Stream live NBA games in VR à la carte starting February 23rd

The NBA announced its plan to stream weekly games live in VR last fall and soon there will be a much cheaper à la carte option. Starting February 23rd, basketball fans will be able to watch matchups live in virtual reality without having to pay for an NBA League Pass subscription. Each game will set you back $7 and they’ll still be available though the League Pass app. Before now, you had to pay for the $200 TV subscription if you wanted to stream live basketball games in virtual reality. NextVR does say that this is the “introductory price” for the rest of the current season, so the rate may not be permanent.

NextVR also announced today that will offer free VR highlights from the NBA All-Star Game festivities this weekend in New Orleans. The on-demand options will include clips from the Skills Challenge, 3-Point Contest and Slam Dunk Contest that take place Saturday night. The company will also offer highlights of the All-Star Game itself on Sunday, February 19th. Coverage of the All-Star weekend and live VR streaming is available on Samsung Gear VR and Google Daydream headsets.

Source: NextVR

Caavo hopes to be the one box to rule your home theater

If you’re a home theater geek, chances are your days are spent juggling several different remotes and TV inputs. Caavo, a startup from the folks behind the original Sling box, hopes to make your life a bit easier with its set-top box, which can control up to eight different devices at once. Think of it like a super-powered universal remote: It not only lets you easily swap between all the gadgets under your TV, but you can also use it to search for stuff to watch across them. And yes, that includes streaming offerings on services like Netflix and Amazon Prime, as well as live TV.

At $399, though, Caavo is clearly aiming for a very niche audience. And since it’s another box you have to hook up and configure in your home theater, it doesn’t really do much to simplify clutter. Sure, it means you’ll only have a single cable connected to your TV or receiver, but all of your other devices and cables will still be nearby.

Caavo sure is attractive, though, with a removable wood top that sets it apart from most other home theater boxes. It’s also fairly wide, so you’ll likely need to make room on your TV stand. Luckily, since it doesn’t really emit much heat, the company says you can easily place other devices right on top of it.

The most intriguing aspect of Caavo is its universal switching and searching capabilities. After logging into your streaming services, you can use its remote to search for movies and TV shows with your voice. Ask it to play Bob’s Burgers, for example, and it will immediately start playing the show on Netflix via one of your streaming devices. You can also specify which device specific services launch on (for example, Amazon Video shows can be configured only to launch through your Fire TV). Since it’s keeping track of all of your streaming habits, it also lets you quickly pick up where you left off.

Caavo automatically handles all of the input switching as you’re hopping between devices, so there’s no need to juggle remotes. And if you just wanted to start playing a game on your PlayStation 4, you just need to turn on your game controller and Caavo will automatically switch over. The developers also showed off Amazon Alexa integration, which works just like the voice commands with its remote.

While it can handle 4K content, Caavo doesn’t yet support any HDR standards. The company says it’s working on building in HDR10 support, which can be added in a software update down the line. Unfortunately, there are no plans to include Dolby Vision support, since that would require additional hardware. That’s a shame, since there are already plenty films and TV shows relying on Dolby’s standard. Of course, you could always connect a Dolby Vision-capable device to your TV separately, but that instantly defeats the point of Caavo.

Aside from its price, the biggest issue with Caavo is that it seems to be solving a problem that’s already fixing itself. It’s built for a world where you might have an Apple TV, Roku and Chromecast hooked up to your TV, alongside game consoles and cable boxes. But there simply isn’t much reason to be juggling multiple streaming devices these days, especially when many consumers can just use the apps built into their TVs or game consoles. And if you’re just hopping between a few devices, I’d wager most people would rather save the $399 and live with a bit of inconvenience.

Caavo CEO Andrew Einaudi and co-founder Ashish Aggarwal recognize that their box isn’t exactly for everyone, yet. The company is currently aiming for home theater enthusiasts who wouldn’t mind paying a bit for seamless TV watching (though I wonder how those folks would stomach limited HDR capabilities). Pre-orders will kick off in May, and it plans to ship the device later in 2017. Next year, it’s considering a smaller and cheaper model that could appeal to more mainstream buyers.

Caavo is certainly a noble attempt at simplifying our home theaters, but I can’t help but think it’d be more useful as something that’s integrated in an A/V receiver, rather than a standalone box.

Former employee sues Magic Leap for sex discrimination

Augmented reality startup Magic Leap is being accused of sex discrimination and creating a hostile work environment. Ironically, the company is being sued by Tannen Campbell, who was hired to make the startup’s product more female friendly.

Magic Leap made waves in 2014 when it teased a mysterious mixed-reality headset that garnered attention and funds from Google, Qualcomm and other companies. But, a report from The Information, suggests the device doesn’t live up to the hype, making this lawsuit the latest in a string of bad news for the company.

Campbell, who was vice president of Strategic Marketing and Brand Identity, was hired to aid Magic Leap with what it calls its “pink/blue problem,” according to the lawsuit filed in the Southern Florida US District Court. It’s a term used internally by the startup to describe the fact it’s a predominantly male company designing a device for men that doesn’t appeal to women. But, Campbell says she was fired after challenging CEO Rony Abovitz to acknowledge the company’s misogynistic culture and asking him to correct it.

Campbell’s suit is full of unpleasant anecdotes. It describes a company culture where women are not valued for their technological skills and are instead stereotyped as wives, homemakers and sex objects. It also alleges that Magic Leap’s upper management are aware of the gender-based hostility within the startup.

In her first few months at Magic Leap, Campbell says she was asked to put together a 50-slide presentation about gender diversity in the workplace, only to have the meeting scheduled and cancelled six times. When she finally met with Abovitz in February 2016, he allegedly arrived late and ended the meeting early.

Months later, the lawsuit claims Abovitz asked some female Magic Leap employees, including Campbell, to create the “Female Brain Trust Initiative” (FBI) and tasked them with making their product more woman friendly. The group offered some design suggestions, but Campbell says their proposed changes were never taken seriously and the FBI was just window dressing.

The lawsuit also details an app that will ship with the headset called Dr. G. Campbell claims it has no female heroes and that the only female character is a busty woman shown on her knees groveling at the heroes’ feet. Campbell says she complained to developers repeatedly that it was misogynistic.

One of the more disturbing allegations involves Euen Thompson, an IT support lead. While giving a tutorial to a group of new hires, one woman asked Thompson a question and he allegedly responded, “Yeah, women always have trouble with computers.” When the women in the group asked him to repeat what he said, Thompson replied, “In IT we have a saying; stay away from the Three Os: Orientals, Old People and Ovaries.”

When Campbell spoke to Magic Leap Chief Administrative Officer Henk Vlietstra about the incident and asked why Thompson wasn’t fired, Vlietstra allegedly said he couldn’t fire Thompson because he was African American and there were white men who had done “far worse.” Vlietstra feared Thompson would sue the company for discrimination if he was terminated. When Campbell asked why the company didn’t fire all of its problematic employees, Vlietstra allegedly answered, “Because we need the white guys. They’re important. We need them. I know you’re upset, but my hands are tied.”

We’ve reached out to Magic Leap for comment and will update this story if we hear back.

Via: The Guardian

Source: U.S. District Court Southern Florida (PDF)

Apple’s Siri Promotes The LEGO Batman Movie When You Say ‘Hey Computer’

The LEGO Batman Movie, released last Friday, features the voice of Apple’s personal assistant Siri as Batman’s personal computer. Batman’s computer works in much the same way as Siri, responding to his voice requests whenever he says “Hey ‘puter.”

As it turns out, there’s a secret tie-in hidden in the iPhone, too. Whenever you say “Hey ‘puter” (or “Hey Computer”) to Siri, she responds to you as if you’re LEGO Batman.

“I am at your service, Lego Batman sir,” and “Welcome home, sir. I have your rom coms queued up, sorted by decade,” are just two of the multiple humorous phrases Siri shares whenever the personal assistant hears “Hey ‘puter.”

Apple updates Siri on a regular basis, and this isn’t the first time the personal assistant has gained humorous responses ahead of an upcoming event, but it may be the first serious movie tie-in.

Siri was previously updated in August 2016 to offer funny responses to questions about Pokémon Go, and again in September to respond to questions ahead of the iPhone 7’s debut.

In addition to the Siri easter egg, there’s also a free iOS app that accompanies The LEGO Batman Movie, which was released back in January.

Tag: Siri
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Facebook’s next conquest: Your TV

Facebook’s recent push into video is coming for your big screen TV. The social network enabled streaming video to Apple TV and Chromecast last October, but it’s about to go native with an app specifically made for set-top boxes from Apple, Amazon and Samsung.

The new app will let you lean back to watch Facebook videos from the comfort of your couch. It also allows the social network access to millions of people relaxing in their living room, a move that could help Facebook sell more of its planned interstitial ads.

Facebook says you will be able to use the new app to watch videos your friends have shared, from Pages you follow and see the most popular live videos alongside videos recommended to you based on your interests. You can even save FB videos to watch later and re-watch the ones you’ve already watched, shared or uploaded.

Facebook announced a few other improvements, too. Now video audio will automatically play when your mobile device’s sound is turned on, you will see larger previews of video shot vertically, and you will get to keep watching videos in a minimized window on your screen as you scroll through your feed.

As of January of 2016, users have watched 100 million hours of video on Facebook, which could explain the company’s recent frantic strategy changes in the video space. Adding another way for users to consume video when they’re ostensibly away from their mobile devices or computers can only increase that number.

Via: Recode

Source: Facebook

Berkshire Hathaway Nearly Quadrupled its Stake in Apple Stock Last Quarter

Warren Buffett’s holding company Berkshire Hathaway nearly quadrupled its stake in Apple stock to 57,359,652 shares last quarter, according to an SEC filing disclosed today. Its stake in Apple was worth nearly $6.7 billion as of December 31, and over $7.7 billion today if the shares are still held.

Berkshire Hathaway disclosed a nearly $1 billion stake in Apple last May, which led the iPhone maker’s stock to soar 9% once the investment became public knowledge. Apple stock has been on the rise since then, closing at an all-time high of $135.02 today just nine months after setting a 52-week low of $89.47 in May 2016.

Apple and Berkshire Hathaway are the world’s most and fourth-most valuable companies respectively based on their market capitalizations.

Tags: AAPL, Berkshire Hathaway
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Bold idea gets off the ground: First flying car now available for pre-order

Why it matters to you

We’ve all dreamed of a future with flying cars. Now that future has arrived at an exorbitant price.

Five years after demonstrating its first successful test flight, Dutch company PAL-V has begun accepting pre-orders for what may be the first flying car to hit the commercial market.

When driving, the Liberty takes form as an enclosed three-wheeler with propeller packed tightly to its roof. To get airborne, the propeller and tail blades expand and transform the vehicle into a gyrocopter.

The Liberty takes about 10 minutes to transform from car to copter, according to PAL-V, and has a top speed of 100mph on the ground and 112mph in the sky. On the road it boasts a range of 817 miles on a full tank. This dwindles to 310 miles once the vehicle takes off.

“After years of hard work, beating the technical and qualification challenges, our team succeeded in creating an innovative flying car that complies with existing safety standards, determined by regulatory bodies around the world,” Robert Dingemanse, CEO of PAL-V, said in a press statement.

More: Uber’s newest hire aims to help the company make flying vehicles a reality

The company has been teasing flying car fanatics for years. It began testing its concept cars in 2009 and last year opened the first flying car school in North America. But now PAL-V seems willing to put money where its mouth is — or at least ask its customers to do so.

As you might expect, the Liberty will cost a pretty penny. PAL-V is taking pre-orders for the $400,000 “Sport” base model and the $600,000 “Pioneer,” which includes some seemingly essential features like at-home training and power heating. For that extra $200,000, the Pioneer also includes special detailing and an electronic flight instrument display that should give the Liberty an appropriately futuristic feel.

To reserve a Liberty of your own, you will have to front a $10,000 or $25,000 nonrefundable deposit for the Sport and Pioneer, respectively. The company is also accepting $2,500 refundable deposits to put customers on a waiting list.

Possible Russian hacker network may be responsible for new MacOS malware

Why it matters to you

The APT28 hacker network, tied by some to Russian government or criminal elements, may target some of our large institutions and political figures.

A particularly virulent form of cyberattack was identified when the Stuxnet malware wreaked havoc at Iran’s nuclear processing facilities. Discovered in 2010, the attack resulted in the creation of a new term, “advanced persistent threat” (APT), to designate a cyberattack that is intended to break into a particular target and work over a long period of time at stealing data or breaking down infrastructure.

But the Stuxnet attack was not the first example of an APT. Another, a hacker network dubbed APT28 and linked by some sources with Russian government or criminal elements, has been at work since 2007 targeting a number of industries and sectors in Ukraine, Spain, Russian, Romania, the U.S., and Canada. Anti-malware software company Bitdefender generated a report on APT28 in 2016 and has provided an update on its Bitdefender Labs blog connecting it to new MacOS malware.

More: Trend Micro finds Flash exploit utilized by Russian hackers in Pawn Storm attacks

The specific malware, called Xagent, is cross-platform software that also attacks iOS devices to steal contact and location information, apps lists, photos, and more. The MacOS version of Xagent is aimed at gaining access to passwords, taking screenshots, and most important breaking into iPhone backups to grab the same data as the iOS version.

Bitdefender has now connected the MacOS version of Xagent with APT28: “Our past analysis of samples known to be linked to APT28 group shows a number of similarities between the Sofacy/APT28/Sednit Xagent component for Windows/Linux and the MacOS binary that currently forms the object of our investigation. For once, there is the presence of similar modules, such as FileSystem, KeyLogger and RemoteShell, as well as a similar network module called HttpChanel.”

In addition, the Xagent sample that Bitdefender’s researchers examined connect to the same command-and-control web address that’s the same as the ones used by APT28. Bitdefender is still conducting its analysis but at least initially it appears that APT28 operators may now have a new tool — compromised MacOS machines — to use in attacking government agencies, political figures, telecommunications, ecrime services, and aerospace companies.

Capture One Pro photo editor gains its own color-coded shortcut keyboard

Why it matters to you

Help increase your workflow efficiency with a color-coded keyboard for the Capture One Pro photo editor.

The 500-plus keyboard shortcuts from the Capture One Pro photo editor are getting a bit easier to learn. Earlier this week, the company shared a new custom keyboard created in cooperation with LogicKeyboard.

The colorful keyboard puts 107 shortcuts from Phase One’s image editor onto a Mac-compatible keyboard. The keyboard uses the same layout as a typical Apple keyboard, but labels the Capture One Pro shortcuts for a more efficient workflow, or to help beginners learn the program, Phase One says.

More: Phase One’s Media Pro SE is another shot across Adobe’s bow

The shortcuts are color coded, Phase One Product Manager James Johnson said. Local adjustments are coded in purple, key cursors in blue and navigation in pink, for starters.

The keyboard is designed to help make Capture One Pro workflows more time efficient, Johnson said, but could also help beginners learn the program more efficiently by laying out the most commonly used features in a visible way.

Capture One Pro is both a RAW converter and photo editor, competing with the likes of Adobe Photoshop while the company’s Media Pro SE is more similar to Adobe Lightroom. The software comes not from a software giant, but from Phase One, a company specializing in medium format digital cameras. Now in Capture One Pro version 10, the program boasts a number of advanced features, including a quick engine for faster edits.

More: Disney Research develops method to capture 3D facial performances with a single camera

Along with the keyboard, the program is compatible with Tangent control panels, which give digital photo editors hands-on controls including dials and dedicated buttons. The Tangent compatibility was introduced just before the end of last year, with the control panels starting at $350.

The new keyboard comes in as a more affordable tool at $139. The keyboard also functions as a normal Mac keyboard outside of Capture One Pro.

New 6-axis 3D printer can print complex objects with gravity-defying overhangs

Why it matters to you

Hate how long it hates to 3D print complex models? This innovative 3D printer design uses a tilting bed to print critical overhangs without support structures.

3D printers can make objects of practically any shape you can dream up, but despite the fact that they’re so capable, there’s one thing that they often struggle with: overhangs.

Filament-based 3D printers create objects one layer at a time, from the ground up. So if the object you’re printing has any overhangs that protrude at angles over 45 degrees, the printer is (usually) incapable of making the object without support structures, and therefore must print little plastic scaffolds to hold up the object while it prints. The downside, of course, is that this uses extra plastic, and often leaves burrs and imperfections on the object when the supports are removed.

Luckily, two students from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) have created a solution to this problem.

What Oliver Tolar and Denis Herrmann have developed is a 3D printer prototype that uses a tilting printer bed to print objects with a critical overhang. Better yet, it’s able to print these overhangs in such a way that they don’t require added support material.

More: The best 3D printers you can buy

The printer itself can be pivoted with a total of six axis: three which control the print head, and another three which control the printer bed. The result is a massive range of movements that would be impossible using a conventional 3D printer. Picture the way you might use one hand to move a model as you paint it with the other, and you won’t be far off!

“The advantage lies in the time saving at printing time,” Professor Dr. Wilfried Elspass of the ZHAW School of Engineering, who oversaw the project, told Digital Trends. “At the same time, there is no need to remove the support material after printing. Another potential application will be that an already existing component such as an actuator or sensor can be directly printed. It is thus possible, for example, to integrate electronic components directly into a printed part.”

It’s definitely a neat idea, and one that could save valuable minutes and hours spent sanding and cutting away extraneous aspects of our prints. Unfortunately, if you do like the idea it could still be a while before its creators are even able to think about bringing it to market — if they ever do.

That’s because, with the limited time Tolar and Hermmann had to work on the project, they didn’t have long enough to properly develop the necessary software for it to work.

“Next the software for generating the control data must be further developed,” Elspass continued. “A commercial implementation of the new printer is not yet planned. However, further research and development activities will follow.”

Color us intrigued!