‘Super Mario Run’ won’t work offline due to piracy concerns
Super Mario Run doesn’t arrive for another few days, but when it does, you’ll need a constant internet connection to play the game. In an interview with Mashable, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto confirmed that due to piracy concerns, the latest installment of Mario doesn’t have an offline mode. The company is worried about piracy because the game will be available in 150 countries on devices that it doesn’t have direct control over.
“For us, we view our software as being a very important asset for us,” Miyamoto explained to Mashable. “And also for consumers who are purchasing the game, we want to make sure that we’re able to offer it to them in a way that the software is secure, and that they’re able to play it in a stable environment.”
The constant network connection will not only be used to save progress, but it will also sync that saved info across devices. Nintendo apparently wanted to make the World Tour available offline, but the technical hurdles to doing so and having it still play nice with the Toad Rally and Kingdom modes proved problematic.
“We wanted to be able to leverage that network connection with all three of the modes to keep all of the modes functioning together and offering the game in a way that keeps the software secure,” Miyamoto continued. “This is something that we want to continue to work on as we continue to develop the game.”
In a statement to Engadget, Nintendo said that Super Mario Run’s online connection allows it to “enhance the play experience.” An internet connection provides access to scores from other players’ Toad Rally challenges and handles new in-game events while you’re playing. The company also reiterated that being constantly connected lets users to link to a Nintendo Account so that saved progress can sync across all of their iOS devices. You know, if you need to switch from your iPad to your iPhone for some reason.
Super Mario Run arrives for iPhone and iPad on December 15th. While the game is free to download, you’ll need to hand over $10 to unlock all of its levels. Of course, with no offline mode, you won’t be able to play during your next flight or on a commute that takes you underground. Here’s Nintendo’s full statement on the matter:
Online connectivity allows us to offer a variety of features and services that enhance the play experience. Super Mario Run is not a static experience, but rather one that players can continue to return to again and again to enjoy something new and unexpected. For example, online connectivity can offer the following:
- Access to other users’ play data and scores for automatically generated Toad Rally challenges.
- In-game events that will offer players new challenges and rewards for a limited time.
- Linkage to Nintendo Account to access save data from multiple devices. For example, if players have Super Mario Run on their iPhone and iPad, they can share one save file across the different devices. However, this save data cannot be used with different devices at the same time.
Via: 9to5Mac
Source: Mashable
Obama opens investigation into cyber attacks on US election
President Barack Obama has ordered an investigation into cyber attacks and foreign influence during the 2016 US presidential election, Reuters reports. He’s asking intelligence agencies to provide a report on the issue before he leaves office on January 20th, and the review will be shared with lawmakers and other stakeholders, homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco reportedly said. Monaco added that cyber attacks may have crossed a “new threshold” this year.
“The president has directed the intelligence community to conduct a full review of what happened during the 2016 election process… and to capture lessons learned from that and to report to a range of stakeholders, to include the Congress,” Monaco said, according to Reuters.
The US intelligence community said in October that top Russian officials were behind this year’s hacks of the Democratic National Committee, and the email accounts of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and General Colin Powell. The attacks were intended to disrupt the election process, intelligence officials found. Russia has denied its involvement. However, the evidence against Russia is piling up: German intelligence officials this week accused Russia of attempting to empower extremist groups in the country and hijack the political process across the EU via cyber attacks.
Source: Reuters
Samsung will disable remaining US Note 7s with software update (updated)
Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 recall in the US is still ongoing, but the company will release an update in a couple of weeks that will basically force customers to return any devices that may still be in use. The company announced today that a December 19th update to the handsets in the States will prevent them from charging at all and “will eliminate their ability to work as mobile devices.” In other words, if you still have a Note 7, it will soon be completely useless.
Samsung says that 93 percent of all recalled Note 7s have been returned through the refund and exchange program in the US. Of course, the expanded recall applies to both original and replacement devices after the company’s attempt to remedy the issue with a fresh round of handsets didn’t fix the battery problem. Samsung permanently halted production of the Note 7 back in October, but it looks like the company will take one last step to reduce fire risk from any remaining devices.
The pending update follows a previous software tweak that attempted to annoy users into returning any remaining devices by limiting charging to 60 percent and displaying recall notifications every time the display is turned on. Samsung says it will work with carriers to notify customers “through multiple touchpoints” about the options that are still available for exchanges and returns. But seriously, if you still have a Note 7, it’s beyond time to stop using it.
Update: After this post was published, Verizon announced that it would not participate in the upcoming Note 7 update. The carrier says that disabling devices for customers who may not have another handset poses “added risk” during the busy holiday travel season.
“We will not push a software upgrade that will eliminate the ability for the Note 7 to work as a mobile device in the heart of the holiday travel season,” Verizon VP of global communications Jeffrey Nelson said in a statement. “We do not want to make it impossible to contact family, first responders or medical professionals in an emergency situation.”
Via: The Verge
Source: Samsung
The Huawei Mate 9 stands out with long battery life and a little AI
Huawei needs new tricks to differentiate its products from the crowd of Chinese phones permeating the US market, and it’s turning to artificial intelligence to set it apart. The Mate 9 is a new Android device that offers a “Machine Learning Algorithm” that purports to learn your habits over time and optimize performance so that the device is more responsive. The Mate 9, which is expected to arrive in the US soon (although the exact timing is unknown), also has one of the largest displays on the market. We don’t yet know how much it’ll cost in the US, but we expect the Mate 9 to sell for about the same as it does in Europe (€699), which would make it slightly more affordable than other leading big-screen flagships too. That, along with the promised performance boost and supposedly safer battery tech, might be reason enough to consider the Mate 9 as your next large-screen smartphone.
Hardware
Huawei has proven in recent years that it is capable of crafting a gorgeous device. The Mate 9 is another example of this though its design is reminiscent of other Android phones such as the ZTE Axon 7 and Huawei’s own P9. The all-metal unibody, rounded corners, sloping back and shiny silver accents give it a premium, modern look. My review unit is silver, but gray, gold, white and black are also available.
The Mate 9 has a relatively large 5.9-inch screen, but the phone doesn’t feel much bigger than competing devices with 5.5-inch displays. There are no physical keys on the device’s front, and you’ll have to rely on software buttons to get around the interface.
On the Mate 9’s back sits a dual-lens camera, with the word Leica faintly printed in between the two sensors. Below that is a slightly indented pinkie-sized fingerprint sensor; the rest of the phone’s matte rear has a smooth texture. The phone’s left edge houses a dual-SIM tray, and one of the slots is also capable of holding a microSD card. At the bottom is a USB-C port for charging and data transfer, and on the top edge is (you can breathe a sigh of relief here) a 3.5mm headphone jack. Huawei didn’t make any drastic changes to its overall aesthetic; this handset looks a lot like its predecessor and the P9 and falls in line with what we’ve come to expect from the Chinese phone maker.
Now, if you want the Mate 9 in a fancier chassis, you should consider the Porsche Design version, which will be available for €1,395 in Europe later this month, and globally (except the US) in January. Despite having the same guts as the regular Mate 9, this model is slightly smaller, and its curved edges make it feel thinner. The all-black exterior and so-called graphite finish lend it a classy, mysterious air — like a phone James Bond would use. Other than its better-looking frame, though, the Porsche Design Mate 9 is no different from the regular, save for some included themes and Porsche apps.
Display and sound
Although it’s not as pixel dense as others on the market, the Mate 9’s 5.9-inch display still manages to deliver crisp, rich images. The screen’s colors are actually nicely saturated for an LCD panel, which usually lacks the deep blacks and high contrast of OLED displays. The pink furniture and orange flames in the music video for Britney Spears’ Slumber Party, for instance, looked vibrant and bold.
Viewing angles are generous too though darker backgrounds were slightly hard to see when the phone was tilted far away from me. The screen also gets very bright (a scorching 677 nits at maximum intensity), which makes the screen easy to view in most lighting conditions.
If, for some reason, you don’t like the display’s color temperature, you can tweak it through the settings, dragging a slider to make it as blue or orange as you’d like. I liked the original warmth of the panel, so I didn’t find this particular feature very helpful. In addition to the default setting, you can choose what Huawei calls “Eye Comfort,” which immediately gives the interface a warm, yellowish cast. This is similar to Night Shift on iOS and is designed to reduce the blue light that can interrupt your body’s circadian rhythms.
The phone’s bottom-mounted speaker is also loud enough to fill my apartment with sound, but certain songs, including my current earworm (Oh Lord by Mic Lowry), are lacking in bass. Tracks that are percussion-heavy, like Bruno Mars’ 24K Magic, also tend to get slightly tinny at top volume, but you’ll rarely need to crank it to the max anyway.
Software
Like other Huawei handsets, the Mate 9 runs the company’s own Emotion UI 5.0 over Android (7.0 Nougat, to be precise). EMUI has several differences from stock Android, with the most obvious being no apps drawer by default (you’ll instead see endless home pages, similar to iOS). However, you can now choose in the settings to use a drawer if that’s more your speed. You’ll also find more options in the quick settings panel than were there before — stuff like Huawei Share, Floating Dock and Screen Recording.
Floating Dock is a new feature that, when enabled, places a penny-sized circle on the screen. You can anchor this to the left or right side of the display, and tap it to show the home, back and all apps keys that are also at the bottom of the screen. This makes navigating such a large device easier because you won’t have to stretch your finger all the way to the bottom to reach the buttons.
The latest version of EMUI was streamlined to make it easier to get to common settings. Indeed, nowhere is that more evident than in the Settings app. The blue-and-white theme will take some getting used to, but the new search bar at the top makes finding specific tools more convenient. You’ll also get the so-called knuckle-sensing features as on previous versions of EMUI, which lets you knock on the display to outline screenshots or start screen recordings.
In place of the typical Android apps like Messages and Photos, you’ll find Huawei’s own offerings. These are mostly skinned versions of Google’s own apps though they give you some additional functionality. For example, the Contacts app has a tool that lets you scan business cards to create new listings. Huawei also threw in some helpful apps like Files, Notepad, Calculator and Phone Manager, the last of which optimizes the Mate 9’s performance by closing unnecessary apps and processes. That app also performs virus scans and lets you lock specific apps behind a password or your fingerprint.
Along with these useful tools, Huawei also included a small set of unnecessary apps like Booking.com and News Republic. But as far as bloatware goes, this is a relatively short list — and everything is stashed away in an unobtrusive folder too.
Ultimately, the biggest difference between EMUI 5.0 and previous iterations of the software is its machine-learning algorithm, and that’s not even something you can see. Weirdly, on that note, Huawei also doesn’t let you set your own macros, such as preparing to launch Facebook right after you close Messages. It’s not clear if this will ever happen, but it’d be a nice tool for power users. Still, the new EMUI offers a host of ways to customize your interface, which should appease people who want a less heavy-handed UI.
Cameras
Huawei has once again teamed up with famed camera maker Leica to “co-engineer” its imaging system. Like the Huawei P9 that was unveiled in April, the Mate 9 has a dual-lens system on its rear that’s similar to the iPhone 7 Plus. One sensor captures 12-megapixel RGB data while the other records 20-megapixel monochrome information. Together, they’re supposed to deliver rich colors and fine details.
I was generally happy with the pictures I took; they were typically sharp though often overexposed. They also generally lacked the vivid colors you’d get from, say, the Galaxy S7 or one of the Google Pixels. Photos taken with the Mate 9 in low light were also grainier than what I got from the other two handsets. As on previous devices, Huawei is offering a Night Shot mode that’s supposed to take better images in the dark, thanks to longer exposure. This starts a 10- to 17-second recording session, during which any movement of phone blurs the scene. You’d either have to use a tripod, or sit extremely still for your photos to come out clean.
Still, thanks to a wide aperture mode on the camera, you’ll be able to achieve a pleasant depth-of-field effect on your shots. Though the rear lenses have fixed apertures of f/2.2, you can play with the software setting here to make it seem wider than that. The feature is also easy to enable and disable; a tap of the aperture icon on top of the viewfinder turns it on and off. This effect works well on pictures of people or food, but slows down the capture of landscapes as the camera struggles to find a foreground to keep in focus.
An example of wide aperture mode applied with maximum blur.
The nice thing about Huawei’s implementation here compared to Apple and Samsung’s is that the Mate 9 lets you decide how much blur you want before you take the shot. You can drag a slider on the screen to choose just how much background you want out of focus. Samsung’s All Focus tool only lets you do that after you take the picture, while Apple’s tool doesn’t let you customize the level of intensity.
Unfortunately, wide aperture mode does not extend to the front camera, where it would have made my selfies pop. Still, the 8-megapixel front camera captured sharp images with mostly accurate colors. Sometimes, when shooting indoors and with Beauty Mode activated, the Mate 9 tended to overexpose, resulting in garishly colored lips and excessive contrast. At its default setting of five on a scale of one to ten, Beauty Mode made people look artificial, with the rest of the image appearing blown out, to boot. Dialing down to level three and below alleviated the problem though.
Overall, the Mate 9’s cameras are capable of capturing decent photos that are clear and colorful, and that wide aperture mode is nifty, but they won’t impress you like the iPhone 7 Plus or Google Pixel will.
Performance and battery life
In a sea of phones powered by Qualcomm’s mobile processors, the Mate 9 stands out for using Huawei’s octa-core Kirin 960 processor. This allows the company to tweak both hardware and software to offer some extra features, like that Machine Learning Algorithm I mentioned, which promises smoother and more responsive performance. In other words, the Mate 9 will learn your behavior over time and optimize performance so it appears faster to you.
Say, for example, you habitually open Instagram right after you close Twitter. The algorithm will remember your behavior and eventually start diverting resources like part of its 4GB of RAM to prepare Instagram the next time you have Twitter open.
During my time testing the Mate 9, the set of actions I performed the most were launching the Gallery app right after closing the camera, as well as checking a battery drain application after looping a video on MX Player. The thing is, I couldn’t really tell if the overall smoothness I experienced on the Mate 9 was due to artificial intelligence or simply thanks to a relatively new, speedy processor. It’s not as if there’s a way for me to A/B test that. Jumping from app to app was a lag-free experience, and I noticed no difference in smoothness whether I was opening programs I had previously used or those that I had never launched. I ran a screen recording app while loading up a game and scrolling up and down repeatedly on Engadget’s page on Chrome, and didn’t encounter a hiccup.
Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge
HTC 10
AndEBench Pro
15,424
14,941
16,164
13,030
16,673
Vellamo 3.0
7,207
5,343
5,800
4,152
4,876
3DMark IS Unlimited
28,139
28,645
29,360
26,666
26,747
GFXBench 3.0 1080p Manhattan Offscreen (fps)
30
46
48
47
48
CF-Bench
64,154
30,997
39,918
46,290
49,891
The Mate 9’s performance on synthetic benchmarks puts it in the same league as leading flagships like the Google Pixel and the Galaxy S7. It beat competing phones, including both versions of the Pixel, the Galaxy S7 Edge and the HTC 10, on the browser-based Vellamo but lost to the Pixel XL and the HTC 10 on AndEBench. The Mate 9 didn’t fare as well on graphics-intensive tests, falling behind the two Pixels on 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited. Even then, the gap wasn’t huge. The Mate 9 still outperformed the Samsung and HTC devices on that test too.
All of that horsepower is matched by a generous 4,000mAh battery, which Huawei promises will provide 20 hours of continuous video playback. On Engadget’s rundown test, which involves looping an HD video with the brightness set to 50 percent, the Mate 9 lasted an impressive 14 hours and 34 minutes. That’s 20 minutes longer than the Pixel XL, one hour longer than the Galaxy, and a whopping two hours more than the Pixel.
In the real world, that longevity meant I barely had to recharge the Mate 9 (except after battery tests) during my review period. After I left the phone in my purse for two days without using it, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it still retained 80 percent of its power. On a typical workday, too, during which I received notifications throughout the day, snapped a bunch of pictures and uploaded dozens of images to my Google Drive, it sipped power at a slow rate. At the end of the day, the battery life rating had dipped from 57 percent at the start of the day to 36 percent in the evening.
When it did need recharging, the Mate 9 got back up to 55 percent within an hour of being plugged in, thanks to Huawei’s SuperCharge technology. That’s fast, considering how large the battery is and how long 55 percent can last. Getting through the first 10 percent was slower, though; it took about 20 minutes to fill up.
In case you were worried that squeezing a big battery into a thin frame could make the phone susceptible to exploding (as was reportedly what happened with the Samsung Galaxy Note 7), Huawei promises its battery is safe. The company says it uses a five-gate protection system that monitors real-time temperature, voltage and current to “eliminate safety hazards and safeguard battery life.” Indeed, during my testing, the Mate 9 never got too warm, even during resource-intensive tasks.
The competition
It’s hard to find comparisons for the Mate 9 when we don’t yet know how much it’ll cost or when it will launch in the US, but perhaps we’ll find out at Huawei’s CES press conference early next month. But based on its European pricing (€699 or about $752), it looks like the Huawei phone will go up against the Google Pixel XL ($769 and up) and the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge (north of $760 through most carriers).
While both the Pixel XL and the S7 Edge offer ample, 5.5-inch screens, the Mate 9’s roomier 5.9-inch panel will appeal to those who need even more real estate to for easier reading, gaming or multitasking. The Mate 9 also has the longest endurance of the lot.
However, both the Pixel and the Galaxy have much better cameras than the Mate 9, while the Pixel in particular runs a cleaner version of Nougat, making it the best choice for Android purists.
Wrap-up
Ultimately, what sets the Huawei Mate 9 apart is its large screen and excellent battery life. Although the company has been touting its machine-learning algorithm, it’s something that you won’t notice or think about unless performance starts to suffer. Either way, the Mate 9 is a perfectly capable device. That said, photography aficionados and stock-Android fans will still prefer the Pixel. Instead, the Mate 9 will mostly appeal to those who want a large canvas to watch videos or play games in a phone that’s not too hefty. If the handset’s US price is close to what it costs in Europe, it could be a slightly more affordable option than some rivals, making it a good value for the performance it delivers.
Sky receives takeover bid from 21st Century Fox
21st Century Fox is in advanced talks to buy Sky, a major telecoms player and the biggest pay-TV provider in the UK. Negotiations are underway and the directors of both companies have reached an “agreement” of £10.75 per share. As Bloomberg reports, the deal values Sky at £18.5 billion ($23.2 billion). Fox already owns 39 percent of Sky, and media mogul Rupert Murdoch has tried to buy the remaining slice before. A takeover in 2010 was eventually abandoned, however, after News Corporation (now known as 21st Century Fox) was embroiled in a huge phone hacking scandal.
While Sky’s directors have approved the deal and are willing to recommend it to stakeholders, it’s not quite in the bag. In a document announcing the bid, it’s stressed that “there can be no certainty that an offer will be made by 21st Century Fox, nor as to the terms of any such offer.” That means the provisional agreement is just that — provisional. For now, anyway.
Sky’s media empire stretches further than the UK. In 2014, the company bought Sky Italia and the bulk of Sky Deutschland from 21st Century Fox for £4.9 billion ($8.3 billion). Should the new takeover go through, these businesses would fall back under 21st Century Fox’s influence. Its global reach would be considerable, and give the company a large platform to distribute content and services. Before the papers can be signed, however, we suspect some regulatory bodies will want to examine the deal and its impact on competition, both in the UK and on an international stage.
Source: Sky
The best soundbar
By Chris Heinonen and Dennis Burger
This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. When readers choose to buy The Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here.
After conducting a thorough survey of Wirecutter readers and combining those insights with extensive research and testing, we think the Sonos Playbar is the right soundbar for most people. The Playbar sounds fantastic and it’s easier to set up and operate than any other soundbar we’ve tested.
Who this is for
A soundbar provides much better sound quality than the speakers in a TV, computer, or smartphone, without the complexity of a receiver and speakers. Separate components almost always provide more value for your dollar, but they also take up more space and require additional cables; their operation is more complicated, too. Using a soundbar, you can have most of that additional sound quality without adding much complexity to your setup.
How we picked and tested
Three of the soundbars we tested (top to bottom): Sonos Playbar, Paradigm Soundscape, and Yamaha YSP-4300. Photo: Chris Heinonen
After parsing through many, many reviews and speaking to soundbar reviewers, we selected the soundbars to bring in for evaluation based on sound quality and price. We eliminated soundbars with pedestal designs, passive soundbars, and almost anything without Bluetooth or AirPlay support. For more on how we picked, read our full guide.
After selecting six bars, we set them up in a home theater room with acoustic treatments for listening and evaluation. Over one week, we listened to and took extensive listening notes for each individual bar playing from the same selection of music and movies for almost three hours. We did additional listening in a living room with the soundbar on top of a credenza, with a wall to the left and open space to the right, to weed out any soundbars that relied on having a perfect room to pull off their surround effects or imaging, which people don’t always (or ever) have.
Then we consulted the ears of Stephen Hornbrook, an audio reviewer at Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity, to help us directly compare the soundbars with one another and narrow the group to an overall winner. We listened to the soundbars over HDMI, optical, coaxial, and analog inputs, and we used blind A-B switching when possible.
Our pick
The Sonos Playbar is low but deep. Photo: Michael Zhao
The Sonos Playbar is a great-sounding soundbar with lots of features that make it easy to use as the center of an entertainment system. The Playbar is dead simple to set up and gives you the best access to streaming content or your music library of any soundbar out there. Aside from wireless connectivity using its proprietary app, the Sonos is rather limited connectionwise: It doesn’t have traditional Bluetooth or AirPlay support and has only a single optical input. But if you’re simply looking for a great-sounding, simple option that you can expand into a whole-home audio system, it’s hard to knock. And if you access all your content from a digital music library or streaming services, or if you’ve already bought into the Sonos ecosystem and want a soundbar to add to your setup, the Playbar is pretty much a no-brainer.
All in all, the sound quality of the Playbar is noticeably better than most rivals. It can’t hit the low octaves our upgrade pick, the Paradigm Soundscape, can, at least not without the assistance of a Sonos Sub (which itself costs as much as the Playbar). It does offer very good performance above those lowest octaves. Even without the benefit of surround speakers, it delivers a soundstage that is both wide and pleasantly deep, and thanks to its discrete tweeters, it produces clear highs and highly intelligible voices without the muddiness that can plague many single-driver (i.e., cheaper) soundbars.
Upgrade pick
The Paradigm Soundscape has a lot of inputs and great, rich sound. Photo: Dennis Burger
The Paradigm Soundscape offers even better sound quality than the Sonos and is one of the best-sounding soundbars available. It also has a wide selection of inputs (including Bluetooth with AptX), and simple setup and operation. Setting it up is as easy as plugging it into the wall and TV. An LED readout lets you quickly determine your input and volume, and if you want more bass, the included wireless adapter works with any subwoofer that you choose—a rarity in this age of proprietary protocols.
When you’re paying this much for a soundbar, you want it to sound great, which the Paradigm Soundscape does. It bested almost all its competitors in our testing thanks to a more-accurate lower-mid range that bestows some extra richness and warmth on movies and music. It throws a very large, involving soundstage and offers clear dialogue too.
The best surround-sound bar
Photo: Yamaha
The Yamaha YSP-4300 is a slim soundbar with an included wireless subwoofer that does a better job of providing simulated surround effects than anything else we’ve heard. An array of 22 “beam drivers” in the middle of the bar reflect sound off the walls and ceiling to simulate the presence of surround speakers in the room. Using an included calibration microphone, it determines the correct levels and automatically sets up the beam system for you. When you’re watching movies, the surround effects seem to come from your side or even behind you (depending on your room), an impression that no other bar in our test could manage. It’s not the best bar overall because it’s hundreds of dollars more than the Paradigm Soundscape, which sounds better overall (though without the flashy surround sound beaming), However, the Yamaha is great for TV and movies.
This guide may have been updated by The Wirecutter. To see the current recommendation, please go here.
Note from The Wirecutter: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.
Mixed reality comes to your iPhone thanks to the Bridge headset
There’s something more than a little magical about seeing the world in front of you being devastated by dragons or augmented with arrows pointing you to your next meeting. Alas, while mixing realities like that with our smartphones is already possible, the tech still is a long way off from reaching its potential — just look at early, disappointing efforts like Lenovo’s enormous Tango phone. Luckily, startups are chasing the mixed reality dream too, including one — Occipital — that has a solid track record of solving the tricky problems that pop up when blurring boundaries between worlds. That’s why the team’s new mixed reality, the Bridge, seems so impressive right out of the gate.
Oh, and another thing: it’s specifically for iPhones. For years now, most mobile virtual reality fun has been confined to Android, with cheap Gear VRs and Daydream Views making it easy to see what all the hype was about. While some VR games and apps exist for iPhones, Apple hardware historically hasn’t gotten the same kind of developer love as Android has. To Occipital, that smelled like an opportunity. The Bridge will go one sale to the masses for $399 starting in March, but developers and the adventurous can snag their Explorer Editions as soon as next week. To understand what you’ll actually get for your money, we’ll have to rewind a bit.
Three years ago, the company released the Structure sensor, a fascinating bit of depth-sensing tech that was originally meant to bring augmented reality experiences to the iPad. Mixed reality still seemed like a hard sell back then, but there no denying the sensor’s ability to measure the world around it was the real deal. To hear Occipital marketing chief Adam Rodnitzky tell it, the sensor eventually started being used by real estate agents, interior decorators and doctors, and after three years, the Structure was still excellent at its job.
So, with headsets being hawked alongside smartphones all over the place, Occipital decided to make their own — they took a Structure sensor, slapped a five-element wide-angle lens in front of it, and built a sturdy, balanced frame around it. Turning an existing product like the Structure into headset might seem like opportunism at its finest, but the end result has so much potential it almost doesn’t matter.
I played with one of the Explorer Editions recently, and it was more impressive — and elaborate — than I expected. You can pop an iPhone 6 (or newer, but no SEs) into the frame and a magnetically latched door keeps it in place. From there, you place the Bridge on your head as you would a crown, and use a dial in the back to tighten it. Yes, it sounds like a sort of torture device, but the system actually works like a charm. The only real problem I came across was that the lenses sit closer to your eyes than in most other mobile VR headsets — that meant they pushed right up against my glasses most of the time. It could’ve been worse, but Rodnitzky assured me future models wouldn’t smash my frames so noticeably.
Actually using Bridge was a much smoother experience. Occipital doesn’t have any launch titles planned for the Bridge’s debut, but it does come with a demo app that stars at adorable robot pet of sorts named Bridget. With the help of a Wiimote-like Bluetooth controller, I spent a good ten minutes tossing a virtual ball around the office and watching Bridget loop around coffee tables to retrieve it. Her understanding of the world around her was fueled by a depth-scanning session that only lasted a few seconds — once that was done, I had a mapped out a corner of our office with a level of precision that Lenovo’s Phab 2 Pro wasn’t able to match.
That might not be the fairest comparison to make, though: for now, the Structure sensor’s software is only tuned to capture spaces of about 10 ft. by 10 ft., while Tango software usually tries to record whole swaths of a room at once. Structure’s scope might be more limited, but it does a much better job within those constraints.
After dropping that ball one time too many, Bridget was tired and needed to charge. The answer? To grab her power cord and connect it to something that lit up, like a lamp. This is what I so sorely missed when I played with Tango — I wanted to badly for someone standing next to a virtual dinosaur to be able to interact with it or to pluck a virtual domino off the ground. This was a pretty basic example, but the sort of object recognition the Structure can pull off was unexpectedly good for a headset.
Don’t think the Bridge is only capable of the usual augmented reality tricks, either: at one point, I was directed to drop a portal on the ground in front of me. Once I stepped into it, I found myself walking around inside a space station with a planet hanging lazily in the dark outside a hatch. A red mesh enveloped real-world obstacles, allowing me to dodge coffee tables and loungers as I (all too briefly) explored the station. After a few more moments of stumbling, that was that — demo over. I was just a little crushed.
With any luck, Occipital gets the sort of support from developers it’s been gunning for. The Bridge system isn’t perfect for a whole host of reasons, like the iPhone’s non-AMOLED display and the potentially big hit on the phone’s battery, but even the unfinished demo software was almost enough to make me toss the Phab 2 Pro in a desk drawer. The right kind of love could turn the Bridge into a must-have down the road — for now, I’ll just have to wait and hope.
Rockstar classic ‘Bully’ arrives on iOS and Android
Think of Rockstar and your mind probably jumps to the Grand Theft Auto franchise, or Red Dead Redemption. While excellent games, they’ve arguably overshadowed an oft-forgotten classic from the PlayStation 2 era: Bully. The adventures of Jimmy Hopkins at Bullworth Academy were charming and mischievous, blending pranks and favors with classroom mini-games. Ten years after its original release, the game is now available on Android and iOS. It comes with the extra classes, missions and characters from the Scholarship Edition (released on Xbox 360 and Wii in 2008), while introducing new lighting, textures and character models.
Like the mobile Grand Theft Auto titles, you’ll have to put up with some tricky on-screen controls. The games were never designed for touch screens, so switching between fisticuffs and slingshots can be a real nuisance. You can, however, use a standalone controller with the iOS version — we recommend it, especially if you’re playing at home. Bully: Anniversary Edition also comes with a new, asynchronous multiplayer mode called “Friend Challenges.” Here you can race to dissect a frog, try word problems or kick back with the in-game arcade title ConSumo.
The app costs $6.99/£4.99, which is in line with previous Rockstar games on the App Store. If you haven’t played Bully before, it’s well worth checking out — especially if you’re travelling a bunch this Christmas.
Source: Bully: Anniversary Edition (iOS), (Android)
Nomad PowerPack Review: A High-Quality Battery Pack With Tile Location Tracking
Nomad has been a well-known third-party Apple accessory manufacturer for a few years, creating leather cases for iPhones and iPads, Apple Watch bands, and battery packs that integrate directly into charging cables. The company’s newest product is the $99.95 Nomad Advanced Trackable PowerPack, a 9,000 mAh mobile battery that is built with Nomad’s usual “ultra-rugged construction,” with an added bonus of Tile integration so users don’t have to worry about misplacing the PowerPack.
Design
The PowerPack is created out of a durable, polycarbonate frame that Nomad says is inspired by the manufacturing processes found in industry-leading, drop-resistant iPhone cases. Living up to the company’s adventure-focused mission statement, the PowerPack has an added layer of thermoplastic polyurethane, which gives the PowerPack its ultra-rugged, grippy feel.
The quality of Nomad’s PowerPack is the accessory’s first noticeable advantage: the raised texture that houses most of the pack is satisfying to grip, and the smooth section in the center — with the Nomad logo — provides a natural groove to place a thumb when handling the PowerPack. The downside of the texture is that it is definitely a dust and debris magnet, as can be seen in the pictures I took for the review, which represent the cleanest state I could get it in.
For ports, the device comes with two fast-charging 3.0A USB-C ports (one to charge the PowerPack, one to charge a separate device), and one 2.4A USB-A port that supports all of the standard-issue USB charge cables that come with most smartphones and tablets. In the box, customers will get a USB-C to USB-A cable to recharge the PowerPack, but they will have to provide their own smartphone charging cables.
In between the three ports is an LED indicator that uses three dots to display battery levels of the PowerPack’s 9,000 mAh battery, with a button underneath to bring the LEDs to life, and on the very right of the pack’s front is a button to sync with the Tile app. The opposite side of the PowerPack is coated with a glossy black surface, and its underside has the usual model number readouts and device information.
Performance
The battery performance of Nomad’s PowerPack proved to be reliable over the weekend as I tested it out. Starting at around an average of 21 percent battery life on my iPhone 6s Plus, the PowerPack topped off the iPhone to the mid-90 percent range three full times. The PowerPack finally died mid-way through the fourth charge (my iPhone climbing from 20 percent to 45 percent), meaning that Nomad’s promise of 3.5 charges is pretty much exact.
The 2.4 amps of the USB-A port means that the iPhone also charges a bit faster than Apple’s current 1A iPhone charger. It’s more along the lines of charging an iPhone with an iPad’s wall charger, which are up to 2.4A with the newest generation of Apple’s tablets.
Nomad’s advertising is for the iPhone 7, but the slight difference in battery capacities should mean that the PowerPack performs comparatively for iPhone 7 owners as it did for me. For comparison’s sake, the iPhone 6s Plus has a 2,750 mAh battery, while the iPhone 7 Plus has a 2,900 mAh battery. For the 4.7-inch models, the iPhone 6s has a 1,715 mAh battery and the iPhone 7 has a 1,960 mAh battery. Suffice it to say that any owners of the smaller-screen iPhones will have plenty of opportunities for recharging their devices to capacity, while iPhone 7 Plus users should eke out exactly 3 full charges from Nomad’s PowerPack.
My only real complaint with the PowerPack’s design is that it’s sometimes cumbersome to judge the battery level when multiple cables are sticking out of the pack. At one point I had both a USB and USB-C cable plugged into the PowerPack, and having to angle everything to tap the battery level button became quite finicky. Although the innards of the PowerPack’s design most likely excuse every port and button being located on one panel, having at least the LED on the opposite side of the case would have made the PowerPack more user-friendly.
In regards to USB-C charging, the only relevant device I own is an early-2015 MacBook, which isn’t exactly in the target group of products compatible with the PowerPack’s 9,000 mAh battery capacity. Nomad says that with the growing adoption of USB-C, the PowerPack will work “well into the future,” but many Android smartphones out now could use the port, including Google’s Pixel Phone. There’s also the option of purchasing a USB-C to Lightning cable, which Apple sells, to turn the PowerPack into a dual-charging iPhone system.
A smaller, but admittedly useful feature is called AmbientIQ and it reads the light levels of wherever the user is currently located, and adjusts the battery LEDs appropriately. This way battery life can be confirmed in bright sunlight or, to Nomad’s point, remain at low levels in a dimly lit room while the PowerPack is charging at night (the LEDs remain on constantly while the pack charges, but otherwise turn on at user discretion while out and about). As someone who has come to figure out crafty ways to block out the electronic lights of everything from my router to my television’s HDMI splitter, the PowerPack’s included AmbientIQ solution was useful and welcome.
Tile
For those who haven’t heard of Tile, the company’s line of small, Bluetooth-enabled tracking devices lets users easily find misplaced keys, backpacks, laptops, tablets, and more. Tile sells the Tile Mate as the main keychain accessory and Tile Slim for wallets and laptop cases, and now the Nomad PowerPack comes with Tile’s integrated iPhone-connected tracking technology. Because of its integration into Nomad’s rechargeable pack, users also won’t have to worry about Tile’s “reTile” program, which offers discounts on the trackers when they lose battery after about a year.
I had never used Tile before testing the PowerPack, and I’ve come to enjoy the Bluetooth-tracking system, although there are some hurdles to its setup. Out of the box, the PowerPack refused to sync with the iOS Tile app, which I eventually remedied by juicing up the PowerPack from its low battery shipping state. Even with a full charge, it still took a few tries, but my iPhone eventually recognized the PowerPack and began tracking it.
The Tile app works by presenting each Tile in a list, which can be expanded with a map view showing all of the last known locations of the trackers. Users can “ring” each Tile when they get near it — sort of like how Apple Watch can blast a connected iPhone when it’s lost — and also use a circular grid that fills up when they’re hot on the Tile’s trail, and loses segments as they get colder.
I’m not one to continually misplace my electronics, but in the week I’ve been using the PowerPack and Tile I’ve come to enjoy the backup safety net that the latter company offers with its partnership with Nomad. The circular tracking feature is neat and largely accurate, and the loud ringtones (five are available to choose from) are clear and distinct. If I were to ever misplace the PowerPack, I’m confident Tile would help greatly in recovering it, battery levels of the PowerPack permitting.
Bottom Line
The biggest drawback of the PowerPack is its $99.95 price tag, which is likely raised due to the integration with Tile. Around that battery capacity range, there are a few low-cost alternatives by companies like Anker, which sells a 10,000 mAh battery pack for $49.99 (although it’s discounted to as low as around $20 now). Users willing to spend $100 can also get much more capacity from Mophie, a popular battery pack and smartphone case manufacturer, which sells the Powerstation XXL at the same price as the PowerPack for double the capacity at 20,000 mAh.
If you’re not someone who consistently finds themselves losing electronics, then Tile’s services, while noble and mostly functional, can feel superfluous. Those users should probably look elsewhere for a more bang-for-your-buck battery pack option. However, if Bluetooth tracking is a legitimately enticing addition to a mobile battery in your eyes, the Nomad PowerPack is a dependable solution, and could end up being a lifesaver for some.
Pros
– Charges 5.5-inch iPhone ~3X, 4.7-inch iPhone ~5X
– Durable, grippy construction
– AmbientIQ
– Tile will be useful for some
Cons
– On the other hand, Tile will be pointless for others
– High price for middle-tier capacity
– Slightly cluttered port side
Where to Buy
The Nomad PowerPack can be purchased from hellonomad.com for $99.95, with current orders estimated to begin shipping after Christmas on December 30.
Tag: Nomad
Discuss this article in our forums
Samsung to Brick Unreturned Galaxy Note7 Devices With Software Update
Samsung today announced that an update to its now-infamous line of Galaxy Note7 smartphones will render the remaining devices within the United States useless, as a means to further ensure the safety of its customers who still own the malfunctioning smartphone.
Even though “more than 93 percent of all recalled Galaxy Note7 devices” have been returned, Samsung’s December 19 update will ensure no more danger befalls one of its customers. The update will prevent the ability to charge the smartphone — which led to fires this fall — and in total “eliminate their ability to work as mobile devices.”
Consumer safety remains our highest priority and we’ve had overwhelming participation in the U.S. Note7 Refund and Exchange Program so far, with more than 93 percent of all recalled Galaxy Note7 devices returned. To further increase participation, a software update will be released starting on December 19th that will prevent U.S. Galaxy Note7 devices from charging and will eliminate their ability to work as mobile devices.
In today’s press release the company also announced that it’s expanded the recall of Galaxy Note7 smartphones, both original and troublesome replacement devices, thanks to cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, and carriers and retailers across the country. Consumers can still either replace their Note7 with another Samsung phone, or receive a refund.
Samsung officially recalled the Galaxy Note7 devices in early September after multiple accounts of users experiencing exploding batteries and fires originating from the smartphone. A month later it halted sales of the device worldwide, a move that was reported in October to cost the company around $2.3 billion.
Tags: Samsung, Galaxy Note 7
Discuss this article in our forums
AIVAnet 