Nintendo classics get online multiplayer on the Switch
The Nintendo Switch features a new, paid subscription model that grants players access to online multiplayer features — and something extra. According to the Nintendo Switch Online Service website, anyone who subscribes will be able to download and play one classic game from the Nintendo Entertainment System or Super Nintendo Entertainment System per month, “with newly-added online play.”
The wording on this one makes it unclear if both the NES and SNES games will have online play, but it would be a first for either platform. The full sentence reads as follows: “Subscribers will get to download and play a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) or Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES) game (with newly-added online play) for free for a month.”
We’ve reached out to Nintendo for clarification and will update this story as we hear back.
When the Switch comes out on March 3rd (for $300), anyone will be able to access online features, including multiplayer, for free during a public trial period. That ends in the fall, and Nintendo will then roll out the paid online service. Alongside online multiplayer, the subscription grants access to the dedicated Switch smartphone app, which players can use to talk with Switch-owning friends outside of games and during online matches in compatible titles. Plus, it looks like there will be discounts and other goodies for people in the online Switch club.
At launch in the fall, the Switch Online Service will be available only in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Click here to catch up on the latest news from Nintendo’s Switch event.
Source: Nintendo Switch Online Service
Nintendo will sell extra Switch accessories separately
You won’t have to trawl eBay or get a whole new unit in case you lose one of Switch’s tiny Joy-Cons or if your dog chews on its dock. Nintendo will sell extra accessories for the console separately — it has even revealed how much each one would cost you. A single Joy-Con is $50, while a pair (in any color combination) will set you back $80. Too lazy to plug and unplug the dock into different TVs in your home? You can get an extra dock set, which includes an AC adapter and an HDMI cable, for $90. Sure, they’re kind of expensive, but at least you can buy them, unlike the Wii U’s GamePad.
Nintendo will also sell a $30 charging grip that combines your extra Joy-Cons into one controller and gives you a way to keep playing even when your controllers’ batteries are low. Finally, the company will sell two Joy-Con Wheels as a $15 set for any racing game coming to the platform. The Switch, which won’t be region-locked and has online multiplayer, will land on March 3rd for $300.
Source: Nintendo
Intuition Robotics ElliQ Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
Intuition Robotics
We saw no shortage of Amazon Echo copycats at CES. ElliQ is another such device in the mold of Amazon’s always-listening speaker, except ElliQ is specifically designed for the elderly.
From Intuition Robotics, a startup focused on technology for social companionship, the ElliQ was designed by Yves Behar’s firm fuseproject, and it has the look of a slick, futuristic device. The main piece has what looks like two all-white lamps stacked on each other. The top one moves around and lights up to give ElliQ a personality. The secondary piece is essentially a tablet that ElliQ can control to show more information and start video calls.
Tailored for senior citizens
At first glance, nothing about ElliQ screams “Echo for the elderly” to me, but apparently, it’s meant to have personality without looking like a robot and thus being off-putting for those uncomfortable with new tech.
Other Alexa imitators
- Rokid Pebble
- Baidu Little Fish
- SmartBeings WooHoo
Like the Echo, ElliQ can play music or podcasts. You can control it with your voice without having to read or touch anything. Beyond the Echo, ElliQ will tell you if you’ve received a message and help you interact with social media. In the debut video, when a young relative posts a picture message, ElliQ informs the convivial grandmother, and offers to show the picture on the screen. The grandmother then dictates a response to ElliQ.
I like the idea of vocal push notifications — something the Echo doesn’t have — which would be especially useful to help a senior citizen with the tech. ElliQ can also offer reminders about appointments, and urge you to take your medicine or go out for a walk. Supposedly, ElliQ learns and adapts to behavior over time.
Showing off ElliQ
On display starting today at the Design Museum in London, Intuition Robotics will start trial runs with ElliQ in the bay area next month. Since it doesn’t work with Amazon’s Alexa, the Google Assistant or Apple’s Siri, I’ll need to see it to believe that it responds as seamlessly to voice commands as shown in the company’s video.
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Check out all the smart home products at CES 2017 (so far)
As the first always-listening voice assistant that’s proactive as well as reactive, ElliQ will also need to walk the line with those push notifications and avoid becoming annoying. I admire the active approach to using tech to engage with elderly relatives, but my grandma, for one, would toss it in the garbage the first time it overstepped its bounds and annoyed her. We don’t have any pricing information on ElliQ yet, but hopefully the gamble of giving your older relative a high-tech companion will be a reasonable splurge.
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Snapchat’s Universal Search is everything we ever wanted
Search for friends, content creators, groups and more with Snapchat’s newest universal search feature!
While Snapchat is arguably one of the best things to come out of social media, well, ever, its interface and easy searchability have been seriously lacking.
In an interview with TechCrunch, Snapchat mentioned that it’s rolling out a new interface that’s designed for efficiency and speed, making it easy to find what you’re looking for so you can get back to snapping.
What does this mean exactly?
Well there will be “quick chat” suggestions that will let you instantly open a friend’s snap stories or messages, making sending snaps easy as pie. You can even make groups to combine snaps!
You can also search through Discover channels by using a few keywords, or particular Our Stories via their title.
When you tap and hold someone’s card (that’s marked with their Bitmoji or Snapchat icon), you get a quick look at their Snap profile. From here you can choose to chat with them or view their story.
What will it look like?
The search bar should appear at the top of the screen that opens when you first open Snapchat. It kind of just looks like a regular ol’ search bar with your icon next to it.
Once you start typing in your search, quick chat options and groups will pop up, along with suggested friends and their available stories.
Can I search by Emoji?
Where there is a will, there is a way.
So? What do you think of Snapchat’s newest search feature?
Do you think it’ll help make navigating the app a heck of a lot easier? Or do you think it’s another piece of clutter for the Snapchat screen? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
Lenovo K6 Power review: A multimedia powerhouse
The Lenovo K6 Power offers impressive specs and a compelling software experience that makes it one of the best phones in the entry-level segment.
Quick take:
Lenovo has been steadily gaining ground in India over the last 12 months, and the K6 Power is the company’s best offering yet in the entry-level segment. With a metal body, decent internals, and amazing battery life, the K6 Power offers a lot for ₹9,999, making it one of the most desirable phones in this category.
The good
- Compact design
- Excellent battery life
- Great stereo speakers
The bad
- Average camera
- Slow software updates
- Weird placement of charging port
Delving in
Full review
Budget phones have come a long way. If you were looking to buy a phone for under ₹10,000 a few years ago, you had to either settle for an entry-level Samsung phone that was horrible at practically everything, or a handset from the likes of Micromax, Lava, or Intex — purveyors of the most generic phones out there.
Then came the Chinese contingent of Xiaomi, Lenovo, Huawei, OPPO, and Vivo, and the smartphone landscape changed significantly. Today, if you’re in the market for a sub-₹10,000 handset, there’s no dearth of choice. Xiaomi’s Redmi 3S Prime is an excellent proposition, and the manufacturer’s Redmi Note 3 continues to be one of the best-selling phones on the market.
The LeEco Le 1s is also a decent alternative, as is ASUS’ ZenFone Max if you’re looking for two-day battery life. Then there’s Motorola’s E3 Power, which while not necessarily having the same hardware prowess manages to deliver a clean UI devoid of any customizations.
Lenovo has done especially well last year with the entry-level Vibe K5 and the Z2 Plus in the mid-range category, and the Moto G4 in the budget segment. Lenovo is now in second place in the smartphone segment with a market share of 9.6% and is setting its sights on Xiaomi’s Redmi 3S with the K6 Power.
The K6 Power shares a lot of similarities with the Redmi 3S — both phones are powered by the Snapdragon 430, and they offer a similar set of specs. With hardware no longer being the differentiator, it all comes down to the software, and in that regard, Xiaomi has fared well with MIUI 8, which has over 200 million users globally. Can Lenovo hold its own with the K6 Power? Let’s find out.
All you need to know
Lenovo K6 Power Specs
| Operating System | Vibe Pure UI based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow |
| Display | 5-inch 1080p (1920 x 1080) IPS LCD panel 441ppi pixel density |
| SoC | Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 Eight Cortex-A53 cores at 1.4GHz 28nm |
| GPU | Adreno 505 |
| RAM | 3GB RAM |
| Storage | 32GB storage microSD slot up to 256GB |
| Rear camera | 13MP LED flash PDAF |
| Front shooter | 8MP 1080p video recording |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2 (A2DP), GPS,microUSB, 3.5mm audio jack |
| Battery | 4000mAh battery |
| Fingerprint | Rear fingerprint sensor |
| Dimensions | 141.9 x 70.3 x 9.3 mm |
| Weight | 145g |
| Colors | Silver, Gold, Dark Grey |
About this review
I (Harish Jonnalagadda) am writing this review after using the Lenovo K6 Power for two weeks in Hyderabad, India. The phone was connected to Airtel’s 4G network for the duration of the review, and received a minor software update with stability fixes.
The cookie-cutter model
Lenovo K6 Power Design and screen
Like most handsets in this segment, the K6 Power offers a metal body with gently curved sides that make it comfortable to hold. The design won’t turn any heads, but the phone itself is well-built and can withstand the occasional tumble. The front is relatively simple, featuring a 5-inch display with capacitive navigation buttons below.
The power and volume buttons are located on the right, and the SIM card slot is on the light. Oddly enough, the Micro-USB charging port is located at the top of the phone, next to the 3.5mm jack. The power buttons offer decent tactile feedback, and the navigation buttons are easy enough to get acquainted with, although the lack of a backlight makes things difficult.
Around the back, you have chrome accents around the camera sensor, lens module, fingerprint sensor, and the antenna lines, which serves to break up the grey color scheme. The phone offers stereo speakers certified for Dolby Atmos, but their placement at the back isn’t ideal. Considering that the phone is being targeted at those looking to consume media on the go, it would have made much more sense to put the speakers at the front of the device.
If you’ve seen the Redmi 3S Prime or any other recent budget phone from a Chinese brand, the design of the K6 Power should be immediately familiar. At 9.3mm and a weight of 145g, the K6 Power is certainly not sleek by any measure. Most of that added bulk is taken up by the 4000mAh battery, which is easily one of the best features of the phone. More on that later.
The design is premium and boring at the same time.
The ambient light sensor takes longer than me to acclimate to brightly-lit surroundings (and I take a good long time), so more often than not I had to manually increase brightness to view the screen while outdoors. That said, the display has a maximum brightness of 450 nits, which makes reading text under harsh sunlight relatively easy.
The 5-inch Full HD IPS LCD display has saturated colors and great viewing angles, and with a pixel density of 441ppi, viewing multimedia content on the phone is a delight. However, the colors tend to be on the cooler side. While there isn’t an option to adjust color temperature, you can set the color balance to normal mode, which results in more realistic colors. There’s also a night mode of sorts called brightness protection.
28nm is still great
Lenovo K6 Power Hardware
The K6 Power is powered by the Snapdragon 430, offering four Cortex-A53 cores at 1.4GHz and the Adreno 505 GPU. There’s 3GB of RAM, 32GB storage, and a microSD card, and the phone has dual-SIM connectivity, although it is a hybrid slot, which means you can use two SIM cards or a microSD card along with the primary SIM card. The K6 Power charges through Micro-USB, offers 4G with VoLTE, and Bluetooth 4.2.
The hardware is more than adequate to blaze through everyday tasks. In the two weeks I used the phone, I haven’t seen any lags or slowdowns when browsing, messaging, or in other day-to-day tasks. Overall, the K6 Power is ideal if you’re in the market for a compact handset with great multimedia chops.
In fact, the larger trend in 2016 was how capable budget phones have become. For everyday usage, the K6 Power, Redmi 3S, or any number of handsets in this segment are perfectly serviceable. That’ll get better this year as we see SoCs made on the 14nm node make their way to the entry-level segment.
The K6 Power handles everyday tasks just fine, but it isn’t built for gaming.
However, the K6 Power does have its limitations, particularly when playing games. While the Snapdragon 430 is decent for everyday use, it cannot handle visually-intensive titles. If gaming on the go is a primary consideration, then you’ll be better served by the Snapdragon 650-powered Redmi Note 3.
The stereo speakers at the back are amazing. The sound quality is detailed, and it doesn’t get distorted at high volumes. You can also tweak Dolby Atmos settings to tailor the sound to your listening preferences. The only issue with the speakers is their placement at the back. Similarly, the fingerprint sensor at the back is quick to authenticate and accurate, and the compact size means that you won’t have to reach far to place your finger on the scanner.
Calling it pure doesn’t make it so
Lenovo K6 Power Software
Unlike most Chinese ROMs, Vibe UI comes with an app drawer. The app drawer has Lollipop-style horizontal scrolling, and the top bar lets you search for apps and has a section that displays the four most-recently used apps. The phone comes with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow out of the box, and while that’s good, Lenovo hasn’t fared so well when it comes to security updates. In January 2017, the K6 Power is still on the June security patch.
Vibe UI is uncluttered, but you still get plenty of customizability.
The notification panel is close to what you’d find on stock Android, and offers a two-stage action to reveal the quick toggles. You can set the width of the columns and customize the toggles based on your preferences. While it’s great that Lenovo hasn’t tried to customize the notification panel itself, the company has added a pop-up bar at the bottom that lets you clear notifications. There’s also a history button that lets you read notifications you may have swiped away by mistake. Both buttons serve a purpose, but bundling them at the bottom of the screen looks tacky. Lenovo could have implemented it better.
That said, Lenovo has done a decent job of adding features to the interface, including gestures like double tap to wake, pressing the power button twice for launching the camera, and doing the same with the volume button to take an image. You can also quickly take a photo by using the fingerprint sensor as a shutter button.
There’s an app lock feature called Secure Zone that lets you lock apps with a fingerprint or password. You’ll still continue to see notifications for apps that are locked by a password, but these will be differentiated with a red dot at the bottom of the icon. Lenovo also offers a dual apps feature, allowing you to run two instances of an app simultaneously. If you have two Facebook or WhatsApp accounts, you can run them on the same device.
Overall, Vibe UI is cleaner than most ROMs from Chinese vendors, and it has features that most users would actually end up using. The phone does come with a lot of pre-installed apps, including Evernote, McAfee Security, SyncIt, ShareIt, Truecaller, and UC Browser, but these can be uninstalled.
Your mileage may vary
Lenovo K6 Power Camera
The K6 Power has a 13MP camera powered by Sony’s IMX258 sensor, and an 8MP front shooter with a wide-angle lens. The camera app offers a wealth of options, including a manual mode that lets you adjust the ISO, white balance, exposure, and more. You also get panorama mode, Artistic HDR, fast- and slow-motion video, and a night mode that lets you add filters to spruce up shots in low-light conditions.
You’ll have to put a lot of effort to get food shots.
The app lets you switch between stills and video, and you can toggle between the front and back cameras, turn off flash, access settings and the gallery (which is Google Photos by default) with ease. There are options to tweak ISO and white balance settings from the settings, select the resolution of photos, enable a grid, choose video quality settings, add location info, and so much more.
The camera itself takes good photos in brightly-lit conditions, but you’ll see a drastic dropoff in quality in low-light situations. Photos taken during the day are detailed enough for social platforms, but zoom in and you’ll start noticing noise. The situation is exacerbated for low-light imagery, and you can easily make out that the image processing algorithm’s proclivity to smoothen edges.
The camera is serviceable if all you’re looking to do is take images for sharing on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or WhatsApp, but that’s about as functional as it gets.
It’s like the Duracell bunny
Lenovo K6 Power Battery life
Battery life on the K6 Power is incredible thanks to the 4000mAh battery and the frugal processor. The phone easily lasts a day with regular use, and more often than not you’ll get two days’ worth of usage from a full charge. It’s a good thing that the battery on the K6 Power lasts as long as it does, because the phone doesn’t have fast charging. It takes over two hours to fully charge the device, and the placement of the charging port makes it awkward to use the phone while charging. On the bright side, you can use the phone as an external battery pack, through which you can top up other devices.
The K6 Power has insane battery life.
To further conserve battery life, the phone comes with a battery saver mode that kicks in automatically once the charge goes below 15%. There’s also an Ultimate Power Saver mode that disables all functions other than calling and messaging, essentially turning the K6 Power into a dumb phone. Overall, you won’t have any problems with running out of battery on the K6 Power, even if you’re a heavy user that consumes a lot of multimedia throughout the day.
Power and poise
Lenovo K6 Power Bottom line
The K6 Power has a lot going for it: the metal body feels sturdy and great to hold in-hand, and the compact size allows for easy one-handed usage. The dense display is a delight when it comes to consuming multimedia, and the speakers complement the experience, even though their location at the back isn’t ideal.
The Snapdragon 430 along with 3GB of RAM allows the handset to blaze through everyday tasks with nary a hiccup, and the huge 4000mAh battery means you’ll be able to watch videos and play games for longer.
Vibe UI offers a ton of features without feeling bloated, and the interface itself is vastly different from what you’d find on other Chinese phones. The camera is average, but that’s entirely in line with other phones in this segment. Combine all of that with an aggressive ₹9,999 retail price, and you have a phone that offers great value for money.
A delightful budget phone
Should you buy it? Yes!
There are hundreds of budget phones available today, but most of them aren’t worth your time. The K6 Power is one of few handsets that is. For ₹9,999, you’re getting a phone that offers a lot for its asking price. If you’re looking for a well-rounded phone for consuming videos on the go, look no further.
If camera quality is the primary consideration, then you should take a look at the Redmi 3S Prime. It has a better camera and is available for ₹8,999, but you’ll have to settle for a 720p display and put up with the vagaries of MIUI 8. For gaming, the Redmi Note 3 is a better choice, although the variant with 3GB of RAM and 32GB storage will run up to ₹11,999. For its price, the Lenovo K6 Power is a great choice.
See at Flipkart
Tesla explains how much Supercharging will cost new buyers
If you’ve still yet to buy your dream Model X or S, we’re afraid you only have a couple of days to get one with free lifetime access to Tesla’s Supercharger stations. That perk ends on January 15th and will be replaced by a more limited offering. After the 15th, you’ll get 400 kWh of free supercharging credits every year with a Model X or S instead of unlimited access, though you can top up if you’re willing to pay more. Now, the automaker has revealed more details about how much it would cost to charge your car if you use up your credits before they’re replenished every year.
Prices are fixed within each state in the US and within each country overseas. You’ll pay per kWh in most locations, though some areas require customers to be charged per minute instead. The company’s new FAQ section lists prices per state: California residents, for instance, will have to pay $0.20 per kWh, while those in New York will pay $0.19 per kWh. The section also explains that unused credits don’t roll over to the next year, so you might as well use them all up.
The company said in a statement:
“To put the affordability of Supercharging into perspective, customers will pay about $15 for a road trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles, about $120 from Los Angeles to New York, about €60 from Paris to Rome, and about ¥400 from Beijing to Shanghai.”
According to Tesla’s research, 400 kWh is enough to power one of its cars for 1,000 miles and can cover the driving needs of most owners for a whole year. If you don’t do a lot of long-distance driving, you might never even have to pay for extra charging.
Source: Tesla
Google wants to make encryption easier for everyone
As more and more of our daily lives take place online, more and more sites, apps and services are increasing their encryption to keep users’ data safe and secure. However, being the web monolith that it is, Google’s Security and Privacy Engineering team have noticed a few problems with building a generic yet secure way of exchanging public encryption keys that could work across a range of applications. To fix this, Google has announced the Key Transparency initiative to create a simple way to establish secure connections even through untrusted servers.
According to Google’s Ryan Hurst and Gary Belvin, most people have a hard time using encryption methods like PGP or even encrypted messaging apps because they require users to manually verify the recipients’ account. The idea behind Key Transparency is to build out a framework that regular people can use to verify that someone’s online persona matches their public key. In other words, Key Transparency is a directory that will not only verify that your messages are properly secured, but will also make it simpler for developers to audit that account data and build simpler security features.
The project is in its first open source release, but Google hopes to keep iterating based on feedback from the security community. You can follow the developments over on Github or at KeyTransparency.org.
YouTube’s paid Super Chat feature: What is it and how does it work?
YouTube has announced a feature that’ll give creators more money.
Called Super Chat, it essentially allows viewers to pay to pin a comment on live streams. So, when someone goes live, you will see a new cash symbol in the chat window and can click it to set a dollar amount and pin your comment. Here’s everything you need to know about the new feature, including more details about how it works and why it’s important for creators.
What is YouTube Super Chat?
Google has describe Super Chat as a “highlighted message in the chat stream that stands out from the crowd to get even more of your favourite creator’s attention”. Super Chat will replace Fan Funding, the site’s previous tool for viewers to pay creators.
How does Super Chat work?
To use Super Chat, you must give money, and then your comment will remain pinned to the top of chat for up to five hours. Keep in mind creators can blacklist certain chat words and ban harassing viewers.
When someone goes live on YouTube, you’ll see a cash symbol in the chat window. Click it to open up a slider, which you can touch and drag upon to set a dollar amount you’d like to send the creator. The more you pay, the longer the comment gets pinned to the top. You’ll also get a few more characters for your comment, and it will be highlighted in a different colour to help live streamers notice the paid comment. If the comment eventually gets pushed off, creators will be able to click through Super Chats at the top of their chat window to see them all.
Here’s Google’s instructions on how use Super Chat:
Select the dollar sign within a live chat. The live chat must be visible and mobile devices must be in portrait mode.
Select SEND A SUPER CHAT.
To select an amount, either drag the slider or type your desired value.
Optionally, enter your message.
Select BUY AND SEND.
To finish your purchase, follow the instructions.
You can make a purchase from YouTube or YouTube Gaming on your computer or in the Android app. Purchases on the YouTube for iOS app are currently not supported.
Does Super Chat cost money?
Yes, but there is no set amount. You can decide the dollar amount you’d like to send to the YouTube creators. YouTube said the tool is designed for viewers aged 18 and older. In other words, people with a credit card. When the transaction is complete, your public Super Chat will be sent to all viewers in the live chat, and a receipt will be emailed to you. Super Chats are non-refundable.
Who gets the money?
The YouTube creator receives all Super Chat contributions. It’s basically another way for creators to make money.
When will Super Chat be available?
Super Chat is now available for a few creators, including iHasCupquake, Great Library (buzzbean11) and Alex Wassabi, as a beta feature. YouTube will broadly launch Super Chat on 31 January for creators in 20 countries and viewers in more than 40 countries.
Want to know more?
Check out YouTube’s support hub.
Yep, this is a retro Macintosh Apple Watch stand (and it’s dirt cheap)
Apple fanboys are about to lose their minds.
See that gadget above? Yep, it’s an Apple Watch stand.
Now that you’re done picking your jaw up off the floor, let us tell you a bit about it. Called the Elago W3 Apple Watch stand, it’s a $15 silicone smartwatch stand that makes your Apple Watch look like a retro Macintosh straight from 1984. It even has a floppy drive cutout. The gadget supports Apple’s nightstand mode as well, so you can essentially turn your mini desktop into an alarm clock.
It works like this: the charging puck goes into a recessed hole in the stand, while its cable sticks out underneath, and the Apple Watch itself slips into the docking area. You should remove your watch band to make it really look like a Mac desktop, though that’s not required. Elago W3 supports Apple Watch Series 1 and Series 2 (both the 38mm and 42mm versions).
Check out the gallery above for more pics. If you need this right now, head over to Amazon or Elago’s website. It’s only $15 (around £12), which is pretty amazing, considering the best stands and docks cost $100 (£80) or more.
AIVAnet 