We’re answering your Moto Z questions in our forums!
The lid has come off the Moto Z. The reviews have dropped. We now can share pricing and availability.
But we get it. You still have questions. Well we have answers! Phil has spent a week with both the Moto Z and the Moto Z Force on Verizon, and he’s going to spend the rest of the day answers your questions in our forums. As in, he’s not getting let out to feed until it’s all over.
So if you’ve got a burning question about either of the phones, or their Moto Mods, hit the link below and get to askin’!
Click here to ask your Moto Z question!
Buy a mod for your new Verizon Moto Z and you’ll enjoy 40% off additional mods
Update: The original announcement from Verizon indicated that it was a 20% savings, but Verizon has confirmed that you will actually save 40% on the additional mods.
Verizon has set a date as to when you’ll be able to pick up your new Moto Z and Moto Z Force, and should you be on the hunt for some mods to spice up your imminent experience be sure to take note that when picking up a mod you’ll get 40% off additional mods. This will help make it more affordable to not only pick up the battery powerhouse, but also a projector or boombox.
You can already pre-order the Moto Z Droids and available mods from Verizon directly. Should you be interested in learning more about the two handsets, the mods that can be attached to them or to find out what we make of the new hardware, be sure to check out our in-depth Moto Z and Moto Z Force review.
- Which Moto Mods should you buy?
See at Verizon
Moto Z and Moto Z Force
- Our Moto Z review!
- Moto Z specs
- Moto Mods custom backs
- Moto Z and Moto Z Force will be Verizon exclusives until the fall of 2016
- The latest Moto Z news
- Discuss in our Moto Z forums
Motorola
Best Buy
Amazon
Best Buy is offering $200 off the Moto Z and a free speaker Moto Mod
Best Buy has announced a pretty awesome promotion for the Moto Z that scores you $200 off the phone as well as the speaker Moto Mod for free. This total package is valued at $280, which is a big savings on a brand new phone. Verizon has announced its own promotion that saves you 40% off a mod when purchasing the phone and mod together, but Best Buy’s offer may be better for those who don’t need multiple mods.
You can grab the Moto Z for just $1 if you sign a two-year contract or for $17.47 a month on installment billing instead of the $26 that it would normally be.
See at Best Buy
Moto Z and Moto Z Force
- Our Moto Z review!
- Moto Z specs
- Moto Mods custom backs
- Moto Z and Moto Z Force will be Verizon exclusives until the fall of 2016
- The latest Moto Z news
- Discuss in our Moto Z forums
Motorola
Best Buy
Amazon
Magnets and the Moto Z: How Moto made modules work, while LG was a nonstarter
We’ve seen optional modules before, and they pretty much were a nonstarter. Here’s how Moto modules actually work in the Moto Z.
Ask anyone who’s ever played with magnets. There’s something strangely satisfying when the two pieces come together. Almost like there was no stopping them. Some invisible force working its magic.
Nerdy? Yeah. But there’s something about that effortless force, ya know? And it’s been a bit of a crapshoot over the years when it comes to magnets and mobile devices. Either they work great, keeping everything where they should be, or you end up with a mess that takes too much force to unstick.
And that brings us to magnets and the Moto Z.
Actually, let’s back up. The Moto Z is the second phone we’ve used this year that employs modular — in this case, Moto Mods — optional accessories that add some sort of functionality to the phone. And the Moto Z, at launch, has three — an extended battery, a speaker, and a pico projector. (There’s actually a fourth — the Style Shell back that comes with every phone.) To switch modules, you just break the magnetic bond on the back of the phone, and pop the new back on. The Moto Mods have chips in them that talk to a co-processor on the phone, and the two sync up seamlessly.
The Moto Z isn’t the first to try optional accessories, but it’s the first to make them work.
LG tried its hand at this sort of thing earlier in the year with the LG G5. It was a very different experience. I (and other journalists) got an early look at the LG G5 ahead of its unveiling at Mobile World Congress, in late February in Barcelona. Figuring out how to remove the modular section in the G5 was simple enough. There was a button to start the ejection process, the butt would slide out a few millimeters, and the connected battery would come with it. But I remember standing there the first time, clueless as to how the battery could come off the butt. (Hint: With a decent amount of force.)
It wasn’t overly intuitive, it wasn’t without effort — and you had to reboot the phone to get it to work. And complicating matters for those of us in the United States was that the the more compelling of the two modules — a high-definition digital-to-analog audio converter — was never made available.
The Moto Z? You remove the back with a fingernail. The Moto Mods have a convenient little slot for getting things started. Then you just pop on a new one. And by the time you flip the phone back around to get to work, the software has done its thing, and it’s ready to go. That’s not to say that the Moto Z will enjoy success with its modules that LG didn’t. That’s all but certain. It’s just that Moto has implemented them infinitely better than LG did.
Two phones. Two sets of optional accessories that add functionality to the host device.
And only one that you can use without any explanation whatsoever.
Moto Z and Moto Z Force
- Our Moto Z review!
- Moto Z specs
- Moto Mods custom backs
- Moto Z and Moto Z Force will be Verizon exclusives until the fall of 2016
- The latest Moto Z news
- Discuss in our Moto Z forums
Motorola
Best Buy
Amazon
Best smartphone battery packs: Pokemon power and more
There is nothing worse than running out of battery on your phone. Well, there is, but when it happens it feels like the worst thing in the world.
Unfortunately, as advanced as smartphones have become in recent years, battery life is still something they haven’t quite nailed. Some will last most of the day, others might get you through most of the evening too, but that’s assuming you aren’t spending all your time on WhatsApp, or catching Pokemon.
Doing either of those, especially the latter will see that bar in deplete. Rapidly. The problem is, while you might be thrilled at having caught Pikachu, if you’ve missed your last train in doing so and your battery is on 2 per cent, that thrill will quickly disappear, no matter how cute he may be.
That’s where battery packs come in. They have been around for years so when it comes to your options, there are hundreds. You’ll find small ones that will fit in you pocket but only give you a small bit of extra juice, as well as larger ones that will charge your phone three times over. That’s a lot of extra Pokemon playing you could be doing.
We’ve rounded up a selection of the best battery pack options out there to make sure your phone keeps up with you.
Click here to see the best battery packs.
ICYMI: Microscopic seascapes and riding your luggage home
Today on In Case You Missed It: A motorized, rideable piece of luggage is hitting Indiegogo on Thursday that can convert from regular bag to lazy human scooter in a jiff. To cut out people altogether, you might be interested in the video of a robot made to flip sausages in Germany. Meanwhile ocean researchers captured the first microscopic videos of coral reefs out in the wild rather than in the lab, showing coral behavior that has not previously been captured on camera.
As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
NASA releases a year-long look at the sunlit face of the Earth
The DSCOVR satellite gave us a rare glimpse of the sunlit face of the Earth in 2015. Now that it’s been orbiting the planet for over a year, its EPIC camera has finally captured enough images for a year-long time-lapse video of our home. In the past, you had to be an astronaut to get a look at the side of the Earth that’s lit up by the sun. DSCOVR changed that when it started orbiting the planet from a million miles away and taking photos of its view every two hours. The satellite is stationed between the sun and the Earth in a location that’s known as the Lagrange point 1.
The NASA-NOAA collaboration was launched aboard a SpaceX flight in February 2015 to monitor solar wind condition. It can warn us about approaching coronal mass ejections, keep an eye on the ozone layer and the state of Earth’s vegetation, and, as you can see, take awesome photos of our home. It also once captured the moon — and its shadow during an eclipse — crossing our planet on cam.
Source: NASA Goddard
PSVR’s ‘cinematic mode’ boasts a virtual 226-inch screen
No matter how big your TV might be, a movie theater screen will likely always be bigger. But with PlayStation VR you can simulate up to a 226-inch display using the headset’s Cinematic Mode. Cinematic Mode, of course, is the feature that’ll allow you to play traditional PlayStation 4 games without taking the helmet off. It’s a bit like the virtual desktop apps we’ve seen with Oculus and Vive. A post on the Japanese PlayStation Blog outlines how it all works.
There are a trio of (simulated) viewing sizes: 117 inches, 163 inches and 226 inches. The translated post says that the default 163-inch size will encompass your entire field of view, while the gargantuan one will require you to move your head from side to side if you want to see everything at once. So, kind of like sitting in the front row of a movie theater. At the other end of the spectrum, the smallest size reorients the screen to your head movement. If you get tired while wearing the PSVR you can apparently lay down while wearing it and the display will match your horizontal perspective.
As UploadVR points out, however, there is a caveat to all this that might keep you from using the headset for any sort of critical movie viewing. That’d be the “screen-door effect” — seeing the gaps between a display’s pixels — inherent with current VR tech. However, if there isn’t a free TV in the house, this could sub in as a pinch-hitter display.
There’s no word of an actual movie theater setting like what’s available for movie watching apps on other VR platforms, but hopefully one of those will happen too. And if that doesn’t happen and you’re looking for a more immersive experience, well, hey, you can always use the helmet to check out 360-degree photos and videos.
Via: UploadVR
Source: PlayStation Blog (Japanese)
Scientists can build lab tools using these Lego-like blocks
A team of University of California, Riverside researchers designed a special set of 3D-printed Lego-like bricks. Unlike normal Lego that serves as building blocks for toys and gadgets, their bricks can be used to make custom instruments for labs, schools and hospitals. They call them Multifluidic Evolutionary Components (MECs), and just like a Lego set, they’re comprised of different parts that make it possible to build tools for different tasks, such as pumping fluids and taking measurements.
Lead researcher Douglas Hill was inspired by his time in the electronics industry, where components are designed to work with each other. Hill was apparently “shocked to find out that bioengineers build new instruments from scratch” and can take months or even years to finish. That’s why he created something that make it possible to build affordable apparatuses on the fly.
Select undergrad students in the university have been testing the system for a while. William Grover, a team member and assistant professor of bioengineering in UCR, said they’ve “had computer science students write the code that runs the blocks, bioengineering students culture cells using instruments built from the blocks, and even art students design the graphical interface for the software that controls the blocks.” The researchers plan to give two California school districts access to their creation as part of their pilot testing. Their long-term goal, however, is to make the blocks more affordable and accessible to any kind of organization or institute that needs them.
Via: Gizmodo
Source: University of California Riverside, PLOS One
Take a look at how ‘No Man’s Sky’ handles combat
In the almost three years since we first saw No Man’s Sky, gameplay videos and previews have focused mostly on its exploration and survival aspects. Now, mere weeks ahead of its PlayStation 4 launch, we’re getting a better look at how the game earns its “fantasy violence” descriptor from the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. The clip embedded above focuses on combat not only in outer space against armadas of ships, but also the various procedurally generated (and dangerous) creatures on the planets you’ll galavant around.
It’s the second in a four-part series, with clips for the game’s trading and survival aspects coming next week and the following. Keeping the videos on repeat is certainly one way to make the wait for August 9th feel a little shorter, but I can’t say that I recommend doing so.
Source: PlayStation (YouTube)
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