Acer Leap Ware preview: More a limp than a leap

When Acer CEO Jason Chen showed off the company’s latest wearable, the Leap Ware, at Acer’s annual conference, the slender looking wrist-wearable looked as though it had promise.

That’s often been the case with Acer wearables, however, with the majority of earlier Leap products never then surfacing in the UK for us to get a thorough look in. But, having tinkered with the Leap Ware, that’s probably for the best: this so-called smartwatch is a limp rather than a leap into the wearable market.

Acer Leap Ware preview: Design

Let’s start with the positives. To look at the Leap Ware has got plenty right. Although there’s no definitive specification available at the time of writing, the slender design doesn’t protrude excessively from the wrist, making for an easy-on-the-eye appearance.

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It’s fairly well built, too, with a circular plastic body and metal edging sitting comfortably against the wrist thanks to that snug, slightly stretchy wrist band.

There are two control buttons – the right-hand one when facing which activates a little light to the side of the watch, which is pretty quirky – but the main way to interact with this watch is through its touchscreen.

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The screen itself is fully circular, so there’s no “flat tyre” black bar cut-off towards the bottom, which is good, but the resolution is low, the colours and dull and the brightness limited so it’s not the easiest to see when outside (which is where we played with the preview model).

Acer Leap Ware preview: Software

The biggest issue with the Leap Ware, however, is the slow, slow software. Interacting with the touchscreen feels like dealing with a device many years old given the delay in accessing between screens.

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There are plenty of options to select, including push alerts from your phone (iOS and Android) via the Liquid Leap app, music playback, and fitness – which utilises the built-in heart-rate sensor on the rear to assess your stamina, according to Acer.

Without employing a better-known platform like Android Wear, however, we don’t think many people will have the patience to get past the slowness of the overall experience.

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Sure, the Leap Ware provides plenty of features available at your fingertips – but when the company is delivering true innovations in products like the Predator Triton 700 laptop or Switch 5 2-in-1, it’s almost bizarre to see such a low-end delivering in the wearables market.

Google’s AI and hardware push wasn’t crazy after all

Even though Google released its hardware products (the Home, the Pixel phones and its WiFi router) late last year, it’s not until early this year that we’ll likely see any initial impact on overall revenue. Well, the first quarter of 2017 is over, and it looks like there was, at least a little. Google’s “other revenues” this quarter — which comes from sectors like Play, hardware and cloud — add up to $3 billion this time around, which is a pretty sizable jump from the $2.1 billion from this time last year.

Of course, since these “other revenues” come from such diverse divisions, it’s hard to figure out just what caused the jump. But it does show that Google’s business is more than just search and advertising these days. “Hardware sales continue to be strong,” says CEO Sundar Pichai during the call, hinting that revenue from hardware did contribute quite a bit to the jump in revenue.

That said, advertising continues to be Google’s bread and butter. Out of the $24.7 billion it made this first quarter, $21.4 billion came from advertising. That’s a good 86.5 percent of overall revenue. According to CFO Ruth Porat, much of that is due to mobile search, YouTube and programmatic ads. Indeed, Pichai called out YouTube for its tremendous growth last year, with people watching well over a billion hours worth of online videos on the platform

Alphabet’s “other bets” division, which includes Nest, Fiber and Verily, did make more money year-over-year, with a $244 million revenue compared to $165 million this time last year. Yet, “other bets” continue to be a loss-leader for the company, with a $855 million loss — a jump from the $774 million loss it had last year. Porat says some of the loss can be contributed to the pause in Fiber expansion last year.

“We’re transitioning to an AI-first company,” says Pichai, continuing his mantra from last year. Specifically he called out Google Assistant is now integrated in Android Wear and will be coming soon to Android TV. The company is also investing more in machine learning, AI research and deep neural networks, in the hope to make all of Google’s products that much better.

“We’ll have much more to say at IO next month,” says Pichai, hinting at new announcements at Google’s upcoming developer’s conference in May.

Source: Alphabet

‘Tropes vs. Women in Video Games’ says goodbye

The groundbreaking critical series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games is coming to an official end. “This is one of the most emotionally complicated projects I’ve ever created,” writes creator Anita Sarkeesian in a new note to fans. She’s been looking to finish the series for a while now, thanks to the toll it’s taken on her both personally and professionally. But, while her latest post touches upon the trauma she experienced from angry gamers, the overall focus of the entry is positive and forward looking.

Creating the feminist-infused critical video series took comprehensive research to ensure that a wide range of gaming titles were considered, not just the huge hits like Super Mario Bros., Final Fantasy and The Legend of Zelda. This level of thoroughness also took its toll on Sarkeesian. “Doing meticulous, comprehensive research spanning the entire history of video games as preparation for those episodes was tremendously difficult and time-consuming,” she writes, “but looking back, I believe the results speak for themselves.”

The second season of Tropes vs Women in Video Games includes eight episodes that tend to be shorter and snappier than the ones in the first season, though no less critical. The changed format allowed Sarkeesian to speed up production time, too. The final episode of Season Two, “The Lady Sidekick,” takes a look at how female companions in games are often created as helpless burdens, ego boosters, and gatekeepers for male protagonists.

While Sarkeesian may feel bittersweet about the ending of this significant project, she realizes that it’s time to move on. Tropes is ending, but production team Feminist Frequency has a new series planned that will use its “signature feminist media analysis” to “examine the connection between representations in pop culture and the racism, sexism, and transphobia of our current political climate.”

Sarkeesian argues that her series helped move the conversation forward around video games and feminism. “It hasn’t all been for the better, but some of it definitely has,” she writes. “There are conversations happening now, among players and among creators, that weren’t happening before…” If nothing else, Tropes stands as a solid body of well-researched and argued feminist analysis that helped us all have better conversations.

Source: Feminist Frequency

Show off your 3D art in Tilt Brush’s new online gallery

Google’s VR paint experience Tilt Brush just got a hefty update with a slew of new features that let users tweak the environment for more dynamic lighting and color options. But even more exciting: The community is getting its own Social Website where they can upload their art for others to download and remix themselves.

The app got a multiplayer mode last September, but its new public art-sharing hub might be a more exciting addition. Once a piece is uploaded to the website, anyone can view it in 3D from within their browser, like it and download to add their own flourishes in Tilt Brush. As UploadVR points out, the ability to share these VR-created pieces with the world is long overdue. There’s still crucial social pieces missing, like following accounts and commenting.

REEEMIX! Share your sketches to https://t.co/4IeS4gGgCQ and discover and remix shared artwork in the latest #TiltBrush update. pic.twitter.com/bRxRv6nUxY

— Tilt Brush (@tiltbrush) April 27, 2017

But as Google VR Group Product Manager Jason Toff said on Twitter, pieces uploaded to the site automatically include attribution and have a remixable CC-BY license added by default. That’s good news for online art, which often loses its source as it’s passed around the internet.

💡Lights, 🎥camera, ⚡️action! You can now change the light source locations and colors in your scene with the latest #TiltBrush update. pic.twitter.com/q8B3CBCw2j

— Tilt Brush (@tiltbrush) April 27, 2017

Public gallery aside, the new environmental panel is pretty keen. Users can add a general “sky” and customize it, while lighting gets a whole slew of new options that will look familiar to film and stage tech nerds. Instead of just inserting objects that emanate light, users can drop in key, secondary and fill lighting effects to get that perfect mix of highlight and shadow. Finally, the UI is now more customizable, letting users yank them from deep in the menu to float on their own — or create their own new ones.

Via: UploadVR

Source: Tilt Brush (Twitter)

Nerdcore artist Mega Ran takes us on a Gameboy nostalgia trip

Nerdcore artist Mega Ran has a new video out today and it’s full of Nintendo nostalgia. Church ft. KadeshFlow is a fun homage to the 8-bit visual style popularized by the GameBoy in the late 1980s. In the video, Mega Ran and KadeshFlow make their way through a green dot-matrix world full of retro gaming references to battle ghosts at Alex Trebek’s house (Trebek has been a favored target of the nerdcore community ever since he called them “losers” on an episode of Jeopardy!).

For the uninitiated, nerdcore is a sub-genre of hip-hop obsessed (unsurprisingly) with all things nerdy. Its songs typically focus on pop culture topics like video games, Star Wars, Stranger Things and Harry Potter. Anything an artist feels passionately about is fair game. “Anytime that I can use my platform to make people aware of things they might not be familiar with, and I can do it in an artistic manner, that’s what I’m going to do,” Mega Ran told us in an interview last year. “It’s great to have the kind of freedom we have to talk about whatever we want without having to fall into a format of genre or subject matter limitations.”

“If I can play a part in people being comfortable enough with themselves to talk about the things they love, using the vehicle of rap music, it’s a good thing,” he added. Well, we’re definitely comfortable enough to talk about anything Gameboy and Nerdcore related, so job done Mega Ran?

Source: YouTube

Uber self-driving lead steps aside due to Waymo’s lawsuit

While Waymo — the company formerly known as Google’s self-driving car project — continues to sue Uber over stolen trade secrets, the former employee at the center of its charges will “be recused from all LiDAR-related work and management.” Levandowski left last year to found a self-driving truck company called Otto, which was then purchased by Uber in an arrangement that Waymo lawyers claim was planned as a way to steal thousands of pages of confidential materials. Now Business Insider has obtained an internal memo where he tells employees they’ll be reporting to someone else for the duration of the lawsuit.

For its part, Uber is claiming it uses different LiDAR technology (which enables self-driving cars to see the environment around them) and has even made the argument that Waymo’s implementation is well ahead of the stuff it’s using. Next week the judge in the case is scheduled to rule on an injunction request by Waymo that could remove Levandowski from the project or otherwise cripple Uber’s efforts, while Levandowski recently invoked his Fifth Amendment right to avoid testifying in the case.

Source: Business Insider

Amazon is ‘doubling down’ on the Echo ecosystem

Amazon is off to a profitable start in 2017. The company’s first-quarter sales jumped 23 percent to $35.7 billion, beating analyst expectations, and top executives pinned part of that spike on the Alexa ecosystem.

“We’re very encouraged by the customer response to Echo products,” one exec said during Amazon’s financial call today. “Not only the products, but the ability now to use tablets as Echo devices, since we spread the Alexa technology to many of those devices. We’re also happy with the success we’ve had with developers; there are now more than 12,000 Alexa skills, so we think that’s all foundational.”

Amazon debuted the Echo in 2014, bringing the voice-activated Alexa assistant into people’s homes. Since then, the company has released the $50 Echo Dot and opened up the Alexa software to developers.

Echo and Alexa are crucial areas of investment for Amazon right now. It makes sense, too: As more people adopt Alexa-enabled technologies, Amazon is able to steer those customers toward its own products and services.

“Some of the things that we’re investing the most in are, as you say, the Echo and Alexa devices,” the executive said. “We’re doubling down on that investment.”

Amazon isn’t stopping with Alexa, of course. The company is involved in a multitude of industries, including livestreaming, space, cloud computing, fashion, autonomous driving, drone delivery, bookstores, original programming, experimental grocers, and, of course, online shopping. Thankfully, it seems to be done with the smartphone market for now.

Another major focus for the company going forward is artificial intelligence and machine learning — building up the software that powers Alexa and Amazon Web Services, the popular cloud computing platform. In this sense, Amazon is on the same page as one of its most prominent Silicon Valley neighbors: Google today announced a nearly $1 billion jump in its “other services” sector, which includes AI and hardware endeavors.

Source: Amazon

Apple Celebrates Opening of New Store at Dubai Mall

Apple’s third retail store in the United Arab Emirates opened today at the Dubai Mall, and Apple has shared several photos from its debut on the official Apple news site.

Apple Dubai Mall, located in downtown Dubai, features massive windows with an impressive view of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest structure in the world, along with the Dubai Fountain below. It spans two stories and offers the design that’s been seen in newer stores like Apple Union Square, plus it includes carbon fiber “Solar Wings” and a 186-foot curved storefront.

The new Dubai store features “Today at Apple” sessions focusing on art, design music, photography, videography, and coding, a feature that debuted at the Apple Store in San Francisco last year and will soon expand to all Apple retail stores around the world.

Today at Apple sessions are primarily taught by Creative Pros, which Apple has described as the “liberal arts equivalent” to its more technical Geniuses, but in select cities, well-known artists, photographers, and musicians will also teach classes.

Apple Dubai Mall is the company’s third Middle Eastern store, joining stores at the Mall of the Emirates in Dubai and the Yas Mall in Abu Dhabi.

Related Roundup: Apple Stores
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Lexus SUV Being Used for Apple’s Self-Driving Software Test Spotted on the Road

Apple recently obtained a permit allowing the company to test its self-driving software on public roads in several Lexus SUVs, and now Bloomberg has shared details on the equipment Apple is using after one of the vehicles was spotted leaving an Apple facility.

Earlier this week, a white Lexus RX450h SUV was seen leaving an Apple building and was captured in a series of photos by an unnamed source who shared the images with Bloomberg. The vehicle is equipped with multiple sensors, cameras, and radar.

The sensors included Velodyne Lidar Inc.’s top-of-the-range 64-channel lidar, at least two radar and a series of cameras. The sensors appear to be products bought off the shelf from suppliers, rather than custom-made, according to an industry expert who saw the photos.

The vehicle is distinct from the vehicles used for Apple’s mapping project, which uses a series of Dodge Caravans to capture data across the United States for the purpose of improving the Apple Maps app.

Apple was first granted a DMV permit to test autonomous vehicles on public roads on Friday, April 14. At the time, a DMV spokesperson said the company had registered three 2015 Lexus RX450h SUVs to be driven by six Apple employees with expertise in autonomous vehicles.

Apple’s permit application and the appearance of the SUV confirm its work on a car-related project. Rumors originally suggested Apple was developing its own autonomous electric vehicle, but Apple is said to have since transitioned to building an autonomous driving system rather than a complete car.

In California, where Apple is testing its vehicles, companies that participate in the DMV’s Autonomous Vehicle Testing Program must file Disengagement Reports that outline how many miles were covered with self-driving vehicles and whether any accidents occurred, so Apple won’t be able to keep much of the testing on public roads a secret.

Apple’s car team, led by Bob Mansfield, reportedly has until the end of the year to prove the feasibility of an Apple-designed autonomous driving system.

Related Roundup: Apple Car
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Microsoft Surface revenue falls by 26 percent

Microsoft’s third quarter earnings are mostly rosy — except when it comes to sales of its Surface laptops. The company reports that Surface revenues fell 26 percent compared to last year, reaching $831 million down from $1.1 billion. It’s not hard to see why: Microsoft points to more pricing competition among premium 2-in-1 competitors, as well as “product end-of-life dynamics” for the decline. Simply put, Microsoft needs new Surface models to compete with the onslaught of new entries on the market, like Dell’s XPS 13 2-in-1 and Lenovo’s Yoga 910.

It’s also no wonder sales are slowing down. The Surface Pro 4 came out in 2015, and while it’s a capable machine, you can easily find better hardware from other computer makers. It’s also been two years since it updated the low-end Surface 3. While the Surface Book was an exciting addition to the Surface family, it also launched with a slew of problems, and didn’t sell as well as Microsoft had hoped. At least you can get one with some vaguely modern hardware, though.

We’re gearing up for an education-focused Microsoft event on Tuesday, May 3rd, where the company might finally unveil the next entry in the Surface lineup. And if not then, we might also hear something at its Build event next month. Given that Microsoft helped make the dream of tablet-like laptops a reality, I don’t expect it to give up on this category anytime soon.