Arm-mounted underwater jet drive looks like it came from a James Bond movie

Why it matters to you

Because who hasn’t wanted to be propelled through the water via arm-worn jet propulsion like a superhero or a 1960s British spy?

We can just see “Q” saying, “Now pay attention, 007!” to Mr. Bond while showing off this new device.

Resembling something straight out of a Sean Connery-era James Bond movie, Scubalec is an exciting new Kickstarter crowdfunding project for a handheld, arm-mounted personal jet drive, designed to propel intrepid users through the water.

“People go snorkeling because it’s a great way to explore the underwater world,” creator Un-Yong Park told Digital Trends. “For those people who love snorkeling, we’ve created a handy device to bring even more fun to the underwater experience. Simply put Scubalec on your arm, and it pulls you just in the direction you point, easy and simple.”

The Scubalec comprises two small jet drives combined with a 7.500 mA/h lithium-ion battery that, fully charged, will provide a running time of 10-12 minutes’ worth of continuous propulsion. Park describes the experience of using it as being “like a cyclist with a tailwind on their back.”

To give it a suitably retro appearance (did we mention this looks like something out of an old spy movie?), Park took his design inspiration from the iconic P-51 Mustang, a single seat fighter aircraft used in World War II, and active from the 1940s through the 60s. The result is undeniably neat, and sure to be an attention-grabber on your next family vacation.

Currently the Scubalec project has raised around one third of its 10,000-euro ($10,700) target, with 28 days still to go. A pledge of $297 will secure you a Scubalec and wall charger, with postage included. Shipping is set for this June.

A more expensive option with an extra battery is also available. You know, in case whichever megalomaniacal evil villain’s island volcano base you’re headed toward happens to be more than 10-12 minutes’ swim away.

Just remember to wear your freshly ironed white dinner jacket and ruffled shirt under your wetsuit, so you’re good to go the moment that you arrive on dry land.

Facebook’s new Surround 360 VR cameras will go on sale this year

Facebook just introduced a second-generation Surround 360.

The social network is kicking off the second day of its (mostly) annual F8 developer conference, and buried in a flurry of updates and sessions there was an announcement that the Surround 360, which Facebook unveiled last year as an open-source VR camera for others, has a successor. Actually, it has two successors: a larger version called x24 and a smaller, more portable version called x6.

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The x24 has a 24-camera array laid out in an orb, rather than the original 17 cameras arranged in a saucer-shape, while the x6 has six cameras. Last year, Facebook released design schematics for the Surround 360, but now, it’s partnering with hardware manufactures to bring the products to market later this year. Facebook said that it won’t sell the cameras directly, according to The Verge.

Although it didn’t confirm whether they’d still sport the Facebook-brand, the finished products will be entirely based off Facebook’s design and spec guides. The x24 and x6 can capture in 8K with six degrees of freedom (6DOF), which will allow you to move your body all around as long as you’re wearing a VR headset with positional tracking. The Oculus Rift, for instance, would work.

Facebook

Your average consumer probably won’t buy these basketball-ball shaped 360-degree video cameras, however. They’re professional-grade cameras for high-end image makers and cinematographers. They capture rich depth information and use software that better understands light data and the depth of objects, but footage can still play back in Facebook’s News Feed as standard 360 video.

They can even play back in Gear VR as stereoscopic 3D-360. Keep in mind that with each step down, viewers will lose head and body tracking, etc. Nevertheless, Facebook said these cameras should have big impacts on the 360-degree format, giving developers the ability to create more engaging videos, including ones that will let you move around inside live-action scenes.

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The cameras will even let video-makers edit live-action captures with CGI imagery. And finally, Facebook confirmed that the x24 and x6, which don’t yet have firm pricing or release dates, won’t replace the original Surround 360, which is now called Surround 360 Open Edition. 

Capcom’s collection of Disney NES games does retro gaming right

Recapturing the feeling of playing video games of bygone eras is no easy task. Sure, a simple emulator can technically drag ancient software to modern television screens, but anyone who grew up playing 8-bit games can tell you the experience isn’t always the same. Pixel-perfect presentations can sometimes lack the nostalgic charm of the distorted, fuzzy tube TVs old games were originally designed for. That’s one of the things that makes Capcom’s Disney Afternoon Collection so special. It doesn’t just collect Ducktales, Rescue Rangers and other iconic NES Disney games in convenient one package — it wraps them in the style, context and visual limitations of the 1990s.

Everything about this Disney collection harkens back to the 1990s in some way — from the neon-triangle game logo and sprinkle-confetti menu backgrounds to the 8-bit music, classic gameplay and retro visual filters. From the moment the game first boots up, it’s poised to put the player in the mindset of the games’ original era. This is part of developer Digital Eclipse’s four-point philosophy of classic game re-releases: Accuracy, Context, Presentation and Sustainability. “All of our philosophies go back to artistic intent,” Frank Cifaldi told Engadget. As Digital Eclipse’s Head of Restoration and the founder of The Video Game History Foundation, he has a passion for preserving classic games as they were intended to be experienced. Figuring out how to do that is a lot more complicated than just putting old code on new screens.

“I don’t think that there’s a definitive answer to the artistic intent of graphics of an NES game,” Cifaldi says. “If you rounded up everyone who worked on these games, you’d get some different answers.” That’s why games built on the developer’s Eclipse engine, like The Disney Afternoon Collection and Mega Man Legacy Collection, allow users to choose from multiple visual modes — including an unfiltered view, a TV mode with CRT effects and a simple scanline “monitor.” setting. That same commitment to artistic intent, however, is also why other display modes were left out.

“When you play an NES game on an emulator, typically every pixel is exactly square,” he says. “But if you were to actually display an NES game on a CRT, it’s a little bit wider than that.” The kind of pixel-perfect displays we use today just weren’t available when these games were originally released, and many developers likely built games with the limitations of CRT monitors in mind. That’s why the Eclipse engine uses pixels that are just slightly wider than they are tall, and and include light color bleeding and afterimage effects in its TV filter mode. “We’re bringing these games back to the way they were meant to be viewed.”

At the same time, Cifaldi couches the developer’s artistic choices with caution. “I put air quotes around that,” he says, repeating that there’s no true, definitive catch-all answer for how old games are supposed to look. “You just have to sort of make a series of decisions that all revolve around what is artistic intent and what is the best player experience.”

When Digital Eclipse developed its retro game porting engine for Megaman Legacy Collection, that meant making stylistic choices that lend the games a CRT feel even when played on a high definition screen. It’s an effort less about simulating ancient TV technology than it is about tricking the eye. “That ghosting that we do? Totally inaccurate. That’s not the ghosting that you would see on a CRT, but it still looks like it to you, right?” It does. The effects developed for the company’s Megaman project carry over well to The Disney Afternoon Collection, presenting the classic games with a subtle TV filter that, despite technically distorting each game’s graphics, make them look better than they might as pure pixel output. At least to some eyes.

This attention to detail given to the games’ visuals are fantastic, but in some ways it’s just a cherry on top of an otherwise great package. Underscored with remixed chiptune music, the game’s neon menu draws users into the 90s mindset, and a digital museum of game boxes, retro advertisements and development artwork provide ample context for the era these games were made in. Even for those unconcerned with the history of the games, it’s a good value, offering a handful of excellent, but rare Nintendo classics for $20.

Any Nintendo fan who grew up watching the Disney Afternoon would be remiss not to look into this collection. Ducktales and its sequel are both solid platformers in their own right, as are Darkwing Duck and both Rescue Rangers games. Heck, even TaleSpin is pretty good once you get past the first level — but Digital Eclipse’s work on the Disney Afternoon Collection also serves as an example of what passionate retro gamers can do if they have the resources and support of the original license holders. “We think about this stuff more than most humans should think about it,” Cifaldi says. “How to like, accurately present an NES game. That’s just our passion, that’s where we come from.” The passion shows.

Facebook details its plans for a brain-computer interface

Facebook wants you to use your brain to interact with your computer. Specifically, instead of using something primitive like a screen or a controller, the company is looking into ways that you and I can interact with our PCs or phones just by using our mind. Regina Dugan, the head of Building 8, the company’s secretive hardware R&D division, delved into this on stage at F8. “What if you could type directly from your brain?” she asks.

In a video demo, Dugan showed the example of a woman in a Stanford lab who is able to type eight words per minute directly with her brain. This means, Dugan says, that you can text your friends without using your phone’s keyboard. She goes on to say that in a few years time, the team expects to demonstrate a real-time silent speech system capable of delivering a hundred words per minute. “That’s five times faster than you can type on your smartphone, and it’s straight from your brain,” she said. “Your brain activity contains more information than what a word sounds like and how it’s spelled; it also contains semantic information of what those words means.”

And that’s not all. Dugan adds that it’s also possible to “listen” to human speech by using your skin. It’s like using Braille, but through a system of actuators and sensors. Dugan showed a video example of how a woman could figure out exactly what objects were selected on a touchscreen based on inputs delivered through a connected armband. The armband’s system of actuators was tuned to 16 frequency bands, and has a tactile vocabulary of nine words, learned in about an hour.

This, Dugan says, also has the potential of removing language barriers. “You could think in Mandarin, but feel in Spanish,” she said. “We are wired to communicate and connect.”

Of course, a lot of this tech is still a few years out. And this is just a small sample of what Dugan has been working on since she joined Facebook in April 2016. She served as the 19th Director of the United States’ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and she’s the former head of Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group (no big deal).

The stuff that Facebook is creating at Building 8 is modeled after DARPA, and would integrate both mind and body. “Our world is both digital and physical,” she said, saying there’s no need to put down your phone in order to communicate with the people in front of you. That is a false choice, she said, because you need both. “Our goal is to create and ship new, category-defining consumer products that are social first, at scale,” she said. “We can honor the intimacy of what’s timeless, and also create products that refuse to accept that false choice.”

In a Facebook post, CEO Mark Zuckerberg states: “Our brains produce enough data to stream 4 HD movies every second. The problem is that the best way we have to get information out into the world — speech — can only transmit about the same amount of data as a 1980s modem. We’re working on a system that will let you type straight from your brain about 5x faster than you can type on your phone today. Eventually, we want to turn it into a wearable technology that can be manufactured at scale. Even a simple yes/no “brain click” would help make things like augmented reality feel much more natural.”

Click here to catch up on the latest news from F8 2017!

Source: Facebook

Sling TV streams live broadcasts to your LG Smart TV

If you’re a cord cutter, you no longer have to worry about buying a dedicated media player just to watch live broadcasts on your LG TV. Sling TV’s internet-only service is now available on “most” of LG’s 2016-era webOS sets as an app, with 2017 models due to get it in the months ahead. In theory, that puts internet -only viewing just a launch bar shortcut away.

This isn’t Sling’s first TV integration, but it’s an important one. It’s helping to create a future where you can assume that your TV set can handle any kind of live broadcast, whether it’s online or from a cable box. And of course, it’s important for Sling as well — this opens the doors to people who might not even realize that Sling TV exists, or aren’t willing to pay for a separate device just to get live channels.

Source: Sling

I don’t want to live inside Facebook’s vision for social VR

Over the last few decades, there have been several attempts to merge the mundane aspects of the real world with the digital. All of these, while catering to a niche, have failed to conquer the world in the way that Mark Zuckerberg hopes that Facebook’s social VR efforts will.

Facebook Spaces was announced at the social network’s F8 conference as a way of blending social media and virtual reality. If you own an Oculus Rift (and Touch controllers), you and four friends can enter a virtual world and hang out together.

Unfortunately, hanging out mostly constitutes of chatting, taking “selfies*” and enjoying the virtual world around you. Oh, and it’s not you, per se, but a cartoon caricature that you control; a dead-eyed digital mannequin that smiles blankly at everyone in the desperate hope that you won’t find it creepy.

Unfortunately, Spaces falls into the same trap that so many other platforms have over the years, assuming that people want the digital world to be a surrogate for the real. And that people have the time and energy to sit around talking to a cartoon with their friend’s voice through thousands of dollars worth of equipment.

Whenever a high-minded tech company makes proclamations about the future of social interaction, I’m reminded of Second Life. Founded more than a decade ago, the title was an open world platform that enabled strangers across the world to come together. It was touted as a digital utopia, a place where you were free to create whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, however you wanted. Your digital avatar could even fly around the Second Life universe, interacting with people from across the globe.

But in reality, this utopianism was misplaced, and the environment, even during its boom years, was stale and empty. People weren’t all that into into communicating with each other, and the platform gradually became a space for people to develop weird forms of architecture. It became little more than a proto-Minecraft, a gallery space or weird and wonderful designs that few would ever notice. Second Life itself still exists, of course, with around 600,000 monthly active users.

A big part of the internet’s job is to bring people together in ways that we wouldn’t — couldn’t — have conceived a few generations ago. We can now learn so much from people all across the globe and share their experiences, dreams and knowledge. Real-time chat platforms, from IRC to FaceTime, have enabled us to gradually bridge the physical distances that separate us. Still, none are a substitute for real human interaction, face to face, in the real world.

Facebook Spaces, on the other hand, places two more barriers between us and our friends: the bulky VR headset and the digital avatar. Then there are the constraints that Facebook places upon its users. At the moment, Spaces users can’t express sadness or anger. The likelihood of this becoming the new normal for social interactions is about as likely as Disney’s recently shuttered Club Penguin becoming the new Facebook.

Facebook is asking us to take a chunk of our most precious commodity — our attention — and give it entirely to its virtual world. But that world is one step removed from that of the internet, full of (literally) fake people in a fake place. In the demo video, friends gather together a surprise birthday party to take a selfie of themselves on an imaginary boardwalk.

But where is the reality and authenticity in you, and three other people, taking an image of some cartoon avatars in a virtual world? Will you expect that future historians will unearth these images and marvel at the experiences that you pretended to have?

I wonder if I’m wrong, and that people will embrace this in the same way that they have taking pictures from inside video games. But then that, at least, shows a journey that you’re going on — and an appreciation of a particularly engaging sight that’s been created within the game. Imagine the reaction of your friends and family when you show them your vacation shots from the Grand Canyon that you didn’t visit.

Even Mark Zuckerberg knows that Facebook’s Social VR demo, as it is, not the future of how we’re going to interact with one another. Both this year and last, the CEO showed off a rough idea for an augmented reality platform that could work in a pair of glasses. There, you’d never need to buy a TV, just use the AR overlay in the lenses on conjure one up on the wall of your otherwise sparse living room.

Unfortunately, that idea is nowhere near ready for the real world, and Facebook VP Deb Liu told the AP that the journey to that hardware was “just one percent finished.” Imagine, rather than exchanging time-sucking pleasantries with a cartoon avatar while standing on a fake mountaintop, having someone sitting on your couch next to you.

You’d be able to speak to them as if they were in the room, despite being on the other side of the world. But with this (almost) real interaction, you would have real eye contact, real body language and all of the other things that we, as humans, need in order to feel comfortable interacting with one another.

The software and hardware just isn’t there for this sort of platform, and probably won’t be for a very long time. But that, not Facebook Spaces, is the vision of social VR that I can get behind.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from F8 2017!

* Technically not a selfie, since it’s not the person taking a photo.

Throw more money at your favorite Twitch streams

If you’re eager to regularly support a partnered Twitch streamer beyond the usual $5 per month subscription, you don’t have many options. You can send them some bits, of course, but you’re otherwise left contributing to a Patreon campaign or some other outside fund. However, you’ll soon have a way to show an extra level of kindness. Twitch is launching an opt-in subscriptions beta that adds $10 and $25 monthly options. Naturally, it’s not just the stream host that benefits — you’ll get some perks as well.

Twitch isn’t going into tremendous detail at this stage, but it notes that streamers can provide special emotes to higher-tier subscribers. You could also see new “subscriber roles” at these levels. All of this is optional, though, so you won’t necessarily be pressured into paying more. Partners, meanwhile, can unlock emotes and hit milestones faster — a $10 subscription is treated like two subscribers, while $25 is worth six.

The beta will take a little while to spread, reaching every partnered streamer within “several weeks.”

This is both a competitive move and, arguably, a vital one for the livestreaming crowd. If Twitch can promise more rewards to frequent streamers, it might keep them from switching to Microsoft’s Beam or YouTube. Also, the simple reality is that there are many people who stream on Twitch for a living and have been hampered by the current $5 subscription ceiling. Unless you’re wildly popular, it’s difficult to make a good income without resorting to alternative funding sources and sponsorships. Only a fraction of subscribers are likely to spring for the higher amounts, but it could encourage more people to treat Twitch streaming as a job, not just a hobby.

Source: Twitch (Medium)

Logitech’s Pop buttons can control Apple HomeKit devices

Smart devices give you more control of your home while simultaneously making it more complicated. Logitech launched its Pop Smart Button last year to help simplify things a bit, and now they’ve made it more useful with Apple HomeKit compatibility. That’ll let you control any HomeKit peripheral using the button, including Honeywell Lyric thermostats, Philips Hue Lights, iHome smartplugs and more. There is a catch: You’ll need the Pop button bridge, which will be sold exclusively by Apple to start with.

As before, you can set up the Pop button to do multiple actions like turning on lights, security systems and other things. It already works with non-Apple devices like Sonos music systems, SmartThings devices, Hunter Douglas blinds and Logitech’s own Harmony remotes. HomeKit support gives users a few more options, including Apple TV support and a wider range of peripherals. It comes pre-paired with HomeKit out of the box, so setup is relatively simple, too.

Once set up, you can run three different programs with one button by single-pressing, double-pressing and long-pressing. If that doesn’t cut it, you can simply add extra buttons. Owners of earlier Pop Home Switches can update the software to get compatibility with all new Logitech-supported home devices, but not Apple’s HomeKit, unfortunately.

Logitech’s Pop Smart Button kit starts at $60 including the bridge and one button, and extra buttons (in white, alloy, coral and teal) run $40 each. As mentioned, they’ll be exclusively at Apple Stores and Apple.com soon, and coming to other retailers “later this year,” Logitech says.

Source: Logitech

Chinese EV supercar maker is prepping an all-electric SUV

If you’re an automaker, you can’t just come right out of the gate with a supercar if you’re expecting mass adoption. Well, you can, but maybe it isn’t the wisest move? To that end, Chinese upstart automaker NIO (formerly NextEV) has unveiled the ES8, an all-electric sport-utility vehicle made specifically for its home turf. It’ll fit seven passengers inside its “all-aluminum body and chassis,” according to a press release.

It’s also packing front and rear motors along with all-wheel drive and an air-ride suspension. Unlike, say, the electric SUV that Volkswagen recently announced, this has a swappable battery that NIO says will “provide a charging experience that surpasses refueling at gas stations.” Sounds a bit like how Gogoro is positioning battery changes for its electric scooters. Pre-orders are open now and it’s expected that the ES8 will start rolling out to customers sometime next year, but no price was given.

However, if you were eying the company’s “world’s fastest” EV supercar, the EP9 will go on sale for a cool $1.48 million. The first, limited production run was earmarked for investors NIO says, but now that those six deep-pocketed folks have theirs, the next ten off the assembly line are up for grabs for whoever can afford them. And in case you were worried, each one is built to order. Sure, you’ll have a sizable hole in your pocket, but you can rest easy on that cashmere pillow knowing that the car was made especially for you.

In case this business move sounds familiar (unveil a supercar to gain attention and investors, then show off an SUV that people might actually buy), that’s because the beleaguered Faraday Future did something incredibly similar recently.

As we get further along the path to a future where electric vehicles replace fossil-fueled cars, we’re likely to see the former originating from more places at different prices. Given China’s manufacturing prowess, NIO isn’t likely to be the last we hear of an EV manufacturer coming from the region.

Source: BusinessWire

Bose accused of secretly sharing your listening habits

The podcasts and music you listen to can reveal a lot about your personal and political leanings. That’s the basis of a class-action lawsuit filed against Bose, whose wireless headphone and speaker companion app tracks the listening habits of its users. The complaint claims that Bose not only collects, but transmits and discloses its customers’ private music and audio history to third parties and a data-mining company.

The suit notes that while this sort of data can be valuable to Bose, selling it to third-parties represents a “wholesale disregard for consumer privacy rights,” as well as violating several federal and state laws.

“Indeed, one’s personal audio selections — including music, radio broadcast, podcast, and lecture choices — provide an incredible amount of insight into his or her personality, behavior, political views and personal identity,” the complaint explains.

Bose Connect acts as a companion app to several models of the company’s wireless products, including the well-reviewed QuietComfort 35 headphones. The app provides users with the ability to setup and control parts of their audio experience from a smartphone. During the download and install process, the complaint notes “Bose fails to notify or warn customers that Bose Connect monitors and collects — in real time — the music and audio tracks played through their Bose wireless products. Nor does Bose disclose that it transmits the collected listening data to third parties.”

This isn’t the first time a tech company has come under fire around privacy issues. TV maker Vizio settled with the FTC for $2.2 million in February over claims that it analyzed the viewing habits of its users without consent. Personal vibrator maker We-Vibe also settled a lawsuit over privacy concerns and promised to stop collecting user data.

The current lawsuit seeks an injunction to stop Bose from continuing to track personal data and disclose it, as well as actual and statutory damages. We reached out to Bose for a comment on the matter and we will update this post when we hear back.

Via: Fortune

Source: Bose Privacy Complaint (Scribd)