Here They Lie review: Screaming forever
Muted colors, and atmospheric music will have your pulse racing in no time.
Here they Lie is a full length horror experience developed for PlayStation VR, and it is unsettling and terrifying in equal measure. It uses a combination of creepy music that will put you on edge, along with a mostly abandoned city that will have you peering around corners and over ledges.
When the game gets started, things look pretty normal. You board a train that it well lit and runs well. That really doesn’t last though. Soon you’ll be walking — or running — through claustrophobic alleys while…something chases you through the city. The big problem? You don’t seem to remember where you are, or what happened here. Only that you need to find the woman in yellow, Dana. This atmospheric thriller is a great game to try out if you’ve been looking for an awesome horror game to experience on PlayStation VR.
Read more at VR Heads!
Amazing Black Friday deal: Grab an Amazon Fire tablet for just £30, Fire TV Stick just £25
Amazon has been heavily discounting its own tech products each day in the build up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but we suspect today’s will be one of the most popular. It has slashed the price of its Fire tablet to just a penny shy of £30.
The Fire tablet, reviewed here, was already a bit of a bargain at £50, but with a further £20 off the price until 30 November it’s easily the best value tablet device on the market.
It has a 7-inch 1024 x 600 resolution screen, 1.3GHz quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM. The £30 model comes with 8GB of storage, but it also has a microSD card slot that is capable of expanding that by up to a further 200GB.
It runs on Fire OS, which has many of Amazon’s own services hardbaked into the system – such as access to Amazon Prime Video for Prime members. And Amazon Underground provides thousands of apps, games and in-app items for free to all Fire users.
There is a 2-megapixel camera on the rear and a VGA camera on the front. It comes in black, blue, tangerine or magenta. You can buy it here.
Amazon has also dropped the price of its Fire TV Stick for the duration too. It now costs just £25.
The Fire TV Stick, which we reviewed here, is a dongle-like device that plugs directly into a HDMI port on your TV, connects to your wireless network and gives you access to hundreds of apps, games and other streaming services. If you have a Prime membership, you can playback Full HD versions of TV shows and films as part of your subscription. You can also access BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4, Demand 5 and even Netflix.
It comes with a remote control and usually costs £35, so you’re getting a tenner off until the end of the month.
You can get the cheaper Amazon Fire TV Stick here.
What is Uber and how does it work?
Traditional cabs are a thing of the past.
Instead, your neighbor and his BMW, your hairdresser and her Mini, your best friend and his Tesla, or your co-worker and her Prius might be who you hail next to get a ride to the airport. That’s because ride-hailing companies such as Uber are quickly spreading across the globe, giving any Joe Schmo with a car the ability to become a taxi driver and earn cash on the side (or, sometimes, they make enough to make it a day job).
- Uber apparently wants to buy a fleet of autonomous cars in Germany
- Facebook Messenger now lets you hail an Uber: Here’s how it works
- Uber will deliver ice cream to you for free today: This is how to get it
Here’s everything you need to know about Uber, including how it works.
What is Uber?
Uber is a transportation company headquartered in San Francisco, CA. It offers the Uber mobile app, which you can use to submit a trip request, which is automatically sent to an Uber driver nearest to you, alerting the driver to your location. The driver, who will be driving his or her own personal car, will then come pick you up and bring you to your requested destination. The app automatically figures out the navigational route for the driver, calculates the distance and fare, and transfers the payment to the driver, without you having to say a word or even grab your wallet.
Uber, the company, is also developing and investing in self-driving cars, presumably with the purpose of launching its own fleet of autonomous taxis that can bring riders to their destination without the need of human drivers.
Where is Uber available?
Uber is available in 547 cities worldwide, as of November 2016. You can see if it’s available in your city using this Uber webpage.
How do you become an Uber rider?
Requirements
There are two ways you can become an Uber rider: through the Uber app, or through the Uber website. To sign up, you can connect through Facebook or Google+, but you’ll still have to provide a mobile number and grant access to your location. You’ll also have to provide a payment option, whether that’s a credit or debit card, PayPal account, or a campus card.
Rider app
Uber makes a free app specifically riders. You can download it from Apple’s App Store or Google’s Play Store. The app enables you to submit a trip request. It automatically finds your location and logs GPS data. It matches you blindly with the closest driver (you’ll see their name, license plate, photo, rating, and a temporary substitute number), and it lets you follow your trip in real-time via a built-in map and share your ETA with friends.
How do you become an Uber driver?
Requirements
If you’re interested in being a driver rather than a rider, go to this Uber webpage to sign up to be a driver (it’s free). You must be 21 years old, have at least one year of driving experience, a valid driver’s license with proof of vehicle registration and insurance, and access to an eligible 4- or 6-door vehicle. After signing up, your driving record and criminal history will be reviewed by Uber.
Driver app
Uber gives its drivers access to a specific app. That app helps you decide how, where, and when to earn. When you want to drive, open the app and tap Go Online. You can follow your earnings, decide when you want to get paid (end of a car trip, etc), track profitable hotspots, minimise downtime, get access to turn-by-turn navigation directions, and leverage the ratings system to help riders decide you’re the best driver for them.
Independent contractor
All Uber drivers can get paid weekly and drive wherever they want at any time of day. They don’t have to report to an office or a direct boss. But they do have to drive their own personal car, or at least lease/rent one from an Uber partner. Uber drivers are considered independent contractors, which means taxation, work hours, pay, overtime benefits, and so forth are treated differently by various political jurisdictions globally.
According to The Washington Post, nearly two-thirds of Uber drivers use the ride-hailing service to collect additional income to supplement full- and part-time jobs. In three large metropolitan US cities, drivers make on average between $8.77 per hour and $13.17 per hour.
Insurance
All UberBLACK, UberSUV, and UberTAXI rides are provided by commercially licensed and insured partners and drivers. Those transportation providers are covered by commercial insurance policies in accordance with local and state requirements. Uber also said it offers US drivers third-party liability policies that work with their existing, personal insurance coverage. You can learn more about that from this Uber webpage.
How does Uber work for riders?
First, download the Uber mobile app and sign up to be a rider, if you haven’t done so.
Submit a trip request
Open Uber on your mobile device.
Select a ride mode by tapping one of the following options on the main screen: UberX, UberXL, UberBLACK, UberTAXI, UberSUV, UberLUX, UberPOOL, or Assist. You may see some or all of these options, depending on your location, time, and sheer availability.
Tap the Schedule a Ride button on the bottom of the Ride Options screen to go to to the Enter Destination screen, where you’ll enter your pickup date and time, current address, and destination address. You should then see a fare estimate, but before going to the next screen, you may be warned about a price hike depending of time of day and traffic.
Tap Schedule in the Enter Destination screen to schedule your ride. Uber may take a few seconds or a few minutes to find a driver nearby.
Once Uber’s found a match, it will bring you to a screen where you can watch your driver navigate toward you on a map and see his or her’s ETA. From this screen, you can also see the driver’s name, license plate, photo, rating, and a temporary substitute number for contact.
Cancel your trip
Sometimes you may wish to cancel a ride. The Uber app will allow you do this two to five minutes after you submit a request, but a cancellation fee ranging from $5 to $10 may be charged depending on city.
Follow your trip
When the driver has arrived and noted in his own app that you’ve entered the vehicle, you will see a new Map screen. You can use this to follow your trip. You can also hip tap Send Status on the Map screen to share your ETA in real time, so your contacts know you’re safe.
When you’ve arrived at your destination, the driver will note in his app that the trip is complete, and then your app will automatically process the payment with the payment option stored to your account.
Rate your driver
At the end, Uber will ask you to rate your driver from 1 to 5 stars (5 being the highest). This rating will affect the driver’s current overall rating that all riders see, thus enabling you to either recommend or warn against the rider. The Uber app does not include a tip.
What do the different Uber cars mean?
Uber offers various ride options, including the ability to request a luxury car, split fare with another rider, or travel in a specific assistance vehicle. Here are definitions for the most commonly available ride options.
- UberX: an everyday car for up to four riders
- UberXL: an everyday car for up to six riders
- UberBLACK: a high-end sedan for up to four riders
- UberTAXI: a partner taxi cab for up to four riders
- UberSUV: an SUV for up to six riders
- UberLUX: a high-end luxury car for up to four riders
- UberPOOL: share your ride with other riders and be automatically charged a guaranteed split fare
- Assist: a specialised vehicle for assistance
Are there alternatives to Uber?
There are several ride-hailing services available in app stores, but the most popular one aside from Uber is probably Lyft. All these apps function nearly identically, though each one may offer a few unique features.
What is UberEATS?
Uber has partnered with restaurants in select cities to offer a food-delivery service, in which you can order anything from a roster of local food joints and get it delivered to you within 35 minutes. This paid service is called UberEATS, and it has its own Android and iOS mobile app. UberEATS, which also hires drivers, is available in over a dozen major US cities and is still expanding.
Want to know more?
Check out Pocket-lint’s Uber hub for related news and reviews.
A ‘Pokemon’ glitch could corrupt your ‘Sun’ and ‘Moon’ saves
Enjoying Pokemon Sun and/or Moon? You aren’t alone. But as a heads up, for now, it looks like you shouldn’t save in the post-game Battle Tree location or pretty much any Pokemon Center in the game, according to Polygon. Folks online are saying that doing so can corrupt your save file, and that means all the work you’ve done to evolve Litten into an Incineroar will be for naught. We’ve reached out to The Pokemon Company about a fix for this and will update this post should more information arrive. In the meantime, you’ll just have to break the habit of saving after you’ve healed your party members at a Pokemon Center.
Via: Polygon
Source: Reddit, Styxiedust (Twitter)
Control Neato’s robot vacuum with Amazon Alexa voice commands
Getting your robotic vacuum to clean the house is usually a matter of setting a timer or pressing a start button — but what if you could just ask it to get to work? If you happen to own an Amazon Echo and a Neato Botvac Connected robot vacuum, now you can. Today the company announced that its Wifi-connected vacuum cleaner will take commands from Amazon Alexa. The feature is extremely straightforward, and features just two commands: start and stop.
Users who set up their Botvac with the Amazon Echo will be able to start cleaning with the phrase “Alexa, ask Neato to start cleaning.” The vacuum can be similarly stopped by asking it to “pause cleaning.” It’s not exactly the “huge leap forward for the smartphone,” Neato claims it to be, but it’s still a nice feature for folks who already have Amazon’s digital assistant. The company says the feature is compatible with both the original Echo and the Echo Dot. We have to admit, it is kind of neat.
Source: Neato
Telegram launches a blogging platform for the impatient
If you’ve ever wanted to write something online really quickly but didn’t want to go through the hassle of signing up for a Medium, WordPress or Blogger account, maybe Telegram’s new Telegraph platform is for you. The messaging app launched the service today, and as VentureBeat notes, it’s really fast. Dropping links to Twitter posts and YouTube videos automatically embeds them, and you can upload photos, too. For example, this post took me under five minutes to go from a blank page to being published.
It’s pretty simplistic, but it gets the job done. What’s troubling here, though, is the potential for abuse. You can put anyone’s name in the byline slot and at a glance, at least, there’s no way to claim that it was someone else who wrote an inflammatory post — not you.
Telegram also saw fit to update its chat app with a few new features as well. If you send a Medium post or an article from our sister site TechCrunch, it’ll natively load within the app now. That feature is dubbed “Instant View,” and if you’re familiar with Facebook Messenger’s Instant Articles or Google’s AMP it’s essentially the same thing. What’s more, you can jump to a specific date to view what you sent then. It sounds like that’ll be a bit more convenient than just searching by keywords.
The app’s Android version has been updated with a new user interface, faster camera speed, improved video compression and a few other bits. Telegram’s patch notes also hint that “something big” is in the works as well. Mystery!
Via: VentureBeat
Source: Telegram, Timothy J. Seppala (Telegraph)
Major advertising firm bans Breitbart for hate speech
The AppNexus advertising network drew a line in the sand today: Breitbart News has been indefinitely barred from using its ad-serving tools for violating hate speech standards. “This blacklist was solely about hate speech violation,” AppNexus’ Joshua Zeitz told Bloomberg. “We did a human audit of Breitbart and determined there were enough articles and headlines that cross that line.” At a glance, the move seems similar to Facebook’s pledge to gut advertising for “misleading, illegal and deceptive” fake news websites, but AppNexus says it isn’t trying to police content — it’s just upholding its existing content standards.
“We would ban this as quickly as a site that has pornography and violence,” Zeitz says. Although Breitbart doesn’t explicitly offer either, AppNexus says it incites violence and promotes hate speech through “either coded or overt language.” The ban won’t pull all advertising from the news site, however — just some. According to Bloomberg, Breitbart never sold ad-space directly through AppNexus, but would be served ads from the company’s customers through a variety of networks and exchanges.
This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise — the publication’s reputation for incendiary headlines has come under fire ever since it was reported that former Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon would have a place in President Elect Donald Trump’s administration. Breitbart’s current CEO seems to disagree with AppNexus’ assessment, and told Bloomberg that the site “has always and continues to condemn racism and bigotry in any form.” Fine words, though they do seem to contradict some of the site’s most infamous headlines. It’s a bit hard to reconcile a condemnation of bigotry with headlines that celebrate the confederate flag, condemn gay rights and use terms like ‘renegade Jew.’
Source: Bloomberg
NYT: Facebook developed a censorship tool for use in China
Facebook has been banned in China since 2009 (Instagram since 2014), but ever since, there have been reports the company is trying to find its way back in. Earlier this year, Time documented a “charm campaign” by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and today the New York Times reports it’s working on tech that could be amenable to the country’s censorship policies. It’s not known if this will be implemented, or if China will allow access to the network again, but the code is apparently visible to employees.
This particular tool is different from existing blocking mechanisms because it would enable a third party to block popular stories or topics from popping up in user’s feeds, without waiting for the government to make a specific request first. Facebook has openly maintained interest in operating in China, and accessing its large population would fit the company’s stated goal of making the world more connected.
The real question is whether the creation and use of a tool like this would be worth it, and according to the article’s author, Mike Isaac, fear of its use by a hostile US administration prompted some sources to speak out about it. A few years ago, rumors of unfettered access in an area of Shanghai arose before being quashed, so for now, things will remain as they have been, with Chinese users choosing between posting on Weibo or sneaking in via VPN.
Source: New York Times
Sony PlayStation 4 Slim review – CNET
The Good The newer PS4 has a smaller footprint, slick design, quieter operation and keeps intact all of the PS4 awesomeness it’s offered since 2013. The slightly updated DualShock4 controller is a bonus.
The Bad The slim PS4 loses its optical audio port, which will be a bummer for third-party headphone users. The somewhat pricier PS4 Pro delivers a larger hard drive and the promise of better graphics.
The Bottom Line The PS4 Slim is a deja vu game console: great for gamers on a budget, not quite as good as the PS4 Pro and skippable for any existing PlayStation 4 owner.
There are really only three things you need to know about the PlayStation 4 Slim.
- If you already have a PS4, you can ignore this model. It’s basically the exact same hardware, just in a smaller case.
- If you’re in the market for a new PS4, you should first consider the PS4 Pro, the step-up model with a larger hard drive and (potentially) better 4K-friendly graphics.
- If you don’t have a 4K TV and you’re a first-time PS4 shopper on a budget, the PS4 Slim may well be a great option for you.
If none of that quite makes sense, don’t worry. Here’s why Sony currently has two PlayStations on the market, and how they differ from one another.
The PlayStation 4 Pro arrived in early November and retails for $399 in the US, £349 in the UK and AU$559 in Australia, though deals abound online.
The redesigned version of the baseline PS4, which everyone calls the “PS4 Slim” because it’s even more svelte than the original 2013 model, sells for $300, £225 in the UK and AU$440 with an included game. You can find both PlayStation models with hefty discounts during the holiday shopping season.
Both new PS4 models run the same games and can use the same accessories, including Sony’s PlayStation VR headset. But the Pro is designed to offer sharper graphics when connected to a 4K TV, if and when you play a specific title that’s gotten a software patch to enable the better visuals. The problem? In the handful of initial 4K-friendly games we viewed, we didn’t see a huge difference from the non-enhanced version running on an identical TV from an old-school PS4.
Sony’s PlayStation 4 Slim meets its fatter,…
See full gallery
1 – 5 of 12
Next
Prev
That may well change in 2017 when we see the first batch of games designed from the ground up to take advantage of the Pro’s more powerful hardware. Early peeks at Horizon: Zero Dawn and Days Gone, for instance, looked promising. But even without the better graphics on day one, the PS4 Pro’s larger 1TB hard drive and the knowledge that you’re getting a degree of futureproofing might be worth that $100 extra for some.
Where does that leave the PS4 Slim? The internal hardware is basically identical to the earlier 2013 model, just crammed into a smaller housing. In other words, there are zero reasons for existing PS4 owners to get one. And the PS4 Pro should be the first stop for gamers looking to finally take a leap into the PlayStation realm (if you have have a 4K TV). But with sale prices as low as $250 — with Uncharted 4 included — the PS4 Slim is at least a great budget game system, and one that doubles as a solid Blu-ray player and video streamer to boot.
View full gallery Sarah Tew/CNET
What’s different? Not a lot
So what’s different about the PS4 Slim? For the most part, just the plastic body. It’s rounded now instead of pointy at the ends and it’s surprisingly thin. In fact, I wouldn’t stand it vertically without the optional stand Sony sells. I also like the tactile power and eject buttons on the front left side. Sony had replaced the overly sensitive touch ones in later runs of the original PS4, but these are even better.
The console itself does run quieter than the original PS4, but I’m not sure it runs much cooler. The PS4 Slim seems to warm up just like its predecessor does, but it handles the heat just fine.
Thankfully, the Slim also lets you easily swap hard drives: any 2.5-inch laptop SATA drive (including solid-state models) up to 6TB should work.
Sling TV is joining Comcast’s X1 cable platfom
Sling TV’s over the top internet service is about to arrive in an unusual landing spot: Comcast’s cable boxes. The two companies just announced a partnership that will put the IPTV service on the X1 platform in the future, with 425+ channels including a number of multicultural offerings. According to the release, all Sling TV packages will be available on X1, with pricing consistent with other platforms. There’s no word yet on exactly when the two will come together, but Netflix went from beta to fully available in just a couple of months, so that could bode well for the pairing.
Source: Sling TV
AIVAnet 