is one of those engines where you keep asking “is it on?”. With stop-start as standard, the biggest day-to-day driving issue is actually remembering if the engine is running or the stop-start is active. There’s none of the 3-cyclinder imbalance at idle that many other three-cylinder engines exhibit.
But then you rev it, and it produces a nice, thrum-like warble that’s got a lot more character than a typical four-cylinder engine. It feels fleet-of-foot too, skipping along the road at a decent rate of knots and — despite there being lower-spec Golfs featuring a cheaper, torsion-beam rear axle arrangement — the ride is smooth and settled.
Pocket-lint
Combined with a light clutch action and slick gearshift, this is actually a contender for one of the car’s we’ve had most pleasure driving all year. Not only does it do little wrong, but it’s really easy to develop a rhythm with the car, make decent progress and actually enjoy the driving.
The refinement of the Golf — as ever — still stands out. It’s a hushed and comfortable place to spend time. The touchscreen, despite now looking on the small side compared to some, still works better than most. And the dials are clear, with what few assistances system there are being easy to use.
Volkswagen Golf first drive: Not everyone plays Golf
For anyone who would normally default to Diesel — as many do — such is the appeal of the fuel economy of a modern TDi, it’s well worth considering this new 1.0 petrol model. We’d recommend it to anyone mainly confined to town driving, or doing less than 10,000 miles per year anyway — beause it’s more suited to that role than any diesel.
Pocket-lint
Not overwhelmed by the Golf’s size in the slightest, it’s efficient, quiet, quick and will doubtless produce less NOx emissions than an equivalent diesel, too (which we’re sure VW will not love us for pointing out). What’s that phrase? Something about necessity being the mother of invention? The new 1.0 Bluemotion Golf definitely feels like it’s been the beneficiary of it.
First Impressions
There are many people who don’t play Golf. They don’t get it, don’t understand the point of spending the extra money when you’d get something else for less. We’re not here to persuade those people they are necessarily wrong. The world would be boring if we all drove Golfs. But after an hour behind the wheel, you can understand why this car continues to be so popular and sell so well.
At £21,530 as tested — with CarPlay/Anroid Auto enabling AppConnect (£125) and metallic paint (£560) thrown into the mix — the reality is that this Golf works out at about a grand more than an equivalent Ford Focus. The bigger gap exists to the Astra, which comes in at around three grand less. All are decent cars; we enjoyed driving the Golf most.
Interior appointments put aside, the Golf 1.0 TSi’s price tag is still good enough to make you question why you’d spend more on an Audi, BMW or Merc.
Boston Dynamics’ latest robot dog can do your dishes and fetch a soda
Quadrupedal robot-maker Boston Dynamics has shown off its latest dystopian creature in a video published to YouTube (unbeknownst to its parent company, Google, apparently).
Boston Dynamics is the robotics company Google is currently trying to sell, and according to Recode, Google was unaware of the company’s last robot video from February. Google might not have known about this new video either. A source familiar with Google’s robotics team told Recode that Google is partially trying to sell Boston Dynamics because of how difficult it is to manage a “gaggle of roboticists.”
Anyway, Boston Dynamic’s latest hellhound is called SpotMini. It’s a smaller version of the Spot robot dog. It weighs about 55 lbs (25 kg), is 2 feet tall, and has an electric system instead of hydraulics, meaning it’s quiet and lasts for up to 90 minutes before needing a recharge. It also has a complex navigation setup with guidance and perception sensors, including depth cameras and a solid state gyro in the limbs.
SpotMini can perform some basic tasks autonomously, but it can also use a human for high-level guidance. It has a manipulator arm, too, for accomplishing tasks. SpotMini uses this arm (it looks like an elongated neck) to gently pick up a glass and put it in the dishwasher, for instance. In the video below, you can actually see SpotMini fetch a soda for a human, but it had a little trouble letting the can go.
This mechanical beast is undoubtedly adorable but also creepy-looking. That said, we can already envision a world in the future where tonnes of these robot dogs roam around and do all our chores.
We just hope they’re a little more cuddly by that time.
Does the world need another first-person, team-based shooter?
“I’m not the only asshole who had this idea a few years ago,” Cliff Bleszinski says in between sips of a sugar-free Red Bull. He’s perched in the lounge area of his studio’s E3 meeting space, on the other side of a thin wall where a dozen journalists and internet influencers are playing his latest game, a team-based shooter called LawBreakers. Every now and then, the players beyond the wall suddenly wail and clap as a game comes to a dramatic close.
Bleszinski is talking about the market for online, first-person, team-based shooters — a niche genre that, in mid 2016, is on the verge of oversaturation. Overwatch just came out, and it’s been a monstrous hit for Activision Blizzard. It dominates the front page of Twitch, and there are already plans to transform it into a truly competitive, esports-focused title. Other similar games, such as Gearbox’s Battleborn or Epic Games’ Paragon, are also on the market, but they can’t compare in terms of player numbers or hype.
Bleszinski thinks there’s still an audience for multiple character-based shooters; he’s confident there’s room for LawBreakers. His studio, Boss Key, revealed LawBreakers in Aug. 2015, and it just closed the alpha on June 18th. When we spoke, a handful of streamers already had their hands on it and the first round of feedback was rolling in. Bleszinski reads the game’s forums religiously, but after decades as a high-profile figure in the industry (he was the lead designer on Gears of War), he’s learned that not every comment is created equal.
“The internet is an echo chamber that always leads to stupidity,” he says.
LawBreakers, Battleborn and Overwatch may run in the same circles, but they aren’t the same game. Both Overwatch and Battleborn use cartoony art styles and character designs while LawBreakers is slightly more gritty. The characters curse every now and then — not too often, Bleszinski notes — and they’re designed to be slightly more realistic, seemingly inspired more by anime than Looney Tunes.
LawBreakers is violent but not grotesque. When characters are shot with rockets, they explode into tiny bits, blood splattering around the map’s zero-gravity areas in (kind of adorable) floating globules. It’s a delicate balance of realism and fantasy.
Bleszinski doesn’t want LawBreakers to go full Mortal Kombat, for example.
“It’s too much for me, to be frank,” he says. “When I was in my 20s and 30s I could see all that stuff, but now it’s like, I don’t need to see somebody’s spleen explode in 4K. I’m OK without seeing that. No offense to Ed Boon.”
LawBreakers is firmly a sci-fi shooter, which is how Bleszinski envisioned it. He’d rather leave the realistic weapons and violence to Call of Duty.
“I will never make a game with AR-15s and glocks and all that,” he says. “I respect guns; I’ve fired more than my share of them, but my games stay in the sci-fi realm. And it’s not a political statement in regards to being sci-fi, it’s just that I have so many freakin’ wacky ideas that if I was stuck making something in 2016 I wouldn’t be able to do the full thing I wanted to do. I couldn’t have a character use futuristic drugs to double in size and shoot lightning out of their hands.”
A patch released on June 17th completely removed aim-down sights from LawBreakers. This is a further attempt to separate the game from existing first-person-shooter franchises.
“When you give them the ability to play a game like Call of Duty, they’re going to play it like Call of Duty,” Bleszinski says.
Instead, he gets excited about fresh features like blind fire, a one-button ability that allows players to quickly shoot behind them, even when they’re flying through the air in a low-gravity zone. I had the chance to play LawBreakers on the other side of that thin wall, and I can confirm that blind fire is insanely cool, when you remember it exists. Thirteen years of habits from Call of Duty are hard to break.
As new players try out LawBreakers for the first time, Bleszinski is glad to have years of experience under his belt. He started Boss Key alongside Arjan Brussee, a co-founder of Guerilla Games and a creator of Killzone. Brussee has the skills to balance out Bleszinski’s creative background; he’s seen the full cycle of a studio starting up and selling off. Plus, Brussee comes from a coding background, which Bleszinski says is a wonderful asset.
“A programmer can bullshit me,” he says. “They can’t bullshit him. A programmer tells him, ‘This is impossible,’ and he’s like, ‘Screw you, I’ll code it myself.’”
With a solid foundation on the creative and operational fronts, a large part of Bleszinski’s job is cultivating a passionate, friendly culture at Boss Key. He tries to learn every employee’s name and even the names of their significant others or family members. He keeps a cheat sheet on his desk complete with photos of new employees, so he doesn’t accidentally call someone by the wrong name.
“I want to be at a company that’s 65 or so people, where I know everybody, I know their significant others, they bring their dogs in and even sometimes their kids,” Bleszinski says. “It sounds cheesy, but really the vibe that I want to go for is it feels like you’re a big family. Yes, we’re a business of course, and we’re in this to try and make money and keep the damn lights on, but I genuinely like everybody we have at the studio and I know most of them fairly well.”
This means he wants employees to lean on his experience when necessary. If someone at Boss Key reads a negative comment online and then comes running into Bleszinski’s office “like their pants are on fire,” for example, he offers simple, calming advice:
“First off, breathe. Second off, this is the start of a very long cycle of feedback, so you guys need to figure out how to sort through it and get used to it. Look at the data, read the forums, hear the feedback and then trust your gut. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
Part of the reason Boss Key exists is because the bubble around AAA studios — big-name companies like Call of Duty publisher Activision — is popping, Bleszinski says.
“You look at AAA and the $60 price point, it’s bursting at the seams,” he adds.
That’s why Bleszinski believes Boss Key has a chance to thrive alongside other teams crafting online multiplayer experiences like Battleborn, Vainglory, Duelyst, Overwatch and Paragon. And, of course, LawBreakers.
AIVAnet 