Every PlayStation VR game with HOTAS support

If you’re going to fly in VR, you might as well go all in and pick up a HOTAS.

In much the same way that racing wheels with pedals make driving games in VR feel a lot more realistic, flight games in VR are improved dramatically when you add a Hands On Throttle And Stick (or HOTAS) controller. These controllers allow you to really punch the throttle forward when you want to accelerate, or quickly flip your ship around when fighting in space. You can do these things with a normal controller, but if a game supports HOTAS controllers the difference in how that experience feels in VR is quickly evident.

You can get a HOTAS controller for the PlayStation 4 for fairly cheap, but not every game supports this hardware. Here’s a quick list of the PlayStation VR games offering HOTAS support now, planning to offer support later, or launching later this year with support planned out of the box.

Read more at VR Heads!

Google Trips gets new ways to make your next vacation better

New features let you find and share everything easier to make a vacation stress-free like it should be.

Planning your vacation can be a lot of work. And when you’re done figuring it all out you need to get it organized and put somewhere that you can use it. Google Trips can help and some new features make it even easier.

Keeping track of your reservations is now easier because everything is in one place in one app. The new Google Trips keeps it all on one tab and lets you share any of it with the tap of a button. The person you’re sharing with will get an email with all the details, and see them in the Google Trips app as well.

The best travel apps for Android

The next new feature lets you instantly update details for flights, car rentals, and hotel or restaurant reservations even if you haven’t received any confirmation. Press the plus button while you’re in the reservation section and enter all the details.You can even add notes that don’t fit into a specific category.

Crowdsourcing is a great way to discover new things and you can now download destinations that have trended towards the top.

Finally, train and bus reservations are organized right along with flight and hotel reservations.

Having an app that keeps all your travel plans in one place makes things easier for everyone traveling. Being able to download it all so you can see it when you don’t have a connection makes it even better. With these new features, Google Trips is the app you need to use for your next vacation.

Will Google launch its own Bluetooth headphones soon? (Probably not)

The internet lit up this afternoon at the thought of new hardware from Google, but unfortunately, things are not what they seem.

Liliputing spotted a new product that recently passed through the Federal Communication Commission: a pair of Google-branded, over-ear headphones with active noise-canceling, a built-in microphone, and Micro USB charging. There were even images that showed the headphones, which have the model number GID5B and also include a traditional audio cable, with Google’s trademark colours surrounding the power button.

• Google may release three Pixel devices this year
• Google teams up with Yi to launch new Jump VR camera rig for pros

Everybody assumed that meant Google had secretly developed new wireless hardware for consumers, or at the very least, it made some swag gear for its upcoming Google I/O event in May. But, at the same time, they looked a little boring, and so it wasn’t long before reports came out that dashed all our hopes. Android Police noted the headphones are probably an upgrade to existing headphones that Google gives to its employees.

Google

So, good for them, but boo for us. We’ve contacted Google for a comment and will keep you posted as we learn more. In the meantime, check out Pocket-lint’s Google I/O 2017 round-up to see what else the company might actually announce for consumers.

• Google I/O 2017 developer event will be held on 17-19 May

Google Home just became the perfect sous-chef for your kitchen

Google Home now serves up numerous guided recipe instructions.

Anyone who owns a voice-activated smart speaker, including Amazon Echo, knows it’s perfect for the kitchen. Don’t know how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon? Ask your speaker. Want to set a timer? Ask your speaker. Want to cook a pizza? Ask your speaker for a recipe. Unfortunately, Google Home’s assistant had trouble with that last bit. While Alexa could tap into Allrecipe to serve up 60,000 recipes, Google Assistant was more limited in what it could do.

Until now. Google has expanded the number of recipes available on Google Assistant by adding step-by-step instructions for “more than 5 million” meals. All you have to do is say “OK Google, let’s make a chocolate cake.” Or, you can say “Send to Google Home” so that you can view the recipe using the Google Search app on iOS and Android. Either way, Google Assistant on Google Home will walk you through the recipe when it hears relevant commands.

• Amazon Echo vs Amazon Tap vs Echo Dot: What’s the difference?
• Amazon’s Alexa adds Allrecipes skill to help you cook over 60,000 recipes

Say “OK Google, start cooking” to get a break down, and you can say “OK Google, repeat” to hear the last step once more. You can even say “Ok=K Google, what’s step three?” While Google Home could access a few recipes before, this latest update is a dramatic expansion that pulls from several big publishers, including “Bon Appetit, The New York Times, Food Network, and more”, Google explained.

Google said this update will roll out over the coming weeks.

Lenovo’s entry-level Moto E4 and Moto E4 Plus revealed in spec leak

Details on the new entry-level Moto E phones from Lenovo-owned Motorola have leaked out.

The upcoming budget smartphones, likely called a Moto E4 and Moto E4 Plus, will be Android 7.1 devices, according to the German website Winfuture.de. The smaller Moto E4 will not be too different from last year’s Moto E3, as it’ll feature the same 5-inch HD display and 2,800mAh battery. It will however have 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, whereas the Moto E3 only had 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage.

• Motorola budget phones, Moto C and Moto C Plus, revealed in new leak
• Motorola Moto E3 (2016) vs Moto G3 (2015): What’s the difference?

The Moto E4 sounds more interesting. It’ll have a 5.5-inch 720p display and a whopping 5,000mAh battery. It’ll also feature 3GB of RAM (with a 2GB option) and a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera. The standard Moto E4 is expected to have a 8-megapixel rear snapper. Other specs for both Moto E4 and Moto E4 Plus include a 1.3 GHz MediaTek MT6737M quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 chip and a 5-megapixel selfie camera. The Moto E4 Plus will also include 16GB of storage.

There’s no word yet on US pricing, but the Moto E4 and Moto E4 Plus will reportedly cost €150 and €190 in Europe, respectively. Keep in mind VentureBeat’s Evan Blass has already leaked out images of the devices, pictured above.

We’ll keep you posted as we learn more.

DJI sends out invites for 24 May event likely for tiny new drone

DJI has invited the media to an event in New York City.

The event will take place on 24 May. Other than that, we don’t know much else else. The invite states “seize the moment” in all caps, and then asks journalists to join the drone-maker for a “big” (again, in all caps) announcement. All we have to gone on is the current crop of circulating rumours, which seem to think DJI will come out with its smallest drone yet, though that kind of goes against the “big” theme DJI is pushing.

Keep in mind a recent leaked images of a new DJI device, supposedly called the Spark, appeared on Chinese DJI forums. It appeared to be a drone with the same foldable design of the Mavic Pro, only smaller. A leaked video of the drone also showed that it can be hand-held and has a vertical-tilting camera. Already there’s a lot of speculation floating about whether it’s a low-cost “selfie” drone or one meant for racing.

• Best drone photos ever: Stunning images taken from up high
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To be clear, it’s unknown if Spark will definitely have foldable arms, considering it looks so mini. We also don’t know anything about the controller and whether it comes with a companion app or not. There’s a lot of unknowns right now. DJI hasn’t even confirmed the Spark or that it is working on a new drone, of course, but it did recently trademark the name “Spark”. So, that’s something at least.

The Mavic Pro was DJI’s smallest drone when it released. We imagine the Spark will be available at a cheaper price point for those unwilling to drop $1,000 on a Mavic Pro. Check out Pocket-lint’s Best Drones guide to see what else the Spark may go up against.

Google Trips is now more helpful for anyone afraid to fly

Last year, Google released Trips, an app for iOS and Android that helps you keep track of your itinerary while traveling. It automatically collects information from your Gmail inbox, organizes it and makes it available offline. It even offers suggestions on things to see and do. Now, it’s getting some new features that will make it an even better vacation guide.

Trips will now let you make manual changes to your itineraries. By tapping the “+” button in the bottom right corner, you can add new details like your airline and flight number, or the name of your hotel, even if you don’t have an email confirmation. Also, if you’re traveling by train or bus, Trips will now organize those reservations for you. Previously, it only handled flight, hotel, car and restaurant reservations. Another new feature lets you share your itineraries with others, something that’s no doubt useful if you’re traveling in a group.

While today’s changes bring it more in-line with competing travel apps like TripIt, Trips likely has little appeal for anyone outside of the Google ecosystem. Thanks to Google’s vast amount of location data, however, it has an impressive list of restaurants, activities and landmarks, and it will personalize suggestions based on your interests. That alone might make it worth looking into if you’re in the market for a new travel app.

Via: The Verge

Source: Google Blog

FCC Chairman outlines his plan to gut net neutrality

The future of net neutrality has been uncertain since the November election of Donald Trump. His FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, has made it clear he intends to scale back some of the regulations surrounding ISPs, but details have been scarce. Now we have an idea of the framework the commission will be pursue, and it begins with revoking the classification of ISPs as a “common carrier” service under Title II, which has essentially treated the internet as a public utility for the last two years.

In a roving speech at Washington DC’s Newseum, hosted by the conservative think tank Freedom Works, Pai argued that under president Obama and former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler the agency departed with a decades old “light touch regulatory framework… which enabled the Internet to grow and evolve beyond almost anyone’s expectations.”

The core of his plan is to shift internet back to being a Title I “information” service, as laid out under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. That would dramatically reduce regulation around the industry and, he argues, spur new investment — particularly in infrastructure. Pai claimed that Title II was a solution in search of a problem, enacted to prevent “hypothetical harms and hysterical prophecies of doom,” while stifling innovation. Removing the regulations could ease the burden on small ISPs that serve limited communities, but it also makes it easier for large conglomerates like Comcast (which owns NBC) to give it priority to its own content over that from say Netflix.

The second element of Pai’s proposal is to rescind the “internet conduct standard,” the rule that allowed the FCC to investigate so-called “zero-rating” plans that exclude certain services from monthly data caps. The chairman already announced that he would be ending those investigations, and now he’s proposing to eliminate the rule that led to them. He painted the investigations as regulatory overreach that not only harmed, but actually attacked consumers who were receiving services they like for free under the plans. However, net neutrality supporters like Public Knowledge’s general counsel Ryan Clough says if providers are allowed to zero rate their own video services, they are “effectively charge[ing] customers more to access competing services,” — exactly the sort of “hypothetical harm” that many hoped to prevent by turning to Title II regulations.

Lastly, Pai said the FCC would be “seeking comment” on how to deal with the “bright-line rules” adopted as part of net neutrality in 2015. Those rules are seen as core to the concept of net neutrality. They state clearly that there should be:

• No blocking: broadband providers may not block access to legal content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices.
• No throttling: broadband providers may not impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic on the basis of content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices.
• No paid prioritization: broadband providers may not favor some lawful Internet traffic over other lawful traffic in exchange for consideration of any kind—in other words, no “fast lanes.” This rule also bans ISPs from prioritizing content and services of their affiliates.

A byproduct of these changes is that the FTC would now be in charge of handling privacy complaints. The FCC and Trump administration in general has already courted controversy over its handling of internet privacy rules, and it’s unlikely that shifting the responsibility to the FTC will silence critics.

Many details of the plan are still unclear, and Pai isn’t rushing to push the new rules through without some input from the other commissioners and the public. Rather than use a “Declaratory Ruling” to reverse Title II immediately, the chairman is submitting a “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” (which will be released in its entirety Thursday April 27th). The document must go before the full panel of FCC commissioners for a vote and then, if adopted it would be opened for comment from the public.

Pai appeared to be making an effort to increase transparency at the agency and to offer room for discussion around his proposal. However, he was also quick to dismiss supporters of net neutrality and Title II in particular. Despite years of grassroots activists and internet companies pushing for strict net neutrality rules and Title II regulations, Pai insisted that the move was not about protecting consumers, but a political move meant to “energize a dispirited base” “after a disappointing 2014 midterm election.” FCC commissioner Michael O’Rielly followed Pai with a speech of his own, in which he suggested the commission shouldn’t take into consideration the millions of comments it received in support of net neutrality.

The new proposed rules had plenty of supporters in attendance at the event, including representatives of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, Americans for Tax Reform, National Grange and the American Consumer Institute. But already opponents are piling up. The American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation have already voiced their concern, as has the the Internet Association, a lobbying group that represents tech companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google. Democratic senators Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Al Franken of Minnesota released statement condemning the plan within minutes of Pai’s speech ending. Senator Franken warned ominously that, “getting rid of net neutrality would destroy the internet as we know it.”

With the initial vote on Chairman Pai’s proposed rule changes will take place on May 18th and plenty of debate is likely to follow in the coming months.

Source: C-SPAN

Air Force enlists hackers to hunt bugs in its site

Bug bounties have been a staple among startups and online businesses since the days of Netscape Navigator but the federal government has been slow to adopt the beneficial code hunts. However, a year after the DoD’s first such program, Hack The Pentagon, the Air Force announced on Wednesday that it will be hosting one of its own next month.

The USAF will open a select number of its public-facing pages for the program. Should a hacker find vulnerabilities within any of them, they’ll be able to trade that information for cash. And while it isn’t the first branch of the military to host a bug bounty (the Army launched one as well last November), it will be the first to open it to international hackers. Folks from Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand will all be allowed to participate. Even active duty servicemen will be allowed to compete, though Pentagon rules prevent them from claiming the prize money.

HackerOne will administer the bug hunt with registration opening on May 15th. The program itself will run from May 30th through June 23rd, 2017.

Source: TechCrunch

Watch David Hasselhoff in an AI-scripted short film

Robots are slowly taking more and more jobs — and soon, they’ll come for the writers (gulp). That’s the pitch behind director Oscar Sharp and AI researcher Ross Goodwin’s short film It’s No Game, in which an artificial intelligence swoops in during a Hollywood writer’s strike to pen a script for the immortal David Hasselhoff. But the video is something of a meta rabbit hole itself, as all of the Hoff’s dialogue was written by an AI called Benjamin, which was built to scribe an experimental short film last year. Whoa.

To make Benjamin, Sharp and Goodwin took a neural network, fed it a bunch of science fiction films and dribbled in plot hooks from a writing contest. Then they had it create a script for their sci-fi tale Sunspring, which was released last year. The film, featuring Silicon Valley’s Thomas Middleditch, is an enjoyably incoherent mess that somehow gets across its characters’ emotional journeys. But the short film It’s No Game goes deeper down the meta-hole, inserting Sunspring into its plot as a world-changing film that leads the Benjamin AI to take over people’s actions — and write the dialogue for the drama of their lives.

To sum up this meta-tangled mess: A director and AI researcher built an artificial intelligence that wrote a bonkers script for one film, then the humans had it write another one with even more self-aware references and commentary. “Who am I?” Hasselhoff asks the camera at the end of It’s No Game after he’s been puppeteered by AI-controlled nanobots. Then he gets up and walks away wearing his iconic red Baywatch shorts.

Via: Ars Technica

Source: It’s No Game (YouTube)