You’re never getting an NES Classic Edition now

If you’ve spent the last few months trying to get your hands on a NES Classic Edition, it’s time to give up. Nintendo’s tiny, plug-and-play retro console is dead. Or dying, at least. The company says the last shipments to North American territories will reach stores in April, advising buyers to check with their local retailers for availability. In other words, the NES Classic Edition shortage is going away, but only because the product won’t exist anymore.

In a statement to IGN, Nintendo explains the retro console was never meant to stick around. “NES Classic Edition wasn’t intended to be an ongoing, long-term product,” the company said, adding that extra shipments already extended the NES Classic beyond its planned lifespan.

Still, there’s a little hope for collectors: today’s statement only specifies that the product is discontinued for North America, meaning it’s possible that Japan’s Famicom Classic may stick around a little longer. We’ve reached out to Nintendo to clarify, but don’t get your hopes up — the Japanese version of the devices is basically the same product.

Source: IGN

Tesla plans to show off finished Model 3 in July

If you’ve been waiting to get a glimpse of the final Tesla Model 3, this summer can’t come soon enough. CEO Elon Musk told a fan on Twitter today that the final unveil for the company’s more affordable electric vehicle will be this July. Production has been on track to begin during the summer months for a while, but this marks the first time we know when you’ll be able to see an actual production Model 3, not just a prototype.

@gucci_mau July

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 13, 2017

Musk is rolling hard on Twitter today with a few other big announcements, too. You can plan for a new Tesla semi truck this September, and the company’s anticipated Roadster to arrive as a convertible. That’s all in addition to a new Tesla pickup truck that’s slated to be revealed in the next 18-24 months.

@NoahMagel Pickup truck unveil in 18 to 24 months

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 13, 2017

Tesla has a lot going on right now, and it’s not just cars. The company’s move into solar power, for example, is pretty fascinating. All these new reveals should serve to raise consumer’s hopes to a fever pitch. Even knowing that there will be a massive wait list can’t dampen our desire to see what the company has in the works.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Elon Musk

Dropbox document scanning comes to Android devices

Android Dropbox users now have the same ability as their iOS-using brethren: scanning documents right to their account with a mobile app. The company’s Paper app — a collaborative document workspace for Dropbox Business users — also gets an offline mode for both iOS and Android.

The scanning feature is pretty useful. Just aim your phone at a document, receipt or whiteboard and snap a photo from within the Dropbox app. You can crop or rotate the scan, and it will accept multiple photos to create a single PDF. If you’re on a Dropbox Business team, you can also search for keywords inside any of your scans, which makes Paper even more competitive with Evernote.

Paper’s update brings an incredibly useful offline mode, giving you a seamless way to keep working on any documents you’ve got stored in Dropbox, whether you’re connected to a network signal or not. The feature keeps you creating, accessing, editing and commenting on any Paper docs while you’re offline, then syncs them up once you find a signal again.

Whether you’re looking to grab a quick scan of a contract after you sign it or build a document with co-workers, Dropbox’s new updates can surely help keep you working on the go.

Source: Dropbox

Russia blocks protest app for refusing to share data

Back in 2013 when messaging apps seemed to be cropping up every day, Zello’s walkie-talkie audio dispatches seemed a novel addition to a crowded niche. We didn’t anticipate that the app would become a hit with protesters in Ukraine, Turkey, Hong Kong, Venezuela, and elsewhere. But after the simultaneous demonstrations around Russia in the last couple weeks, it seems the government is hitting the perpetrators where they coordinate: Yesterday, they banned the use of Zello in the country.

Over 400,000 Russians were blocked from using the service, Zello’s CEO wrote in a blog post. The country’s laws require “information distribution brokers” like the app to store its data in Russia and make it available to the country’s government. Zello refused, and was completely banned.

For the record, it’s the same treatment LinkedIn received last November when it became the first major Western platform to run afoul of the new law, which had been passed earlier in 2016. When faced with the ultimatum to store the service’s data in-country, LinkedIn similarly refused to fork over user information. Russian agencies proceeded to purge the service completely from the country by forcing Google and Apple to remove the platform from their respective app stores. Assumedly, the same will happen with Zello.

Via: Defense One

Source: Zello Blog

Three More Apple Suppliers Commit to Using 100 Percent Renewable Energy

Three additional Apple suppliers, including Compal Electronics, Sunwoda Electronic, and Biel Crystal Manufactory, have promised to use 100 percent renewable energy when manufacturing iPhone components, Apple VP of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives Lisa Jackson told Bloomberg in an interview.

96 percent of the energy Apple uses comes from renewable sources like wind and solar, allowing the company to reduce its carbon footprint, and in 26 countries, Apple facilities are powered with 100 percent renewable energy. With much of its own company using renewable energy, Apple has started focusing on its suppliers to further its sustainability efforts.

“We look at our carbon footprint as so much more than just our office, our data centers, our stores, even our distribution centers,” Jackson told Bloomberg Television. “All that’s included in our 96 percent, but now we’re moving onto our supply chain.”

Late last month, Apple promised to honor the commitment it made under the Obama administration to fight climate change, and today, Jackson said Apple plans to continue on its path and make its values known to the Trump administration, which has started to rescind environmental rules and protections.

“One thing this administration has made clear is that they want to hear from business and so we’re going to do everything we can to make our values known,” Jackson said.

Along with Compal Electronics, Sunwoda Electronic, and Biel Crystal Manufactory, four other suppliers have committed to using clean energy: Lens Technology, Solvay Specialty Polymers, Catcher Technology, and Ibiden. In March, Apple said that by the end of 2018, the company and its supplier partners expect to generate more than 2.5 billion kilowatt hours of clean energy per year.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tags: Lisa Jackson, Apple environment
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iMovie and Final Cut Pro for Mac Get Bug Fixes in New Updates

Apple today updated its iMovie video editing app for the Mac to version 10.1.5, introducing a couple of important bug fixes to address issues that have popped up in previous updates.

Today’s iMovie update fixes an issue that could add a red tint to video important from some camcorders and it fixes and issue that prevented some videos shot on the iPhone from appearing in the import window.

According to Apple’s release notes, the update also improves the performance and stability of the app.

iMovie 10.1.5 comes nearly six months after the last major iMovie for Mac update, which was released in October of 2016. iMovie 10.1.3 introduced support for the Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pro, allowing MacBook Pro owners to use the Touch Bar for editing purposes.

Apple has also updated Final Cut Pro, its video editing software for professionals. Like iMovie, Final Cut Pro has received several bug fixes and performance improvements, as listed below:

– Ability to expand the width of the Inspector to view and adjust effect parameters
– Fixes issues with updating older libraries
– Faster redraw of audio waveforms when using clips that are being imported while recorded to disk
– Diamond icon in the Timeline Index to show when the user has modified display of roles in the timeline
– More color options in the Role Editor
– Reveal in Browser correctly displays the location of the original clip in the browser
– Support for Canon Log 3 and Sony S-Log3/S-Gamut3 log processing
– Resolves an issue in which the viewer could occasionally disappear when exiting full screen
– Resolves issues in which Share to DVD could become unresponsive
– Improves font quality of DVD menu and chapter titles
– Improves image quality when creating a DVD
– Enhanced DVD User dialog messages with embedded links to documentation

iMovie for Mac is provided for free to those who purchase a new machine, and it can also be downloaded from the Mac App Store for $14.99. [Direct Link]

Final Cut Pro can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for $299.99. [Direct Link]

Tag: iMovie
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Space Flier ‘Hyperburner’ Named App of the Week, Available for Free

Indie high-speed space flier Hyperburner has been named Apple’s App of the Week, and as a result, it will be available for free for the next seven days. Normally priced at $2.99, this is the first time Hyperburner has been available for free since it was released in June of 2016.

In Hyperburner, players take control of a spaceship in a distant colonial solar system. The idea is to navigate the ship through an increasingly dangerous series of courses, unlocking improved ships and endless gameplay modes as the game progresses.

Hyperburner features fast-paced gameplay, instant respawns, simple and customizable controls, and six zones to complete. Our sister site TouchArcade gave Hyperburner four and a half out of five stars, praising both the level design and the soundtrack.

Each zone has its own signature art style, complete with unique hazards to face. Said objects might be moving or static, but either way it’s going to take some skill to navigate around them. The patterns are wonderfully crafted, almost puzzle-like — so there’s no feeling of cheap deaths or haphazard design flaws. Every death is your fault, and betters you in some manner. There’s only several worlds but each one looks entirely different, almost like a different game in a way.

They throw a lot of very tight “thread the needle” type of situations at players constantly, forcing people to learn from their mistakes as they hit that replay button over and over. It’s addicting and beautiful at the same time.

Hyperburner will be available for free until next Thursday, when a new App of the Week is chosen. It can be downloaded from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Tags: App Store, App of the Week
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Oniri Islands: Children of the River is a wondrous adventure (App Preview)

During my time at this year’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, I came across a lot of new and interesting Android games and apps from both popular developers and new studios alike. There was one game that stood out to me the most, however, due to its unique concept and excellent execution. Oniri Islands: Children of the River by Tourmaline Studio, based in Geneva, is a toys-to-life game similar to Skylanders made for Android and iOS tablets. The focus of the game is on cooperative puzzles and following a narrative, and is aimed for kids but can be enjoyed by all. The developers are currently hosting a Kickstarter for the game, in order to fund mass production of the toys themselves.

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The big feature that made Oniri Islands stand out, to me at least, is the figurine-based controls for the game. The two characters are controlled by small toy versions of themselves that feature no electronics at all, but instead, a unique base design that allows the game to differentiate between the two characters, as well as their position on the screen. This makes the toys much cheaper, and easier to produce and also makes it harder for them to be broken with rough play from kids. The toys also feature accessory masks that tie into the story of the game but are purely cosmetic and don’t add any functionality to the toys themselves. This unique control scheme adds a layer of deeper interactivity and cooperation to gameplay, as you need two players to move the pieces to progress and solve puzzles.

The toys themselves work very well as “controllers” for the game. especially for having no electronics to connect directly to the tablet. Navigating and rotating the pieces to progress was simple and intuitive, and the game does a good job of not holding your hand through tutorials and instead letting you learn through play. There were some small hitches in using the toys, where my tablet would not always pick them up on screen or wouldn’t exactly follow my movements, but they weren’t frequent and were easily resolved by picking up the piece and putting it back in place. Small kids may have some difficulty at first, but with parental help, they should quickly get the hang of playing the game.

I will say that this game should be played on the largest screen you can get. Tablets larger than six inches are preferred, as the play screen is quickly taken up by hands and pieces on a smaller tablet or smartphone. Also, be mindful of swiping down the notification shade or hitting the on-screen navigation buttons by mistake as well. I had some early growing pains accidentally dropping the shade down, but you can adjust easily enough to avoid interrupting play.

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As far as the game itself, it is a simple story about a brother and sister navigating across a fantasy island full of magic and adventure trying to get home. The art style is stunning, with beautiful backgrounds and cute characters that should appeal to anyone’s tastes. The game has a fully voiced narration that is well done and doesn’t get in the way of enjoying the game at all, and the music is top notch as well, featuring an appropriate amount of whimsy and fitting the island setting.

The game spans 6 levels that each take about 30 minutes to complete, which is great for keeping kids engaged without wearing out their attention spans. The core gameplay is cooperative navigation, exploration, and puzzle-solving. no violence and kid-friendly difficulty of course. There are magical powers that come into play as well, upping the challenge and diversifying the puzzles to keep things fresh. In terms of replayability, I can see kids wanting to replay this one for sure. I would hope that the developers consider adding more content post-launch to further encourage a return trip to Oniri Islands.

The developer’s Kickstarter is currently underway, and as of writing is very close to reaching their $29,958 goal. The campaign is to facilitate mass production of the toys and materials. The game itself is developed and fully playable, with a launch window aimed at November according to the Kickstarter page. I had a chance to play the game with the developers at GDC, as well as at home with a review sample. Both times I played I was genuinely surprised and impressed with the game and it’s a unique concept, and that’s the reason I did this app preview because I am genuinely hopeful that their campaign is successful because unique ideas and good game development deserve a chance to be seen by everyone. The project ends on Tuesday, April 18th, check it out here.

If you’re looking for a fun and new experience for you and your kids to enjoy together, I’d definitely recommend checking out this game, and even consider backing their Kickstarter before it’s over. Check back here once the game launches to see a full review of the game!

Gear Up: Caseology cases for LG G6 and other flagships

Are you the proud owner of a new LG G6 smartphone? What are you using to protect that flagship device? As delicate and sleek as that phone is, the last thing you want to do is drop it or scuff its surface. You’ll want to get a case on that thing as soon as possible.

Caseology has a pair of cases for the LG G6 which we think you’d be interested in checking out. We were sent samples of the Parallax and Vault cases and have been testing them out for the last few days. Both, as we see it, are excellent choices for customers looking to cover up the G6.

Parallax

With a diamond pattern that can be felt in your hand, this one has Military Grade protection to keep your phone safe and secure. Its slim profile and somewhat grippy material are a pleasure to hold, and keep the device from feeling bulky. Available in black, burgundy, and navy blue, the Parallax runs about $20 through Caseology’s website. Head to Amazon, though, and you can likely find it for around $15.

Vault

Equally slim and low profile, the Vault is made from a TPU/Polycarbonate material that looks like brushed aluminum. The overall aesthetic looks great against any color variation of the phone with the cutouts letting the gorgeous phone peek through in just the right amount. And, while it is light and rather flexible, the case is strong enough to take scrapes and general abuse. Offered in black, you can buy this one from Caseology for $20. Amazon is currently selling them for only $11, about half price.

Caseology has a wide variety of cases for not only LG phones, but Samsung, Apple, Pixel, and more. Most of the devices supported include the Parallax and Vault models. Heck, there’s even a screen protector for the Nintendo Switch, too. Be sure to check out its growing portfolio.

Dell’s 30-inch, 4K OLED monitor is set to rise again — $1,500 cheaper

Why it matters to you

If you have deep pockets and want one of the biggest OLED monitors in the world, Dell’s 30-inch Ultrasharp monitor is now available.

Although Dell purportedly had a lot of difficulties producing the super-sized, 30-inch, 4K OLED panel it talked about at the Consumer Electronics Show 2016, the UP3017Q is going to go on sale after all. We heard very little about the high-end display since its unveiling, and earlier this year we thought it had been canceled. Not so, it seems, as Dell is going to sell it after all –and will do so much cheaper than originally planned.

The Dell UP3017Q OLED display first made its appearance at last year’s CES and was an impressive sight. At the time, it had a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels, a response time of 0.1ms, a refresh rate of 120Hz, and 100 percent coverage of the Adobe RGB color space. Most of that hasn’t changed, though the refresh rate has now been dropped.

Despite all those high-end specs, there was said to be a problem with color drift at certain angles. But now Dell has begun shipping the display with a price tag of $3,500 too, which is $1,500 less than the originally stated price.

You can order one of these monitors right now from Dell’s official site and earn up to $210 back in rewards, so theoretically you could pick it up for a little over $3,000. There are also the typical financing options if you want to spread the cost a little.

The official specifications are much the same as originally detailed. The listing has it as a 30-inch OLED panel at 4K resolution (3840 x 2160). It only operates at 60Hz now, but has a huge 1 million-to-1 contrast ratio and a response time as low as 0.1ms. The pixel density is said to be 147PPI.

Connectivity wise it comes with an HDMI 2.0 connector, a single mini DisplayPort 1.2 connector and a USB Type-C port.

For anyone concerned about the potential for problems with this display, Dell is also offering a three-year advanced exchange service with its Premium Panel Guarantee and Dell ProSupport, which are included as standard.

The original story about this monitor that suggested it had serious issues, was broken by Les Numériques (via TechReport). Color drift on these sort of panels is something we’ve heard about before in relation to OLED technology and is likely one of the reasons that we have seen so few larger-sized OLED monitors in recent years.

Still, it seems Dell figured out a way around the problem and it didn’t involve raising the price tag either. If you want to spend upward of $5,000 on a Dell panel though, we saw some that fit the bill at CES 2017, including Dell’s brand-new 8K, 32-inch monitor.