Samsung’s Galaxy S8 will likely debut on March 29th

It’s almost time for Samsung’s traditional February unveiling of a new Galaxy flagship, but, as we already learned, we might have to wait a little longer this year. We now have a clearer idea of when to expect the new handset, though. VentureBeat is reporting that the Korean electronics giant is preparing to show off the anticipated Galaxy S8 on March 29, and that the flagship will see its fingerprint sensor moved to the rear, among other updates.

It’s not like the Galaxy S8’s specs are much of a secret – most of them, such as a potential edge-to-edge display and an embedded AI assistant, have been leaked. In addition to a virtual home button instead of a physical one under the display, we’ve also heard that the S8 will sport a side button that triggers the assistant.

We won’t know the full story on the Galaxy S8’s features until Samsung announces the phone, of course. But while it’s disappointing that we’ll have to wait a few weeks longer than usual to get the details, it’s also probably a good thing that Samsung is getting more time. Hopefully, that can be put towards more conscientious testing and prevent another exploding-phone fiasco.

Source: VentureBeat

PlayStation is still getting away with ‘minimum funding’ charges

When game consoles stumbled into the modern era, their digital content stores were a mess. Nintendo’s Wii locked its customers to an annoying point system. The Xbox 360 obfuscated the value of Microsoft Points by using an odd 0.8 conversion rate. Sony’s PlayStation Store listed its items in real, local currency, but still forced users to load up digital wallets with a minimum amount before purchasing anything on the marketplace. Over the years, Nintendo and Microsoft fixed their digital currency problems — aping Sony’s up-front pricing and even improving upon it by allowing users to buy content without requiring them to add funds to a wallet system. Sony, on the other hand, hasn’t changed. If you don’t promise to spend at least $5 on the PlayStation store, you’re not allowed to buy anything at all.

This nagging problem has plagued the PlayStation Store for years. Want to pick up a $2 PSOne Classic during a Flash Sale? You’ll be charged $5 for the privilege — two for the game and three to linger in your PSN wallet. Just because. It’s a policy that encourages consumers to return to the PlayStation Store to spend their leftover money, but it only accomplishes that by forcing customers to add more funds to the wallet system than is needed for certain purchases. These leftover funds can even compound the problem: If you have $7 in your wallet, but want to buy a $10 game, you’ll need to add that same minimum $5 to your account to buy it, two bills more than the total cost of the game.

It’s a hostage situation. Sony’s wallet allows it to hold its customer’s’ own money over their heads as a means of forcing them to spend more in the PlayStation Store. It’s also a haven for refund management, allowing disputed purchases to be returned to the PSN wallet, but not the customer’s bank accounts. It’s true, Sony’s competitors once employed this tactic as well — but Nintendo and Microsoft’s days of hoarding consumer cash ended when they retired their anachronistic point systems.

So, why the minimum price? One possible reason is an effort to avoid merchant transaction fees by passing on the cost of running a credit card to the consumer. This practice actually used to be prohibited by most card networks, but became legal in 2010 when the right to require a minimum charge was included in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Sony’s minimum wallet policy is completely legal. It just also happens to be frustrating and completely anti-consumer.

On the other hand, some DLC add-ons can sell for as little as $0.49. Without a minimum purchase threshold, Sony would run the possibility of losing money on some sales. Still, when even Nintendo recognizes that mandatory buying thresholds creates a bad online experience, you have to wonder if Sony is making the right choice.

It’s possible that I’m just a whiner. Maybe the majority of PlayStation customers don’t buy content under $5 and never encounter this niche problem. Maybe I’m just not patient enough. After all, consumers can get around it by timing purchases carefully or, in some cases, buying redemption codes for PSN content at GameStop — but these workarounds shouldn’t be necessary. The PlayStation Store used to be the best online marketplace for console gamers, a beacon that showed its competitors a better way to serve a customer base ravenous for digital content. Now, it’s hamstrung by a single, archaic policy. It’s not a reason to buy an Xbox over a PlayStation, but Sony’s customers deserve better. The PlayStation Store can be the best digital marketplace again. All it needs to do is make one crucial change.

HBO GO App Gains Support for Single Sign-On and TV App

HBO today updated its HBO GO app for iOS devices and the Apple TV with support for Single sign-on, allowing subscribers to access HBO content more quickly.

With Single sign-on, HBO customers will no longer need to enter their cable credentials separately when logging in to the HBO GO app. Instead, the app will use universal credentials that are stored by Apple. HBO GO is also now available in the TV app, with full support for “Watch Next” tracking functionality.

Single sign-on, introduced in December, is one of the first steps Apple has made towards streamlining the television watching experience on the Apple TV and iOS devices. It’s designed to allow all cable subscribers to sign in once with their cable credentials to gain access to all cable-restricted content available within apps.

Single sign-on is limited to the United States and requires both service providers and app developers to implement support for the feature. Along with HBO, more than 20 popular television apps support the Single sign-on, with a full list available via a Single sign-on support document.

Not all cable providers are offering support for Single sign-on yet, so the feature is limited to Cable ONE, CenturyLink Prism, DIRECTV, Dish, GVTC, GTA, Hawaiian Telcom, Hotwire, MetroCast, Service Electric, and Sling TV.

Related Roundups: Apple TV, tvOS 10
Tag: Single Sign-on
Buyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Don’t Buy)
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World Series of Poker-WSOP provides fast-paced, high-quality poker fun (review)

While there are tons of casino & poker games available in the Play Store, there are only a few that can provide a quality gaming experience nearly every time. One such option is World Series of Poker – WSOP by the developer Playtika. You may be a fairly experience digital poker player, or you may be a newbie looking for a good entry into this gaming land without getting burnt. Let’s take a tour of this game to see just how it works.

Setup

Setup couldn’t be easier; simply download from the Play Store. Upon downloading, you’re shown several options; though, at the beginning, only the “Play Now” option will likely be available. This takes you right to a live table ready to buy-in on the next hand. As you gain experience (and digital money), other options will become available in the form of tournaments with varying locations, purses, and buy-in levels. It should go without saying that Las Vegas is the biggest tournament you can enter (and the most costly, with a buy-in of $2.6 billion dollars…yes, billion).

Gameplay

One of the highlights of WSOP is the “clean” gameplay. I know that’s quite the term, but it might just be the best one for describing the experience of this game. Upon entering a game or tournament, you appear at a poker table with a varying amount of other players already there (people jump in and jump out, but it’s not as random or as quick as other poker games, in my opinion). You are asked to wait until the next hand to play (duh), and then, you are dealt in. Most people play Texas Hold-Em, but Omaha (where you are dealt four cards in lieu of two) is an option as well.

Upon deal-in, you should be paying attention because, for the most part, other
players certainly are. The gameplay is brisk, and you’ll find little waiting-around for your next turn on any given hand. To me as a reviewer, this is a great thing. I’m the type that gets bored easily, and there is little in this gaming world worse than being stuck in a poker game where the other players are taking the maximum amount of time possible to make their decisions coupled with an annoying amount of lag from the game itself.

WSOP suffers from neither of these. Your fellow players are generally pretty quick on the draw, and the game is excellent (a term I don’t use lightly in my reviews) with it’s speed and consistency. Rarely will you encounter any kind of lag from the game (at least in my experience across multiple WiFi and cellular networks and devices).

In game, you are positioned at the bottom of the table (and therefore the bottom of the screen). There, you can see your cards and your play options. These depend of the stage of the hand, but generally vary between fold, check/fold, check, call X amount of dollars, bet, or call-any. You can pre-select an option so that when your turn comes up the game automatically grabs your selection and moves to the next player.

If you choose to wait until your turn, then there is a timer that burns around your avatar quickly counting down to zero. You need to make a selection or upon hitting zero you are hereto folded. The beginning game tables usually start out at a lower minimum bet, but quickly climb as your digital experience and wealth grows. It doesn’t seem to take much to find yourself at a $20,000 table.

Visuals/Sound

If I had to ding the game anywhere, it would be here, but only because I have to. The visuals could probably use a slight refresh as the screen can get a tad busy as times with small text and lots of things often flashing around. Perhaps an overhaul to larger texts and more rigid text locations would help with this. The overall color scheme is a rather cooling blue, which is nice.

One more niggle is the amount of splash pages you’ll encounter from time to time touting all kinds of bonus chips, money, and such. This is particularly the case if you sign up for an account tied to your Facebook. I simply do not trust this so I can’t speak to the consequences of doing it, but I can only guess that your Facebook page would start to show quite a few gaming app ads. No thanks.

Sound is good, but that’s because it’s pretty muted (which is a good thing). There are standard sound effect for card dealing, button presses, and money movement, but it’s nothing revolutionary and generally keeps to the background. I personally play with the sound off and don’t feel I’m missing anything in terms of experience.

 Overall

I can only recommend World Series of Poker-WSOP and do so wholeheartedly. If you can get past the splash pages (which are part of most gaming apps), I’m sure you’ll enjoy the look, feel, and speed of this option.

Download World Series of Poker-WSOP from the Play Store here.

Charge your smartphone with a strong, stylish Paracable

There’s no such thing as having too many cables for charging up your devices. Yes, even in the age of wireless charging, we like to have physical cables on hand. Why? Because it’s super fast in 2017! While processors and batteries continue to evolve, the microUSB and USB Type-C cables are still going to be necessary — at least for the time being.

Pretty much every other cable you see is a generic black, white, or grey cord. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about the one that comes in the box or if you’re picking up something from the store; chances are the cable is routine and uninspiring.

Paracables, on the other hand, have much more personality. What’s more, they’re also tough enough to handle moderate use and abuse. If you’ve ever felt parachute cable, then you know exactly what these cables feel like. Actually, scratch that, these are a little more rugged.

1 of 9

Features

• Sleek and durable aluminum end housing
• Wrapped in our beautiful patented ’32 bit’ paracord fabric
• Premium 1 year warranty
• 5 feet long
• Qualcomm Quick Charge compatible
• Charges faster than inferior cables; capable of 2.0+ amps of charging power

Available in a variety of colors and cable types, you’ll find plenty to admire in Paracable. We’ve been testing the Glacier and Continuum schemes in microUSB and simply love them. At five feet long there’s plenty of cord to play with, even when plugged in behind the dresser or desk.

Pricing shakes out to roughly $16-18 for cables in microUSB; Lightning cables are also available for about $24 a piece. It’s not much more than what you’d pay for a generic cable and it’s definitely worth the extra. Given the last couple of weeks and the little bit of abuse we’ve thrown at them, we see no reason they’ll not stand the test of time.

Editor Note: We were sent the cables for promotional consideration and were under no obligation for coverage.

Google Allo’s second bot, Lucky, tosses GIFs into your conversations

Why it matters to you

Feeling lucky? If you like GIFs and use Allo, Google just made sending GIFs a little more like Russian Roulette.

Google Allo, a messaging app that first debuted the company’s artificially intelligent Assistant, now lets users chat with another “bot.” That bot, named “Lucky,” won’t give you daily news or weather updates like the Assistant, but it will toss a GIF into your conversations.

Lucky is a bot that finds you GIFs based on what you ask it for, and you can call upon it the same way you trigger the Google Assistant. Type “@Lucky,” and then write what you want to find as a GIF. For example, if you write “@Lucky Hello,” the bot will likely toss a GIF of someone waving.

More: Got an idea for a Google Daydream app? You can make it!

A part of Lucky’s charm is that the GIFs it produces are random, unlike GIF search on Facebook Messenger where you can choose something specific to your liking. It looks like the bot just runs a Google search for a related GIF to the phrase, rather than pulling one from a GIF service like Giphy.

You can still search for GIFs in Allo without the use of Lucky via the Google Keyboard, but you’ll need to be on a phone with Android 7.0 Nougat or higher. The bot’s name certainly alludes to the “I’m feeling lucky” option in Google Search, which takes you straight to the first result.

At present, Lucky is the only other bot you can call upon after the “@Google” Assistant. But this seems to be what Google’s larger strategy is for Allo — the ability to use several different bots on the platform for various tasks.

It’s unclear which version of Allo you need to be on to use Lucky — we didn’t receive an update, so it may simply be a server-side switch. Still, to get it, you can update your app to the latest version on the Google Play Store as well as on the iOS App Store. You may have to wait a few days to see the new bot.