Best TV shows to catch-up with: Wimbledon, Formula E and more on Freeview Play
It has been a real summer of sport and that is reflected in our weekly round-up of TV shows from the last seven days you should catch-up on.
If you scroll backwards through a Freeview Play electronic programme guide, you can click on any of the following and they’ll instantly open up the related on demand app – BBC iPlayer, All 4 or ITV Hub – and play without having to search for them further. Alternatively, you can always navigate to the individual apps yourself on any connected device.
Freeview Play TVs and set-top-boxes also have access to Channel 5 content, through the Demand 5 app, but it’s far easier to use the EPG for now.
So grab the remote, settle down and check out any of the following shows below to see if they tickle your fancy.
BBC
Battle of the Somme 100 – Zero Hour
BBC News (BBC iPlayer) – broadcast on Friday 1 July
To mark the 100th anniversary of first day of the Battle of the Somme, the Beeb presented a live programme from Thiepval in France – the site of the devastating events – and Westminster Abbey.
It’s part of the BBC’s commitment to look back at the first World War that has been running throughout the year.
E01 (Flickr)
Wimbledon 2016
BBC One & BBC Two (BBC iPlayer) – broadcast from Monday 27 June
The Wimbledon 2016 Championship has started and you can catch up with highlights and matches ahead of the second week of tennis action.
Bar a few showers here and there, it’s not been interrupted too much. Let’s hope it stays that way (touch wood).
BBC
The Graham Norton Show
BBC One (BBC iPlayer) – broadcast on Friday 1 July
If you missed the last series, you can now catch-up with a compilation show of highlights featuring plenty of the incredible guests to have appeared over the last few months.
Jennifer Lawrence, Tom Hiddleston, Ryan Gosling, Ben Affleck, Meryl Streep and many more appear throughout.
Formula E
Formula E Live
ITV (ITV Hub) – broadcast on Sunday 3 July
The second London Formula E grand prix took place on Sunday and you can catch up with the action now.
The all-electric motorsport is really gaining traction and it’s great to see ITV invest so much time, effort and cash into broadcasting it.
ITV
Goodwood Festival of Speed
ITV 4 (ITV Hub) – broadcast from Wednesday 29 June
Also available for motorsports and general car fans are several shows broadcast on ITV 4 that brought us some true highlights from this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed.
We were there too, so you never know, you might even see a Pocket-linter in the background of some of the shots.
Channel 4
Ramsay’s Hotel Hell
Channel 4 (All 4) – broadcast on Thursday 30 June
We featured Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares last week, a show the Michelin Star chef has finished with. Now here’s the first episode of series three of his new programme, Hotel Hell.
It’s basically the same thing, but with hotels. And it is five parts hilarious, to six parts cringeworthy. In a good way.
Channel 4
First Dates
4seven (All 4) – broadcast on Wednesday 29 June
The BAFTA winning series, where couples meet and chat for the first time in front of cameras, is being repeated on 4seven at the moment.
It’s easily the best reality TV show on the box at present and we find it compulsive viewing.
Get catch-up and on demand TV for £0 per month with Freeview Play. Click here to find out more.
Second man pleads guilty to breaking into celebrity accounts
No, the convictions over celebrity account breaches aren’t over yet. Chicago man Edward Majerczyk has agreed to plead guilty to using phishing scams to fool more than 300 people into compromising their Gmail and iCloud accounts, including 30 celebrities. The bargain reduces his sentence from a maximum of 5 years in prison to between 6 to 12 months. We’ll learn the extent of his time behind bars in a few weeks, when the case transfers from California to Illinois for sentencing.
The decision comes just 3 months after Ryan Collins’ own plea. However, it’s notable that there’s no apparent connection between the two men — they just happened to be targeting famous people (including the likes of Jennifer Lawrence) for the sake of downloading racy photos and videos. There’s also no hard evidence that they posted the material online themselves. Either way, it’s increasingly apparent that the US is determined to crack down on high-profile breaches like this.
Source: Variety
Save 60% on this slim Droid Turbo 2 case today!
Are you looking for a thin case to keep your Droid Turbo 2 safe? If so, Amzer’s Pudding TPU case is just what you may be looking for. The case provides a slim layer of protection to the back and sides of the phone and right now you can save 60% on it, making it just $3.95.
NuAns raises funds to release its Windows 10 phone worldwide
When we took a closer look at the NuAns NEO in January, the Japanese company wasn’t sure if the Windows 10 Mobile phone was ever going to make it outside its home country. Now, it looks like NuAns has decided to attempt a wider release, because it’s raising $725,000 on Kickstarter to fund NEO’s global debut. According to the team’s campaign, they’re using the money they’ll get to buy the components needed for the device to work anywhere in the world, not just in Japan.
The NEO is much chunkier than most smartphones these days, with interchangeable back halves. You can choose from various finishes, like wood, suede and even ostrich. The device itself has a five-inch 720p screen, 2GB of RAM and a 1.5GHz octacore Snapdragon 617. Plus, it’s capable of running Microsoft’s Continuum feature, which turns it into a tiny computer. To get one as a Kickstarter reward, you’ll have to pledge at least $270, though that tier is quickly running out as of this writing.
Via: The Verge
Source: Kickstarter
Walmart Pay arrives in 14 more states
When Walmart talked about a wide national release of its mobile payment service before the start of July, it wasn’t kidding around. Walmart Pay has launched in 14 more states on top of a slew of rollouts earlier in the month — it’s not quite ubiquitous (we count 33 states plus Washington, DC), but it’s close. This latest deployment includes heavily populated states like California, New York and Washington, so you’re far more likely to use your Android phone or iPhone to shop at the big-box retail chain.
As a reminder, Walmart Pay isn’t strictly a competitor for tap-to-pay options like Android Pay or Apple Pay. It’s more intended to streamline the checkout process using QR codes. With that said, it’s far too soon to tell how well it works in practice. Walmart’s service has only been available for about a month and a half in any state, and there just isn’t enough data to know whether or not customers will embrace it in earnest.
Source: Enhanced Online Newa
Google adds built-in Cast option to Chrome for desktop
Google has begun rolling out a built-in Cast option for Chrome 51. You simply have to right click a tab or click the hamburger button on the right-hand part of the desktop browser to find a line in the menu that says “Cast…” Doesn’t mean the old extension is completely useless now, though — you don’t need it to beam anything to your Chromecast anymore, but you could still use it as a shortcut. Besides, it looks like the feature isn’t available for everyone just yet, even for those with up-to-date Chrome browsers. If you still don’t have access to it, you may want to hold off on uninstalling the extension and checking your menus every now and then.
Google will also give you the power to mirror tabs into Google Hangouts when the stable version of Chrome 52 comes out. To be precise, it will enable you to Cast to cloud services including Hangouts, though it’s unclear what other services will work with it in the future.
Via: 9to5Google, Android Police
Source: Google (1), (2)
Watch Stephen Colbert challenge a ‘Super Mario’ speedrunner
You’ve probably seen video game speed runs before, but on a major TV channel? Not likely… until now. In what appears to be a first for nationwide US TV, The Late Show’s Stephen Colbert ran a segment that pitted a speedrunner (Super Mario Bros. 3 expert Mitch Fowler) against Colbert and the Columbia University men’s relay team to see who could complete their respective goals the fastest. We won’t spoil the results here, but it’s surreal to see talk of warp whistles on a show that normally revolves around celebrity chats and musical guests. And while the challenge was ultimately a promo for Summer Games Done Quick’s 2016 launch on July 3rd, we won’t knock it — it’s pretty rare for TV to introduce a longstanding game subculture to such a wide audience.
Source: The Late Show (YouTube)
How to set default keyboard on your Android phone
Setting up a default keyboard on your Android phone is a lot easier than you think!
One amazing thing about Android phones is the plethora of customization options you have, including the option to change keyboards. There are a bunch of great keyboard apps for Android to choose from, so find the one that feels right for you.
We’ll be working with the SwiftKey keyboard today to show you how to set a default keyboard on your Android phone, but the process is the same no matter which keyboard app you choose .
Download and install new keyboard.
Go to Settings.
Find and tap Languages and input. It should be under the Personal submenu.
Tap on current keyboard under Keyboard & input methods.
Tap on choose keyboards.
Tap on the SwiftKey keyboard you would like to set as default.
Read the Attention prompt that comes up on screen and tap OK if you wish to continue.
Make sure the switch beside the keyboard has changed from gray to green.
Go back to the main language & input screen.
Tap on current keyboard again.
Select the SwiftKey keyboard. This will save automatically.
Make sure the keyboard is working by writing a quick message to someone.
Enjoy using your new third-party keyboard on your Andriod phone! If for any reason you want to go back to the stock keyboard or want to try out a different keyboard, it’s the exact same process
China successfully refuels a satellite in orbit
China is now one of the precious few countries that knows how to refuel satellites in space. The nation’s Tianyuan-1 system (launched aboard the Long March 7) has successfully topped up at least one satellite in orbit. Officials aren’t describing the process beyond likening it to that for airplanes, but the result is clear: the refueling should help satellites stay in orbit for longer, or make adjustments that would otherwise be impractical.
Refuelling systems could become a non-event in a few years thanks to robotic spacecraft. However, there’s a strong incentive to get this technology into space as quickly as possible. If you can keep a satellite in orbit for even a year or two longer, you can save massive amounts of money by reducing the number of vehicles you need to deploy. The move could also help with the fight against space junk by slowing the proliferation of dead or useless satellites. The ultimate goal is to completely avoid fuel in the first place, but efforts like China’s represent an important first step.
Source: People’s Daily, QQ (translated)
Bjork’s VR album is a work in progress, just like the medium itself
Bjork Digital is almost Bjork: The Theme Park. The installation, which opened in Tokyo earlier this week, includes a movie theater showing a two-hour-long showcase of the artist’s videography. Around the corner from there, you’ll find several album tracks from the album Vulnicura have been transformed into VR experiences. Further down the hall, you can spend time playing around with the album-turned-music app from Bjork’s Biophilia album. The 18-day installation opened to the Japanese public this week, with Tokyo being the second stop on a world tour that also includes Europe and the US. I went for a visit and came away thinking that no other musical artist is pushing (or perhaps dragging) virtual reality forward more than Bjork. She’s still working on more VR tracks too — this is really just the start.
I asked Paul Grey, Bjork Digital’s producer, why the musician decided to work with virtual reality. “[VR] is a challenge,” he said. She continues to challenge herself, using this very new tool. But it’s also about bringing a new experience: It’s not a music video, or a live concert. Virtual reality is an intimate experience. Bjork wanted to bring people closer to the artist.”
“Take Stonemilker for example,” he continued. “It’s 360-degree video, so there’s just the camera and Bjork. There’s no crew. Bjork is stood. Alone. [The intimacy] is something you wouldn’t get on a single screen.” Your mileage may vary, but most will have some kind of emotional reaction — even if it’s simply mild discomfort at the isolated nature of the piece.
Stonemilker, shown in the above video, is currently the only experience from the showcase that you can try for yourself (if you own a Gear VR or Google Cardboard headset, that is). It’s also the simplest. The first VR experience was recorded on a bundle of action-cams stuck together. The camera doesn’t move, but Bjork does, cavorting around you as you stay rooted to the same spot. While watching the performance is a personal experience, the tour is done in groups. We were all guided into a darkened room, given a Gear VR headset and some Bowers & Wilkins headphones. The song began when we strapped the headset on.
This is the same experience that the artist showed off at the Museum of Modern Art in New York last year, but it shows the roots of the Bjork’s experiments in the new medium. The musician already has a rich history of working with famed designers and filmmakers like Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze and many more. However, the Bjork Digital exhibition required a different set of technical expertise. The showcase, so far, has also involved established VR companies and working with the likes of Rewind, River Studios and Dentsu Labs.
I found the first experience certainly tender and intimate, and that’s probably what made the second experience seem all the more intense in comparison: Welcome to the inside of Bjork’s mouth.
Director Jesse Kanda and his team used a miniaturized version of the camera ball used in Stonemilker, but for Mouth Mantra, the team also ended up making a physical model of Bjork’s mouth, given the need for more filming — and the awkwardness associated with having a bunch of cameras down your throat. (Producer Paul Grey challenges anyone to differentiate between the two, however.) The song, like the experience, is pushier, scarier — and a little bit queasier. It’s still not as bad as playing Resident Evil 7 in VR, but perhaps intentionally, it’s more aggressive than Stonemilker.
The most recent creation, Not Get, moves the experience from Gear VR to HTC Vive. Honestly, the more advanced hardware made it far more like an experience, and less like a music video spread through 360 degrees.
Following its Sydney debut, this is only the second public appearance for Not Get VR. Bjork was captured and replicated through high-resolution 3D scans, on-location motion capture and “videogrammetry,” which was then paired with real-time spatial audio. As I craned my neck and moved around the sparkly outline of Bjork, the voice came from within the glowing projection. While technically more sophisticated, it doesn’t take complete advantage of the HTC Vive: There are no controllers, and there’s not much in the way of interaction; this is still a performance. That said, the outline of contorting light particles is mesmerizing.
Not being able to control what happens inside the Not Get VR installation was done for simple, pragmatic reasons: “The trick is [striking a balance between] cutting edge technology, yet keeping it completely robust. It has to work all day”, Grey said. “This is only the second time it’s been shown!” (The Not Get presentation is actually the largest ever simultaneous HTC Vive VR installation.) “In the future, I believe [interactivity] is the direction things will go in.”
Bjork is a very visual music artist; the exhibition also included roughly two hours of her music video history, played inside a huge theater alongside all the VR experiences. It acts as a primer for how Bjork has pushed the boundaries of technology in her videos, all while filing itself away as the part that’s past. The musician herself has explained that although she calls on technical expertise, she herself is no tech dilettante. She described working on Biophillia and Vulnicura in an interview with Fast Company:
“I only did that album [Biophillia] because I felt like I had content that made sense, that could relate to the technology. It can’t just be working with the gadget for the sake of the gadget. But also it’s about budgets. You can do apps cheaply. Apps was kind of punk, actually. It was like starting a punk band again. Filming for Oculus Rift is not.”
In fact, the night before the exhibition even opened, Bjork previewed the next track being transformed into something even grander than the original audio. In front of a small intimate audience, she performed Vulnicura’s “Quicksand,” wearing a suitably outlandish mask, all while surrounded by projection lighting and no fewer than cameras. The cameras captured what was happening in front of the audience, while computers added further layers of digital effects. This wasn’t virtual reality; more augmented reality — a seamless projection of a virtual world in the real one, without the need for a clammy VR headset. (It’s hopefully what all VR will be like in the future.)
Unfortunately, the performance (broadcasted live on YouTube as a 360-degree video), was removed from the internet soon after the performance finished. The organizers say the video will resurface (with some layers of post-production) in the future. Bjork’s work transforming this intimate breakup album into a virtual experience still continues, and this performance was only the latest milestone on that front. By the time the Digital tour reaches the west, it’s likely there will be even more VR performances for fans to try.
Source: Miraikan
AIVAnet 