Watch SpaceX test fire one of the Falcon 9 rockets it relanded
SpaceX is getting ready to launch one of the rockets it relanded to prove they’re truly reusable. In fact, it just finished test firing one of them at its Texas development facility. The first-stage booster burned for a total of 2 minutes and 30 seconds, the full duration for a single stage flight, on Thursday night. According to NASA Spaceflight, the booster looked like it was in great shape after the test upon initial evaluation, which bodes well for the company’s plans.
If you’re wondering which Falcon 9 was test fired, it was the one that ferried the JCSAT communications satellite to orbit back in May. SpaceX didn’t use the first rocket it ever relanded (on solid ground), because Elon Musk sees is as a museum piece. The company didn’t use the first rocket that successfully touched down on a barge either, because it’s too valuable: that’s the one the company wants to send back to space.
Source: SpaceX (YouTube)
Total Chromecast sales have now exceeded 30 million units
Google revealed as part of its latest quarterly financial conference call that the company has now sold over 30 million units of its Chromecast media casting devices.
The new milestone was announced by Google CEO Sundar Pichai during the Alphabet conference call with financial analysts (via Recode). In May, the company revealed at Google I/O that it had sold 25 million Chromecasts, which means 5 million more were sold just in the last two months.
The Google Store is currently running a sale on both the regular Chromecast and Chromecast Audio; both are priced at just $30 each until July 31, a discount of $5 from its regular $35 price tag.
See at Google Store
Check out our review of Chromecast 2015 and Chromecast Audio
Kickstarter created over 300,000 jobs, study says
Kickstarter has created 29,600 full-time and 283,000 part-time jobs, as well as 8,800 companies thus far, according to a study by Professor Ethan Mollick from the University of Pennsylvania. Mollick, who’s been keeping a close eye on Kickstarter for years, surveyed 61,654 successful projects from 2009 to 2015 to look at how the crowdfunding website has been benefiting creators. His study says projects tend to get $2.46 in revenue outside of the website for every dollar pledged, though the amount tends to be higher in food and product design. In all, he estimates that Kickstarter generated a whopping $5.3 billion for the creators and their communities.
Besides listing out a bunch of estimates, Mollick also noted that 37 percent of his survey’s responders said their projects helped them advance their careers. A total of 21 percent said they started earning more after running a successful campaign. Some filmmakers, musicians, authors and video game creators reported securing distribution and publishing deals, as well, thanks to their projects. All these numbers sound impressive, but it’s worth noting that Kickstarter helped with data gathering. That said, the company swears it had no influence over the professor’s analyses.
Besides conjuring up these estimates, Mollick pointed out that the website made it possible for big ventures such as the Oculus Rift and the Pebble smartwatch to take off. Oculus ended up being part of Facebook after the social network snapped it up for $2 billion, while Pebble ignited people’s interest in smartwatches. However, folks with great ideas may want to keep in mind that Kickstarter still isn’t a magic formula for success. According to the stats the website published, it served as host to more (196,240) unsuccessfully funded than successfully funded projects. Among the 109,662 campaigns that met their goal, around 1 in 10 failed to deliver on their promises and to ship out backers’ rewards.
Source: Kickstarter, Ethan Mollick (PDF)
Square Enix’s first Apple Watch RPG is stylish yet dull
There aren’t enough dedicated apps for the Apple Watch, let alone role-playing games from established publishers like Square Enix. The name alone conjures images of classic RPGs: Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger and Valkyrie Profile to name a few. That’s why Cosmos Rings, the company’s first Apple Watch-exclusive RPG, feels like such a departure from the norm. It’s vivid, gorgeous and inspired, but unfortunately it falls victim to the very same cliches of so many mobile games that came before it.
At first glance, Cosmos Rings looks quite promising, with a narrative that’s par for the course when it comes to JRPGs. As the God of Time, you’re tasked with wandering an endless expanse called the Rift in a bid to restore time to the way you once knew it. After being moved to stop time to grant the wishes of human beings, you’ve got to repent for causing the Goddess of Time to shatter into pieces. Her crystallized remains were scattered throughout the Rift, and it’s up to you to make things right. Lost love? Check. Protagonist taking it upon himself to make things right? Double check. Now all it needs is an amnesiac to fill the rest of its RPG trope quota.
The Rift acts as the stage on which Cosmos Rings plays out. Get used to the way it looks, because you’re going to be seeing a whole lot of it. After you launch the iPhone app and open up the companion version on your Apple Watch, you’re met with a bit of expository story coupled with artwork that’s meant to move you along. These quickly introduce additional characters whose presence don’t immediately make sense in the context of the God of Time’s story, but you’ll soon realize it won’t matter much when the game basically plays itself, barring a few player-controller machinations.
That’s right — Cosmos Rings is essentially an incremental game that requires little or no input from you. The game is perfect for the diminutive Apple Watch screen, and its neon pixel art absolutely sings on the small display. But in the end, it’s little better than playing Tap My Katamari or Cookie Clicker with a few added mechanics.
The God of Time continues to run headlong into the Rift, fighting off enemies as they appear before him. This is your default screen among the three the game’s comprised of. The God will automatically attack on his own, but if you so desire you can tap the Skills button at the lower right of the screen to utilize various attacks you’ll earn along the way. If you wait for the timer to count down and then fire off a Skill right after the first one, you can chain them for additional damage. You can also rotate the Apple Watch’s Digital Crown to head to the Fragments screen, where you can spend Fragments (displayed on-screen as you collect them in battle) to upgrade your weapons, unlock additional skill slots and most importantly, earn more time.
You’ll want to keep a close eye on the time you’re allotted, especially if you don’t want to keep playing the same “days” over and over. There’s a timer at the bottom left of the screen that continually counts down. Essentially, that’s your HP gauge. Let it run out, and you’re forced to start the game from the beginning, though you’ll retain any Skills or Relics acquired in the process.
It’s more akin to a roguelike in this respect than an RPG, and is one of the most challenging elements of Cosmos Rings. If you make a mistake or forget to use Fragments to level up or augment your equipment, you can also use the digital crown of your Apple Watch in the Rift to rewind time to a specific “hour,” as the game is split into during each day, to go back and do it all again. These light strategic elements add a little variety, but the game is otherwise so hands-off you’ll wonder why you’re even interacting with it.
Bizarrely, time doesn’t cease counting down unless you’re fighting a boss, when the ticker hits 3 minutes, or during a story event where you’re given a slice of story. So if you’re planning on not playing for a long stretch of time you’ll need to make sure you do keep an eye on the game when you want to make progress. It’s almost like toting around a Tamagotchi or a Giga Pet, except you can’t let your “pet” die.
Cosmos Rings is a strange amalgam of clicker mechanics, colorful pixelated graphics and a score that you’ll want to listen to more than once, but it’s also lacking in the RPG department. When compared to its competition, a fantasy adventure called Runeblade from Everywear Games, Cosmos Rings seems feature-deficient. The former utilizes several of the same mechanics Cosmos Rings does (namely time travel), but offers an offline mode, various quests, and other reasons to keep you coming back. It’s hard to recommend Square Enix’s offering over Runeblade, especially since Runeblade is free.
If you’re looking for something to idly tap on while on the way to work or need to use your Apple Watch for a use beyond regular apps, it’s an interesting experiment. If you’re hoping for anything more than an endless grind with little input required from you, you might want to take your 3DS or Vita with you along for the ride instead. Cosmos Rings is available now as an Apple Watch exclusive.
Source: App Store
Ultimaker makes a backpack for its 3D printers
Ultimaker’s 3D printers will now ship out with a backpack, so you can take them anywhere you want. Now, we don’t know why you’d want to to lug a big device around, but we won’t judge. Maybe you want to impress a cute, geeky date or print out anything you want to on the go. Or maybe, like the team behind 3DPrinterOS — those two dudes in the picture above — you actually need to carry a printer with you for something important, such as teaching 3D printing classes. Whatever your reasons are, this backpack designed to carry the printer in its foam packaging is at least a safer option than regular bags. So, next time a friend moans about the need for a special weapon that can up their Pokémon Go game, you can say “I got you, bro.”
Source: Ultimaker
iOS 10 notifications look the same, but work a lot differently – CNET
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Apple unveils iOS 10, packs it with new features
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At first glance, notifications on iOS 10 will look like they always have. But, as the saying goes, things aren’t always as they appear. The ways you view, clear and interact with notifications work a lot differently.
Just how you interact with a notification depends on the type of device you’re using, and whether it’s equipped with 3D Touch. At the end of the day, however, the same experience is possible across all iOS devices.
Here are the two stand-out changes.
No need to unlock your iPhone
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Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET
When a notification shows up on your lock screen, you can swipe to the left across it to reveal more options. Devices equipped with 3D Touch will have a single Clear option, where non-3D Touch devices will have two options: View and Clear.
If you press on a notification or tap on View will open the alert, leaving you on the lock screen. Once opened, you can interact with its content. For Messages, that means you can view the last few messages including photos, videos and GIFs.
During the iOS 10 announcement in June, Apple showed an Uber notification with a live map that shows you where your driver was just as if you were using the app.
Swipe down to view more
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Swipe down on a notification when using your device to view and interact with it.
Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET
Instead of using 3D Touch or swiping left and selecting view, you only need to swipe down on a notification to open it. (You can still use 3D Touch on an alert if you’d prefer.) The alert will open, but you’ll never leave the app you’re already in.
Notification Center is another place where you can open a notification via 3D Touch or with a swipe to the left and a tap on “view.”
Once Apple releases iOS 10 later this fall, developers will begin updating applications with these new notification features. We will update this post with more tips and tricks for rich notifications as needed.
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4 common Amazon Echo problems and how to fix them – CNET
When they work as intended, Amazon’s Echo, Dot and Tap speakers are quite impressive and save the hassle of having to whip out a phone to change the color of smart lights or the temperature setting of the thermostat. And the Alexa voice assistant gets more useful the more smart-home devices you add to your collection.
But things don’t always go as planned and Amazon didn’t create a truly flawless product. Alexa has issues of its own. Here are some of the most common Alexa problems and how to fix them.
Understanding the light ring
The vast majority of the time, Alexa sits around completely dormant with no status indicators until called upon. But the ring around the top of the Echo and Echo Dot lights up in six colors, which indicate five different things.
Sarah Tew/CNET
- Cyan and royal blue are used together. They spin and flash after the wake word is spoken, during your command and throughout Alexa’s response. These also appear during the boot process.
- Red means you’ve activated the mute switch on top of the speaker.
- Orange means the device is trying to connect to the wireless network.
- Violet appears when a problem occurs during Wi-Fi setup.
- White is used to indicate the volume level when you either manually turn the volume ring or change the volume by voice.
The status indicator is a little different on the Amazon Tap. It comes in the form of five tiny LEDs along the top front edge of the speaker.
Chris Monroe/CNET
- The lights pulse cyan and blue while powering up.
- They shine cyan when you press the microphone button and speak a command and pulse while Alexa processes the command.
- Pulsing red lights mean Alexa could not complete or process your command.
- Pulsing amber lights from left to right mean the speaker is in setup mode, waiting for you to pair it with a network using the Alexa app.
- Pulsing blue lights mean the speaker is in Bluetooth pairing mode.
Problems with Alexa
In my time with the Amazon Echo, I’ve had very few problems, most of which were very easily resolved with a power cycle and a few simple tweaks or adjustments. Here are some solutions to problems you may encounter.
Alexa cannot find your smart-home devices
Chris Monroe/CNET
If you are trying to add smart-home devices to your Alexa speaker, first check to make sure the device you want to add is natively supported. That list is constantly growing, including devices like the Ecobee3 and lines from companies such as Honeywell, Insteon, Lifx, Nest, Philips Hue and Wink. However, far more devices have added official Alexa support by way of Skills.
To add a new device, open the Alexa app, navigate to Smart Home and tap Discover devices under the Your Devices section. Even if your devices aren’t natively supported and don’t have Skills, you’re not entirely out of luck. Alexa has an official IFTTT channel and also integrates with Yonomi, both of which have an extensive list of supported smart-home devices.
If you’ve already added your devices but Alexa cannot seem to connect to them, there are at least two possible solutions.
- Check the command you’re using, aka your invocation. The commands vary a lot between different devices, Skills and a connected service like IFTTT. They can be oddly specific commands, and small differences in the phrasing or names of the devices can throw Alexa for a loop.
- Some smart-home devices have trouble staying connected due to software problems, crowded networks, being always on or other issues. My Lifx bulbs go offline every few days, rendering any commands I issue to Alexa useless. A simple power cycle of the connected devices (in my case, a flip of the light switch) will usually fix any connectivity problems you’re having.
If that doesn’t fix the issue, try rebooting the speaker as well as removing the device and adding it once more from scratch.
Frequent disconnects from the wireless network
If the Echo, Echo Dot or Tap isn’t staying connected to your network consistently enough, there are a few guidelines you can follow to try and improve connectivity.
First, power-cycle everything — the router, modem and Alexa speaker. After that, try streaming audio for a few minutes to see if the issue arises again. If so, attempt to move the speaker away from other devices, preferably closer to the router, and try switching the speaker to a 5GHz channel to decrease interference.
Alexa is no longer hearing you properly
Over time, you might notice that the Alexa speakers seem not to hear you as well as they once did.
Try not to crowd the speakers. Leave at least 8 inches (20.3 centimeters) of space around them.
Again, a great place to start is turning the speaker off and on again. If this doesn’t fix the issue, try moving the speaker away from obstructions and at least 8 inches (20.3 centimeters) from the wall.
In recent months, I’ve noticed that my Echo has more and more trouble hearing me than it did when I first bought it. Then it dawned on me. I bought the Echo when it was still winter. We’re now halfway through summer and my air conditioning is running constantly. It’s loud and significantly raises the ambient noise level in the room. Before I moved it, the Echo was also positioned near the cold air return, and when the AC was on, I had to project my voice for the speaker to hear the wake word. When the AC was off or I moved it away from the vent, I found Alexa had no trouble hearing me speak normally from nearly 20 feet (6 meters) away.
In other words, if you have any noisy appliances, move the Alexa speaker away from those to reduce the ambient noise level.
Additionally, you can use Voice Training, which is under Settings in the Alexa app. You’ll read 25 phrases aloud in a “typical voice from a typical distance” so Alexa can better understand you.
Accidental activation
If you’re a fan of the television show “Mr. Robot,” you likely caught the Amazon Echo mentions in episode 3 of the second season. If your speaker is anywhere near your television, watching this episode, or anything with lines that sound similar to the default wake word, may activate your speaker.
It’s harmless, but it’s still a nuisance when Alexa starts speaking unwanted responses over the TV show you’re trying to watch. There are three things you can do to minimize this:
- Move the speaker farther from the television.
- Press the mute switch on top while watching TV.
- Change the wake word from the default “Alexa” to either “Echo” or “Amazon.”
Voice activation is an area where Amazon could stand to make some general improvements, such as learning a specific person’s voice (a la Motorola’s Trusted Voice feature) or permitting custom wake words.
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Apple brings on new talent for autonomous car initiative
Apple has brought on the former head of BlackBerry’s automotive software division to lead its own self-driving car tech projects.
The latest addition to the Apple team previously founded and acted as chief executive officer of QNX, the operating system developer acquired by BlackBerry back in 2010. Dan Dodge joined Apple earlier this year to assist a team headed by Bob Mansfield. As part of Project Titan, Apple’s automobile initiative, Dodge is helping to research development of a new automated driving system in tandem with storied plans for Apple to create its own vehicle. This marks a change in direction from Apple’s previous plans for simply creating its own automobile.
In addition to Dodge, Apple has employed hundreds of additional employees who have been tasked with designing cars for a projected release date of 2020. While this date has changed several times over with the addition and departure of team members and switches in direction.
Via: Bloomberg
Apple shifts focus on Project Titan car to self-driving tech
Apple has brought back a longtime Apple executive to head up its secret car plans – and apparently that includes shifting the project’s focus to autonomous driving, according to a new report.
Bloomberg said Bob Mansfield, who previously served as senior vice president of technologies, wants Project Titan to be more about a self-driving car system, though Apple has not yet scrapped its goal of a full-fledged, electric vehicle. The company is working on both the car and software to make it autonomous. It even hired the guy who ran BlackBerry’s automotive software division.
Dan Dodge not only worked on self-driving technology but also QNX, a software platform found in many in-car infotainment systems. Dodge reports to Mansfield, just like all the other Project Titan engineers and employees, and Mansfield, who oversees three teams in the car division, reports directly to CEO Tim Cook. The teams consist of software, hardware engineering, and sensor.
John Wright leads software, while DJ Novtney leads hardware engineering, and Benjamin Lyon leads sensor. Check out Pocket-lint’s Project Titan round-up to learn about other recent hires at Apple who have car body manufacturing and research experience. Apple also picked up Ford employee Todd Gray in May, for instance, according to Bloomberg.
Rumour has it Mansfield and Dodge are hoping to launch an Apple Car by 2021, though the company original targeted a 2020 release date. The delay is likely due to the departure of Steve Zadesky, who previously led the project.
- Tim Cook on Apple Car: ‘It’s going to be Christmas Eve for a while’
- Apple’s self-driving car rolls on, meeting held with autonomous officials
Samsung will likely unveil its Gear S3 smartwatch in September
Samsung is close to introducing a successor to the Gear S2.
The company unveiled that smartwatch last November, but because we live in a high-tech age of annual product life cycles and never-ending consumerism, Samsung has been diligently working on yet another wearable for you to buy. Although the Korea-based electronics manufacturer hasn’t confirmed anything yet, a new rumour has popped up with some details about when you can get your hands on the next Gear watch.
The unveiling of Samsung’s Gear S3 will happen in September, according to SamMobile, which reported that Samsung plans to debut the Gear S3 at this year’s IFA in Berlin. The trade show begins 2 September and ends 7 September. An exact unveil date has yet to be confirmed, though Samsung previously used the stage to launch its flagship Galaxy Note handsets. However, the next Note will be unveiled in August.
That means the Gear S3 will be free to steal the show IFA 2016. Keep in mind Samsung launched the Gear S2 at last year’s IFA. Check out Pocket-lint’s Gear S3 round-up for more speculation, including what the device might feature.
SamMobile also said the Gear S3 should retain its predecessor’s rotating bezel.
- Best smartwatches 2016: The best smart wristwear available to buy today
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