Unity will soon add support for Google’s AR platform, Project Tango
Why it matters to you
Google’s partnership with Unity should help spur development that utilizes Project Tango, which could yield broader benefits for the augmented reality space.
Microsoft and Apple have made no secret of their respective ambitions for augmented reality, with the former working hard on its HoloLens hardware, and the latter making some high-profile hires to flesh out its fledgling AR division. However, Google has its own big plans for the tech as well.
On May 1, Google, which is backing the video game development engine Unity, held its Vision Summit in Los Angeles, California. During the opening keynote, Google’s project manager for developer platforms, Nathan Martz, announced that the Project Tango AR platform will soon receive official, native support in Unity, according to a report from Road to VR.
This collaboration isn’t completely unexpected, as Unity already offers similar support for Google’s virtual reality platform, Daydream. The decision should be beneficial for all concerned, since it will open up new avenues for Unity developers, and potentially facilitate plenty of new projects that take advantage of AR functionality.
In January 2017, Asus unveiled the ZenFone AR, a powerful smartphone that’s outfitted with support for Project Tango. With more hardware that can take advantage of the platform hitting the scene, it makes complete sense for Google to pursue partnerships with the likes of Unity to ensure that new content is being developed at a steady rate.
Laying the groundwork for a new technology like AR is a double-edged sword; it’s important to have a healthy user base, because otherwise developers aren’t going to commit to developing for compatible hardware, but users aren’t going to jump on board without compelling content. This is a problem that the VR industry is currently grappling with, and it could prove to be similarly obstructive for AR.
However, this move should help cultivate the AR ecosystem in a way that benefits developers and users alike. Project Tango support will be introduced to Unity as of version 2017.2 of the software, which is scheduled to debut later this year.
Unity will soon add support for Google’s AR platform, Project Tango
Why it matters to you
Google’s partnership with Unity should help spur development that utilizes Project Tango, which could yield broader benefits for the augmented reality space.
Microsoft and Apple have made no secret of their respective ambitions for augmented reality, with the former working hard on its HoloLens hardware, and the latter making some high-profile hires to flesh out its fledgling AR division. However, Google has its own big plans for the tech as well.
On May 1, Google, which is backing the video game development engine Unity, held its Vision Summit in Los Angeles, California. During the opening keynote, Google’s project manager for developer platforms, Nathan Martz, announced that the Project Tango AR platform will soon receive official, native support in Unity, according to a report from Road to VR.
This collaboration isn’t completely unexpected, as Unity already offers similar support for Google’s virtual reality platform, Daydream. The decision should be beneficial for all concerned, since it will open up new avenues for Unity developers, and potentially facilitate plenty of new projects that take advantage of AR functionality.
In January 2017, Asus unveiled the ZenFone AR, a powerful smartphone that’s outfitted with support for Project Tango. With more hardware that can take advantage of the platform hitting the scene, it makes complete sense for Google to pursue partnerships with the likes of Unity to ensure that new content is being developed at a steady rate.
Laying the groundwork for a new technology like AR is a double-edged sword; it’s important to have a healthy user base, because otherwise developers aren’t going to commit to developing for compatible hardware, but users aren’t going to jump on board without compelling content. This is a problem that the VR industry is currently grappling with, and it could prove to be similarly obstructive for AR.
However, this move should help cultivate the AR ecosystem in a way that benefits developers and users alike. Project Tango support will be introduced to Unity as of version 2017.2 of the software, which is scheduled to debut later this year.
Recent leak suggests the ZTE Axon 8 will have dual cameras
Why it matters to you
ZTE’s Axon 8 is widely expected to deliver high-end specs for hundreds of dollars less than the iPhone 7 or Galaxy S8,
There’s broad consensus that last year’s Axon 7 is a good, if not great, smartphone. ZTE’s “flagship killer” packs incredible speakers, a fantastic camera, and a long-lasting battery for about half the cost of an iPhone 7. Now, it seems that the sequel — the Axon 8 — might be just around the corner.
It’s early, but we’re beginning to hear rumblings about the ZTE Axon 8’s hardware — and how much it might cost. Here’s everything we know so far.
Design
Much about ZTE’s upcoming Axon 8 remains shrouded in mystery, but we know a little about its specifications. That’s thanks to leaked documents from TENNA, China’s governing electronics agency.
The materials show an Axon 8 that looks quite a bit like the Axon 7 — and virtually unchanged from the front. The stereo speakers are present and accounted for, as are the three touch-sensitive navigation buttons beneath the screen.
Specs and screen
It’s the same story on the inside, if the leaked specifications are anything to go by. The Axon 8 purportedly has a 5.5-inch OLED screen with a WQHD (2,560 x 1,440 pixels) resolution and a 2.15 GHz Snapdragon 820 or 821 processor. Under the hood is 4GB of RAM and up to 256GB of storage (expandable via MicroSD slot), and a 3,230mAh battery.
That’s on par with the Axon 7, which sported a 5.5-inch AMOLED WQHD (2,560 x 1,440 pixels) screen, a quad-core Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB of RAM, up to 128GB of internal storage (and a MicroSD slot), and a 3,250mAh battery. The Axon 8 appears to be slightly thinner (151.7 x 75 x 7.7mm) and lighter (170 grams) than its predecessor, but not by much — they’re almost identical.
Where the two models appear to diverge are the cameras. Unlike the Axon 7, which had a single 20-megapixel rear camera, the Axon 8 has dual 20-megapixel shooters.
That’s great news for image quality — especially if the Axon 8 adopts ZTE’s Blade V8 Pro’s camera tech. It lets you adjust the bokeh — or focus of foreground subjects — in post, and capture high-quality monochrome images.
Software
If history is any guide, the Axon 8 will likely run ZTE’s MiFlavor software, a proprietary layer on top of Android. It packs features like My Voice, an app that ties custom voice commands to actions like unlocking the phone and adding contacts, and gesture controls that let you switch on the phone by flicking it twice, for example, and mute incoming calls by flipping it over.
Price and release date
It’s too early to tell where, when, and for how much the Axon 8 will eventually retail, but we can speculate.
In the U.S., the ZTE Axon 7 launched on July 27 for $400. Assuming the Axon 8 ships for about the same, it’ll come in hundreds of dollars less than the iPhone 7 and Samsung’s Galaxy S8.
The ZTE Axon 8’s TENNA certification suggests it might be sold in China, and that would be par for the course — the Axon 7 went on sale in China in October 2016.
Teachers and students worldwide will soon get Microsoft’s Office 365 suite for free
Why it matters to you
Students and educators will soon be able to grab the Office suite for free, as Microsoft continues its attempt to bring Windows 10 to classrooms around the world.
On May 2, Microsoft hosted an education-focused event showcasing how Windows 10 can be used to great effect in the classroom. During the presentation, the company announced that Office 365 for Education will be offered to students and teachers at schools all over the world for free.
The Office suite has a number of different applications in an educational environment. Word has long been the standard for writing up and submitting essays, the creation of PowerPoint presentations has become a common homework assignment in recent years, and note-taking tool OneNote offers all kinds of advantages to learners.
The full Office suite will be coming to the Windows Store, making it available to systems running Windows 10 S, which was officially unveiled at today’s event.
Microsoft Teams is being outfitted with some useful features aimed at schools. The service will act as a link between teachers and students, allowing educators to interact with their classes either one-on-one or as a group, and empowering learners to collaborate with one another on projects.
As well as text chat, Teams offers support for video calling. With a view to maintaining a scholarly sense of decorum, Microsoft has implemented a system that allows administrators to mute or delete messages that don’t adhere to proper etiquette.
Students can access documents like assignments and quizzes from Teams, and their teachers can check up on the progress they’re making on their homework and other ongoing projects.
Teachers can also use Teams in conjunction with other programs in the Office suite to give their students freedom to review learning materials on their own time. The principal of Bear Creek Middle School in Fairburn, Georgia appeared on stage to demonstrate how his institution has integrated Office 365 for Education into its teaching practices.
A map appeared on screen, and notes made over the course of a lesson appeared on it in the order that they were added. This functionality allows students to review the lesson as it plays out, rather than simply working from notes as they appeared at the end of the session.
Microsoft is making a serious play for the education sector, and offering up the Office suite for free will be a very tempting proposition for many schools. The company will make these tools available to educators over the summer, so that they’re ready to be used when the new school year gets underway.
Best app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time
Everyone likes apps, but sometimes the best ones are a bit expensive. Now and then, developers make paid apps free for a limited time, but you have to snatch them up while you have the chance. Here are the latest and greatest apps on sale in the iOS App Store.
These apps normally cost money, and this sale lasts for a limited time only. If you go to the App Store and it says the app costs money, that means the deal has expired and you will be charged.
More: 200 Awesome iPhone Apps | The best Android apps for almost any occasion
Media Clouds
Do you want save your MP3 files and videos from your cloud to play offline? Media Clouds is best choice for you.
Available on:
iOS
Fontz
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but adding a few extra never hurt anyone. Add captions, quotes, and other text with Fontz.
Available on:
iOS
Device Space
Device Space is a utility app to view used, free, and total storage space for your device disk drive. It also provides battery level and device information like iOS version, device uptime, and more.
Available on:
iOS
PhotoViva
Add effects and a feeling of expressive art to your photos. You easily apply photo brushes to turn your photos into paintings.
Available on:
iOS
Weby
This app lets you record your touches and experiences while you are browsing the web. Just start your search within Weby and record what you see.
Available on:
iOS
Hide it Pro
Tired of people snooping in your phone, looking at all your personal photos and videos? With Hide it Pro you can securely shield your content from prying eyes.
Available on:
iOS
Facebook Messenger Instant Games update has bots, turn-based gameplay
Why it matters to you
If you enjoy gaming with your friends within Facebook Messenger, you’ll enjoy the slew of new features soon making their way to the service.
Facebook unveiled a suite of new features coming to Messenger at its annual F8 conference last month as part of the next evolution of its chat platform, Messenger 2.0. Among them was the expansion of Instant Games — social gaming experiences that take place directly within chat.
On Tuesday, Facebook announced it had begun rolling out the new-and-improved Instant Games alongside a new version of Zynga’s Words With Friends made specifically for the service.
Although Instant Games are meant to be played in the context of a group or private conversation, they pack the same kinds of features that users would expect from traditional games, and now benefit from tight integration with Messenger’s new Bots.
Bots are automated, AI-powered companions that respond to user requests with intelligently sourced suggestions. In the case of Instant Games, Bots help facilitate the action by reminding players when it’s time to make the next move, and presenting leaderboard updates to encourage a little healthy competition.
According to Facebook, developers are free to build bots to enhance their games in new and inventive ways, so it’ll be interesting to see how they take to it.
Facebook says turn-based games were its most requested feature, and so it comes as little surprise that Words With Friends has joined the party. Zynga’s popular title arrives on Messenger with the ability to easily add players directly from their friends list, and uses a smaller board with fewer tiles for faster gameplay. As players make moves within the conversation, it’s now easier than ever before to take your opponent to task over whether or not their play was a legitimate word in the English language.
Zynga’s latest release comes a little over a week after the company debuted GIFs Against Friends on iMessage.
There are currently 50 titles available as Instant Games, according to Facebook, though not all of them are compatible with all devices. The company says more games are slated to land nearly every week, including Blackstorm’s fantasy shooter EverWing and Miniclip’s 8 Ball Pool. The Instant Games update should reach iOS and Android users over the coming days.
YouTube has a minimalist new design that looks a lot like Android
Why it matters to you
Do you think the YouTube website is getting a little stale? Then you’re in luck, thanks to a redesign aimed at enhancing the viewing experience.
Hot on the heels of YouTube’s launch of its very own live-TV streaming service, YouTube TV, the king of the video streaming world has unveiled a new design for its website.
YouTube will now be much more minimalistic visually, as it puts even more of the focus on the videos by streamlining the site’s look using a web design style developed by Google known as Material Design. The new design will be consistent across all Google platforms, so YouTube will look the same regardless of whether you’re watching on desktop, a smartphone, tablet, or TV app.
The revamped design will be accompanied by a handful of new features. As the name implies, Dark Theme will apply a dark background to the website and be present throughout your browsing and video-watching experience. According to YouTube, the goal of Dark Theme is to “cut down on glare and let you take in the true colors of the videos you watch.”
Dark Theme is the first of many features being built on a new, faster framework called Polymer, which will enable hastened feature implementation in the future and, hopefully, an even better viewing experience for the site’s ever-expanding video catalog.
If you’re curious about the new design and want to check it out for yourself, just opt in to test out a preview of the new site. Should you give the new site a whirl and decide you’d rather stick with the current look for now, clicking on “Restore classic YouTube” in your YouTube Account menu will do the trick. As this is an early preview of the site’s new design, YouTube is asking for users to provide their feedback about what they like and don’t like, which can also be done through the Account menu.
You can check out the new design by going to https://www.youtube.com/new.
AMD confirms Vega and Naples will come to market this quarter
Why it matters to you
AMD may well make a real resurgence in 2017, if it can achieve similar success to its Ryzen CPUs with its new Naples and Vega chips.
AMD has made it clear that we can still expect its Naples server CPUs and Vega graphics processors (GPU) to release this quarter. The confirmation came during a recent earnings call, where AMD also reported strong revenue for the first quarter of 2017, though it wasn’t enough to turn a profit.
AMD has been struggling to compete in the high-end desktop CPU market for many years, and partly as a result, it has been a while since AMD was profitable. While it didn’t manage to turn a profit in the first quarter of this year, it still saw revenue rise by 18 percent over the same period in 2016. As Ars points out, too, that’s doubly impressive considering the first quarter is rarely a strong retail period for tech companies, even if they do launch their new products then. And of course, AMD did just that, with its Zen processors doing rather well.
Following on from that strong showing, AMD has only gotten fans more excited for Vega, AMD’s next-generation graphics architecture which could well challenge some of Nvidia’s top-tier offerings.
AMD said during the call that Vega was on track for release this quarter, which means we’ll see it, at the latest, by the end of June. That’s not long to wait and it could well be why Nvidia has been so keen to show off its dominance at the top end in the past few months with cards like the 1080 Ti and the Titan Xp.
Joining Vega in releasing this quarter is Naples, AMD’s new server CPU line based on the Zen architecture. As well know as the Ryzen line of Zen processors is to consumers, it’s arguable that Naples could have a bigger impact by virtue of it being designed for data centers. If a large percentage of the global market adopted AMD’s new CPUs over Intel, that could turn AMD’s fortune around.
And if the specifications are anything to go by, that may well happen, as the new Naples architecture looks strong when pitted against specification lists for comparable Intel Xeon chips.
Fly a real drone through a virtual obstacle course in DJI’s first AR game
Why it matters to you
Novice pilots can help build their flight skills without risking crashing into an object and damaging the drone.
Real life drone, meet your new virtual obstacle course. DJI pilots can now hone their flight skills while zooming through an obstacle course without actually coming close to physical objects, thanks to the new Edgybees’ Drone Prix AR, an augmented reality video game that uses actual drones.
Launched on Tuesday, the Drone Prix AR allows DJI pilots to fly through obstacle courses, avoiding objects and collecting points — much like a typical racing video game, except for flying the actual drone instead of a virtual race car. Users can race to beat their own best time or compete with other users around the world. The game is the first AR app for DJI drones, the company says.
Compatible with DJI’s Phantom 3, Phantom 4, and Mavic Pro series drones, the game includes more than 30 courses for beginner pilots to seasoned pros. The game is downloaded to an iOS or Android smartphone and works via a wireless connection to the drone and controller. Pilots can also link their Facebook accounts to share their scores.
DJI says the course allows new pilots to practice maneuvering through the skies — without actually coming close to physical objects — while teaching flight skills in a fun, safe manner. The game was developed through Edgybees, an AR company, as a third-party app.
“When we first came up with the idea for this app, we wanted to create a new experience for pilots combining the joys of flying with the thrills of gamification,” Edgybees’ chief technical officer and co-founder Menashe Haskin said in a statement. “The Drone Prix AR app is really the first augmented reality social game designed specifically to do just that. In contrast with flight simulators, Drone Prix AR provides a much more immersive experience that combines virtual obstacles with real-life piloting skills. DJI’s Mobile SDK allowed us to bring our idea to life very quickly and we are really excited to see how this app will change the way people experience flying a drone.”
The app is available on both the App Store and Google Play Store as a free download.
Close to the Metal Ep. 41: Everything Microsoft, and our first reader poll
As Microsoft gears up for Build, it’s only natural the software producer-turned hardware maker would want to show off what its been working on. The press conference today marked the release of the Surface Laptop, a traditional notebook, and a Windows 10 S, a student edition with specific limits and quick pick-up time.
Software limitations set Windows 10 S apart from its full-featured sibling. Users can only run apps downloaded from the Windows Store, preventing any unwanted problematic installations or security issues. If need be, an administrator can install more typical x86 applications, but it wasn’t made clear exactly what that process would look like. In addition to client systems, Windows 10 S helps administrators configure other systems, with a simple wizard that creates USB drives to load that image onto new computers.
Speaking of new computers, Microsoft took the opportunity to roll out the Surface Laptop, starting at $999. While the Redmond team didn’t mention any specific configurations, the system will come with Seventh-Generation Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs, and up to 1TB NVMe SSD options, with an estimated battery life of more than 14 hours.
Microsoft is certainly swinging for the fences, but is it risking its OEM partners by infringing on their territory? We’ll discuss all that and more on this week’s episode of Close to the Metal.
Close to the Metal is a podcast from Digital Trends that takes a deep dive into computing and PC gaming topics. Each show, we’ll focus in on one topic, and leave no stone unturned as we show off the latest in hardware and software. Whether it’s the latest GPU, supercomputers, or which 2-in-1 you should buy, we break down the complicated jargon and talk about how user experience is affected in the real world. Please subscribe, share, and send your questions to podcast@digitaltrends.com. We broadcast the show live on YouTube every Tuesday at 1pm EST/10am PST.
AIVAnet 