Moto Z is now available in the UK, for £499
The Moto Z, that razr thin phone that dropped the headphone socket in favour of USB Type-C, and offers endless customisation through Moto Mods is now available to buy in the UK.
Starting life as a Verizon exclusive in the US, Moto was always a little tight-lipped on when they would be available in other regions. Well that time is now, following the announcement that a lower-tier handset, the Moto Z Play, at IFA 2016.
- Motorola Moto Z Play preview: Moto Mods meet mega battery life
The Moto Z can now be ordered from Motorola.co.uk for the price of £499, which puts it up there with many of the flagship rivals, although it’s a healthy price saving over a device like the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge, currently £639.
The Moto Z comes with 32GB of internal storage and Moto Maker is offering either black/grey or white/gold as the only options.
The Moto Z offers a 5.5-inch 2560 x 1440-pixel resolution display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chipset with 4GB RAM, 2600mAh battery with TurboPower charging, a 13-megapixel rear camera and 5-megapixel front.
There is the option to dive into a range of Moto Mods too, from the Incipio OffGrid Power Pack for £59.99 through to the Moto Insta-Share Projector for £249, via the Hasselblad True Zoom for £199.
- Moto Mods: Everything you need to know about the Moto Z’s snap-on accessories
- Hasselblad True Zoom preview: The 10x optical zoom Moto Mod is finally here
The delivery date given by Motorola is 13 September.
If you’re after the Moto Z Play, that handset is also listed on the UK site for £369, although it’s listed as “out of stock”.
New Snowden leaks unravel mystery behind NSA’s UK base
Just when you thought you couldn’t be shocked by the NSA’s snooping anymore, new leaked documents show the agency’s reach extends far beyond American borders. According to files obtained by The Intercept from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, a US base in the UK has been eavesdropping on satellite and other wireless communications around the world.
The base in question is the mysterious 545-acre wide Menwith Hill Station (MHS) in North Yorkshire, which fronts as a Royal Air Force facility to provide “rapid radio relay and conduct communications research.” It’s piqued the interest of protesters, journalists, and even terrorists for decades, and the new revelation finally sheds light on what’s been going on at MHS.
According to the documents, the NSA has been intercepting international communications at the British base in two main ways. One is called FORNSAT, which uses the giant golf ball-shaped domes housing powerful antennae to eavesdrop on transmissions between foreign satellites. The other, named OVERHEAD, employs US government satellites to find and monitor cellphone calls and WiFi signals on the ground below.
The information the NSA can glean from these systems is huge, and gets pretty specific. The Intercept noted that in a single 12-hour period in May 2011, the “surveillance systems logged more than 335 million metadata records, which reveal information such as the sender and recipient of an email, or the phone numbers someone called and at what time.”
What does the agency do with the information it obtains? It turns out there’s a whole system in place called GHOSTHUNTER that is designed to “directly aid military operations.” This lets the NSA zoom in on the specific locations of targeted people or groups, so that, and here’s the chilling quote, “they could then be captured or killed.”
It appears really difficult to evade GHOSTHUNTER, as the program is described to “locate targets when they log onto the internet,” and has reportedly enabled “a significant number of capture-kill operations.” Examples of such targets include a “suspected al Qaeda ‘facilitator’” and an “alleged al Qaeda ‘weapons procurer.’” The latter was detained a few days after location by a special task force, along with his family members and associates.
These new leaks add more weight to what the intelligence industry has suspected about the base for awhile, and is just another example of how far the NSA’s reach extends. It also raises more questions on suspected UK involvement on targeted killings, about which the British Ministry of Defence declined to respond to The Intercept. Back on the home front, the intelligence agency is reportedly investigating new ways to snoop on its citizens. To really scare yourself into never using the internet ever again, check out The Intercept’s detailed report, which has links to all the spilled classified documents.
Via: The Verge
Source: The Intercept
PayPal’s Mastercard deal brings its payments to more stores
PayPal wants to be your go-to payment option online and in stores, but it has a problem: banks and credit cards aren’t a fan of its free bank transfers and other attempts to push online payment over the conventional variety. However, it’s trying to make amends. In the wake of a Visa deal from July, PayPal has forged a partnership with Mastercard that gives the credit card firm higher prominence online in return for more of a retail footprint. PayPal will make Mastercard a “clear and equal” payment choice in its wallet (complete with an image of your card), let you set the card as a default payment method and will “not encourage” you to link a bank account if you’re a Mastercard customer. In exchange, you can use a linked Mastercard in your PayPal wallet to make in-store purchases at contact-free terminals.
It’s a gamble, to be sure: PayPal is hoping that you won’t mind the in-your-face credit card promotion in return for greater shopping freedom. With that said, it might be necessary. PayPal is facing increasingly stiff competition in the internet payment world, including from heavyweights like Facebook. This helps PayPal reduce its dependence on that more vulnerable business and get the drop on rivals that haven’t done a lot in retail.
Via: Wall Street Journal
Source: PayPal, Mastercard
Moto G4 Play joins Amazon’s ad-injected Prime phone deals
Motorola’s budget-minded Moto G lineup just got an even more affordable addition thanks to Amazon’s Prime exclusives. For a mere $99.99 unlocked, the newly announced Moto G4 Play comes loaded with Android 6.0 Marshmallow and solid specs like 4G LTE, a 5-inch 720p display driven by a quad-core Snapdragon processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB internal storage and an 8-megapixel camera with a 5-megapixel selfie shooter.
Of course, that low price is subsidized by display ads, so users will be receiving personalized offers and product recommendations on the phone’s lockscreen. Assuming you already have a Prime membership and don’t mind dismissing the ads occasionally, you’ll save a cool $50 off the retail price. And because it comes unlocked out of the box, the Moto G4 Play will work with any major network in the US. The G4 Play is available for pre-order from Amazon today and ships on September 15th.
For a step up in specs, the slightly more powerful and highly rated Moto G4 is also available under the Prime exclusives deal. The fourth-generation G boasts a 5.5-inch full HD display with a 1.5 GHz octa-core processor and 13-megapixel camera, all for $149.99 unlocked. Finally, rounding out the Prime exclusives lineup is the BLU R1 HD for a low-low price of $49.99. While it isn’t BLU’s most powerful phone, the company has a solid reputation for dependable and feature-packed budget handsets.
Indian researchers recycle fish scales into energy nanogenerator
Indians consume a lot of fish: Data from 2014 estimated that each urban citizen consumed an average of 2.8 kg per year, or about 3.7 million kg for the whole country. That leaves a lot of leftover bones, scales and tails. As they reported this week in Applied Physics Letters, a team of researchers at Jadavpur University looked for ways to re-use this “biowaste” and pioneered a method to generate electricity from it.
First, some biophysics. Fish scales have collagen fibers containing piezoelectric properties: Stress them and you generate a charge. Considering this, the researchers collected a large volume of them and used a demineralization process to make them transparent and flexible. Then they toyed with the hierarchical alignment of these treated scales, boosting their energy yield and effectively creating a bio-piezoelectric nanogenerator.
It can scavenge several types of ambient mechanical energies like body movements, machine and sound vibrations and wind flow. Even touching the nanogenerator produced enough electricity to light 50 LEDs. The result is a big step for self-powered flexible electronics, which could one day be developed into things like pacemakers energized by heartbeats that safely biodegrade in time. While it could also find applications in transparent and portable electronics, the biocompatibility likely makes this tech more valuable to medical uses like e-healthcare monitoring, in vitro diagnostics and edible devices.
Source: Phys.org
Warner Bros. asks that its own sites be removed from Google
Warner Bros. is in the business of keeping its content from being pirated, and in the past has been working on ways to accomplish just that.
The studio has taken to Google in the past to see this lofty goal through, alleging that the search engine makes it far too simple for users to seek out and obtain pirated content. In the past, Warner Bros. has even asked that Google remove destinations for torrent fans like The Pirate Bay from its search results.
Now, Warner Bros. is taking matters into its own hands by collecting pirated content and its corresponding URLs to report to Google while requesting that it gets de-indexed. However, it looks like the studio has also flagged its own URLs for censorship via anti-piracy partner Vobile.
For example, screenshots from DMCA notices for both The Dark Knight and The Matrix note official publicity URLs for both movies located at Warnerbros.com. Recently, a DMCA takedown notice for the movie The Lucky One was submitted with yet another Warnerbros.com URL. It’s happening again and again, which only places the spotlight on the problem with automating takedowns. Warner Bros. is essentially making it more difficult for fans to visit pages related to its properties and, in some cases, purchase them according to Amazon URLs on the same notices.
Google decided to leave the URLs up, but it’s possible that may not be the case going forward forever. It looks like Warner Bros. will have to be more discerning in the future when it comes to combating piracy through means it deems necessary.
Via: TorrentFreak
Amazon Fire TV update gives you much wider voice search
Amazon’s Fire TV devices just became much more useful if you prefer to talk to your media hub. An update rolling out to the Fire TV and Fire TV Stick gives you dramatically improved search: you can now use voice to search over 75 apps and services, including Netflix and (soon) HBO Now. If the show you’re looking for is available on multiple services, you’ll see all your choices. And if you’re content with watching Amazon Video, you’re still getting an upgrade. You now have voice control of playback with Amazon’s service, so you can skip to your favorite Transparent scene without using the fast forward button.
There’s more. Much like on Apple TV, you can get game scores and other sports updates with a voice command — you’ll have to specify your favorites, but you won’t have to disrupt your show to get the scoop. And don’t worry if you’re not a fan of speaking to a set-top box, as there’s one big update for you as well. The Fire TV home screen has added personalized recommendations for both Netflix and HBO to help you find something new to watch. All told, your Fire TV gear should spare you a lot of button clicks.
Source: Amazon
Microsoft is reportedly taking on Slack with ‘Skype Teams’
Microsoft is building Skype Teams, a group messaging service that’s similar to Slack, according to a report from Microsoft news blog MSPoweruser. Skype Teams takes a lot of the features that makes Slack so popular, including the ability to add channels, share files and privately message people, and it adds a few more functions.
For example, users will be able to reply to individual messages in a group chat, like responding to a comment on Facebook. Skype Teams also features Office 365 integration, bringing in tools like PowerPoint, Excel and Word, MSPoweruser reports. Microsoft’s “Fun Picker” offers emojis, memes, cartoons, Giphy GIFs and other conversation enhancers for the modern group chatting mogul.
Skype Teams users will also be able to make video calls directly from the app, MSPoweruser says. Slack added the ability to make voice calls back in June, but not before Skype rolled out its own in-Slack video call functionality.
Microsoft is aiming to bring Skype Teams to the web and mobile devices, but there’s no word on when Skype Teams will go public, MSPoweruser says. However, Microsoft is testing the service internally and plans to roll it out for Office 365 subscribers first, according to today’s report.
Source: MSPoweruser
Canyons of Mars is a simple but punishing arcade game (review)
This is going to be a rather quick and simple review, as the game being reviewed is also pretty simple and quick-playing. Canyons of Mars is a simple side-to-side arcade game, and is intended for quick pickup-and-play.
It’s a family-friendly (easy and safe for the kiddos) title with a clean design. It comes to us from developer South Pacific Apps (makers of “Fill the Pot”, also reviewed here on our site).
Setup
Simple enough; just download from the Play Store, and enter the game. Upon entry to the title screen you can jump right into gameplay, adjust audio settings, see the game’s record scores, and choose to pay up to the premium (no-ads) version.
Going into gameplay, your next screen is to choose your “martian” or avatar. You’re forced to start with the weakest martian for your first levels, until you collect enough blue jewels to but your next martian (for example, then next better martian costs 100 jewels). So you grab your martian, hit ‘play’, and you are transferred into gameplay.
Gameplay
The game is extremely easy to play. You have only 2 controls to worry about, tap/hold the left side of the screen to move left, and tap/hold right to move right.
Your objective is to move left and right, simultaneously collecting jewels and assorted power-ups, and avoiding falling Mars rocks. The jewels you want to get a more capable martian for your next level (see above); the power-ups will help you last longer on your current level.
The power-ups are of three varieties:
Boosters to improve your horizontal speed.
Armor and armor repair.
Blasters to shoot apart oncoming falling rocks.
That’s really all there is to it. With these tools and skills, your goal is to survive each level, upgrade your martian, and conquer the next level.
What We Liked
As stated above, Canyons of Mars is a family-friendly game, and would be of particular interest for younger kiddos like preschoolers and kindergardeners. The options are limited enough so as not confuse a player. Meanwhile, the graphics are clean and bold (attractive to younger eyes) and the sound effects are a pleasant combination of cartoon background music along with Nickelodeon-esque sound effects.
What Could Use Improvement
As a reviewer my main complaint is with how punishing the game is when it comes to getting hit with a rock you’re trying to avoid. In a lot of games you’re given a lot of chances to continue play (you can take a lot of bullets, or you can get injured otherwise quite a bit before dying and therefore ending your turn).
In Canyons of Mars, there is very little pity given to you as a player. If you happen to have your armor & shield really built up, you may be able to sustain contact with two or maybe three rocks. But the rest of the time (which is a majority of gameplay in my opinion), upon contact with a single rock, you are dead, your turn is over, and you are directed to re-start the level.
This in my opinion is very punitive, and is a deterrent to its replay value. It could get a bit frustrating when you get pretty far on a level (including collecting quite a few power-ups in the process) only to have it all end because a single rock hits you. It was a bit of a turn-off, to be honest.
Conclusion
In all, Canyons of Mars is a pretty decent game, as long as you know what you’re getting into. A MMO simulation is is not, but it’s not trying to pretend to be, either. The game is probably best played by younger device users, or other simpler minds in your house (Like my brothers. Hi guys!).
Download Canyons of Mars from the Play Store here.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare in VR is as intense as it is amazing!
Shooting your way to glory, but in spaaaace!
Activision’s Call of Duty XP event in Los Angeles featured a number of exciting games to check out. We competed in Infinite Warfare multiplayer, teamed up in Zombies in Space, and test drove Modern Warfare Remastered. But the most amazing thing might’ve been the Infinite Warfare VR experience for PlayStation VR.
Read More at VR Heads!
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