Amazon has now made it easier to buy your favourite Kickstarter products
Amazon has introduced a new Kickstarter Collection section as part of its Launchpad platform for startups to sell their products and get them noticed. The programme works with capital firms, startup accelerators and crowd-funding platforms such as Kickstarter to help launch products in the US, UK, China, Germany and France.
The new addition of Kickstarter means you can now buy successfully funded products such as Exploding Kittens and the Musaic multi-room music system. It’s not just gadgets and electronics in the Collection, as home & kitchen and toys & games are included too
Francois Saugier, head of EU seller services, Amazon said: “We launched Amazon Launchpad to provide startups with the support they need to help bring their ideas to life, and by working with Kickstarter we will be increasing our selection for customers across Europe.”
Yancey Strickler, CEO of Kickstarter added: “We’re thrilled to collaborate with Amazon Launchpad on creating a new path for startups to launch their products and potentially be discovered by millions of new customers.”
You can find out more about Amazon Launchpad and the networks it supports, as well as buy startup products at the official Launchpad website.
The BlackBerry DTEK60 could be available to buy in 5 days
The DTEK60 hasn’t been officially announced by BlackBerry, but the Canadian phone company may as well not bother as we already know pretty much all there is to know about the new flagship device.
- BlackBerry DTEK60: What’s the story so far?
The specs have been leaked by BlackBerry itself and now German retailer Media Markt has listed it as being available on October 25. However it isn’t clear if this is the date it will be available to buy, or just available to pre-order.
The German listing also has a price of €599, which is a lot higher than $499.99 pre-order price from American retailer B&H Photo. The leaked advert does confirm the same specs, including 5.5-inch Quad HD AMOLED display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, 21-megapixel rear-facing camera and 32GB of internal storage.
Two October dates were previously rumoured for release as well: October 12 and October 17, but we’ve still not heard anything official from BlackBerry, so perhaps October 25 will be the official launch.
These stunning drone photos kick off 400ft Britain competition, can you do better?
VisitEngland and the Civil Aviation Authority have teamed for a photography competition to find the best aerial shots of the British countryside.
Drone pilots are encouraged to take to the UK skies and grab amazing images of what makes Britain great, and in the process highlight that it is possible to use quadcopters and other flying tech responsibly.
The CAA has its own Dronecode to help pilots observe UK rules and guidelines, and you can read about it here. The photography competition also adheres to the strict code, with a couple of key highlights being:
- Drones must not be flown near airports.
- They must stay below 400ft and be at least 150ft from buildings.
To encourage you to take part, Pocket-lint has been given a few examples of shots taken by drones, which you can flick through in our gallery above. Hopefully you will be able to do as well or even better, and it’s easy to take part.
- Best drones to buy in 2016, whatever your budget
- Best drone photos ever: Stunning images taken from up high
Just submit a drone-taken photo or video of Britain and upload it to your Twitter or Instagram account using the hashtag #400ftBritain. Or you can submit your entry to the official 400ft Britain website directly.
The competition runs until 31 January 2017 and winners get the chance to go on a Phantom Flight School drone holiday. There will also be an exhibition held of the best next year.
Best Headphones 2016: EE Pocket-lint Gadget Awards nominees
The EE Pocket-lint Gadget Awards are nearly upon us for the 13th year and as usual, we have been delivering a series of features of the nominees within each of the 14 categories. Each feature offers a little bit about why we love each of the shortlisted products and why they have been chosen as finalists in their category.
This is now the seventh of those features and it is all about the nominations for the Best Headphones 2016. You can find the other features that look at Best Game, Best Camera, Best Phone, Best Tablet / 2-in-1, Best Laptop and Best Home Entertainment Device or Service in the Awards hub. If you keep checking there, you’ll also see features appearing for Best TV, Best Smarthome Device and the remaining categories.
As with all the categories, the competition is tough for best headphones. Some excellent over-ear numbers have appeared over the last 12 months from the Sony MDR-1000X to the P7 Wireless from Bowers and Wilkins, but which of the nominees should take the crown?
Click here to see the Awards nominees for 2016’s Best Headphones in a little more detail to help you make your mind up about which one should get your vote.
Voting in the 13th annual EE Pocket-lint Awards is now open so you can let us know which one of these great devices you think should win the Best Headphones award for this year and give us your verdict on all the other tech across the 13 select categories.
Winners will be announced at the exclusive event in London on 23 November in association with EE. For now, keep an eye on the EE Pocket-lint Gadget Awards 2016 hub for all the latest on how the voting works, who the elite judges are and the EE Pocket-lint Gadget Awards shortlist.
Best drone photos ever: Stunning images taken from up high
Drone photography is still a relatively new phenomenon, but with drones becoming more accessible, the public are getting just as involved as professionals. The number of and quality of drone photos has now received enough attention to start up an official awards programme.
In 2014, the National Geographic in France teamed up with social network Dronestegram to create a competition for the best drone photos. Move into 2016 and the number of stunning drone shots is astounding.
Now that most new drones come equipped with at least a 1080p video camera and snappers from around 12-megapixels, capturing great shots is easier. We say easier but that’s not to say easy. The winner of the 2014 Dronestagram and National Geographic Prize was an amazing shot hovering just above a bird at a national park in Indonesia – not a simple image to capture by any imagination. The 2016 winner for best sports adventure photo went to a shot of a mountain climber on Moab Rock in Utah.
We’ve compiled all the winning photos as well as plenty more from Dronestagram to show off just how stunning drone photos can be. Get ready to pick your jaw up off the floor then click through the image gallery above and enjoy.
And once you’re done with this lot there’s even more amazing photos taken with GoPros in our Best GoPro gallery.
READ: The best GoPro photos in the world, prepare to lose your breath
Tesla shows off its upgraded self-driving capabilities
Yesterday, Tesla promised that it would equip its entire fleet with self-driving hardware, and it has now showed showed off what that tech can do. It released a video showing a Model X do a fully autonomous drive with “no human input at all,” Elon Musk tweeted. During the demo, the car emerges from a garage, takes to the suburban side streets, merges onto a freeway, and eventually ends up a Tesla facility. From there, it drops off the “driver” at the door and finds itself a parking spot.
The video emphasized that “the person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself.” Musk also pointed out that “when searching for parking, the car reads the signs to see if it is allowed to park there, which is why it skipped the disabled spot.”
Tesla drives itself (no human input at all) thru urban streets to highway to streets, then finds a parking spot https://t.co/V2T7KGMPBo
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 20, 2016
The car moves smartly, almost aggressively as it navigates to its destination. While parking, a pedestrian suddenly appears, and the car detects him and stops. It did appear to make a couple of small gaffes — it turned into the exit lane when it entered the parking, at around 2:20, and missed lane boundaries when turning in the lot at around 3:03. The car park was missing proper markings, though, to be fair.
Musk tweeted that “when you want your car to return, tap Summon on the phone. It will eventually find you even if you are on the other side of the country.” We think that’s a reference to the unplanned trip Jared took in Silicon Valley — a public vision of self-driving cars that Musk is clearly hoping to supplant with the new video.
Source: Tesla
Amazon Echo’s UK owners can now shop just by talking
Now that the Amazon Echo has reached the UK, thousands of Brits are getting to grips with the cylindrical speaker’s smart assistant, Alexa. Companies like Just Eat and Sky have created app-like “Skills” for the Echo, allowing owners to re-order their last takeaway and receive news updates, but Amazon’s own integrations have been lacking compared to those available in the US. To celebrate availability of the Echo Dot, the retailer today confirmed that a number of new features are available on UK Echos, including Alexa voice shopping and ESP (Echo Spatial Perception).
With Alexa voice shopping, Prime subscribers can talk to their Echo to order products and check the status of their delivery. Amazon says “order paper towels,” “order dog food” and “buy some LEGO” are some good examples of what you can ask Alexa to find. The assistant will then find the relevant item(s), ensure they’re available for Prime delivery and apply any available discounts.
Once you’ve added what you were looking for, a simple “Yes” will confirm everything. Ask “Alexa, where’s my stuff?” and it’ll let you know when you can expect your items to arrive.
With Echo Spatial Perception, people with more than one Echo in their house will have a better time getting the correct speaker to respond. Amazon says the ESP technology can calculate the clarity of a user’s voice, determine which Echo is closest and have it instantly respond to the request. In our Echo Dot review, we solved that problem by renaming the “Alexa” trigger, but the new update should negate the need for that completely.
Source: Amazon UK Press Office
Android Nougat 7.1 beta is now out for select devices
Google has delivered on its promise and released the developer preview of Android Nougat 7.1 for beta testers before October ended. You can only access it if you have a Nexus 5X, a Nexus 6P or a Pixel C, though — Google won’t be releasing it for other devices until November, and its final public release won’t be available until December. If you do have any of the three devices, you can expect to get an OTA update if you’re enrolled to Android’s beta program.
While you can download the preview even if you don’t actually make apps, its features definitely benefit developers the most. Besides Daydream VR support, it comes with the capability to make app shortcuts and circular launcher icons to match the look of Google’s new Pixel phones. That said, it does have something for ordinary users: a restart button in the power menu. It also supports image keyboards, which allow you to insert stickers and GIFs in apps. If you’d like to test 7.1 out without enrolling to Google’s beta program, you can also do a manual update by flashing a system image.
Source: Android Developers blog
Google begins its big Pixel push in the UK
It’s a big day for Google. The company is launching its first Pixel branded phones in the UK, retiring the Nexus line and attacking the iPhone with gusto. To give its new handsets a proper introduction, Google has renovated its store-within-a-store at the Currys PC World on Tottenham Court Road. We went to take a look, and stumbled across a Google-branded coffee stall along the way. (Helpful, given the shop opened at 7am.) If you’re wondering how Google plans to market the Pixel, and ultimately compete with Samsung, Apple and others, check out the gallery below — a similar store concept is being launched in New York City today.
The ESA’s ExoMars mission lander is still missing
The European Space Agency is still in the midst of investigating what happened to ExoMars’ Schiaparelli lander, which seemed to disappear 50 seconds before it was supposed to land. At the presscon the agency held earlier, Andrea Accomazzo, ESA’s head of planetary missions, said the ExoMars team already downloaded the data Schiaparelli sent to its mothership before it vanished. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait a bit more to get the whole picture, because it’ll take some time to analyze the information.
ExoMars, which is short for Exobiology on Mars, is a two-part joint project between the ESA and the Russian Space Agency. It’s comprised of the stationary lander Schiaparelli and its mothership called the Trace Gas Orbiter. The mission’s main purpose is to find signs of past and present life on the red planet.
Based on the radio signals captured by the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope and an experiment telescope array located in India, though, the lander managed to deploy its parachute and heat shield. Both are necessary steps in Schiaparelli’s six-minute descent into the Martian atmosphere. Accomazzo also said that they saw the lander’s thrusters firing for a few seconds, and they saw their ground radar feeding data to Schiaparelli for a while.
While the lander’s fate still hangs in the balance, the ExoMars team intend to get to the bottom of things. In addition to analyzing TGO’s data, the ESA will continue trying to monitor the lander’s condition. ESA’s pal NASA will also be helping out by having the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter capture images of Schiaparelli’s landing site in the next few days.
Andrea Accomazzo: V. difficult to say condition of @ESA_EDM We will be able to determine the dynamics l8r, after all data analysed #ExoMars
— ESA Operations (@esaoperations) October 20, 2016
Accomazzo: From the data, we saw the @ESA_EDM thrusters firing for a few seconds – more analysis to come #ExoMars
— ESA Operations (@esaoperations) October 20, 2016
Accomazzo: We also saw that the ground radar was activated and providing data to @ESA_EDM #ExoMars
— ESA Operations (@esaoperations) October 20, 2016
Accomazzo: @ESA_EDM stopped transmitting on the order of ~50secs before the expected touch-down time #ExoMars
— ESA Operations (@esaoperations) October 20, 2016
Source: ESA, (Twitter)
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