A ‘Dark Crystal’ prequel is coming to Netflix

Who needs new ideas when you have the genius of Jim Henson to fall back on? Following recent news that an (unnecessary) sequel to cult classic Labyrinth is in the works, The Jim Henson Company today announced it’s producing a new series for Netflix based on ’80s masterpiece The Dark Crystal. Called The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, the ten-episode show will be set years before the events of the film. “When three Gelfling discover the horrifying secret behind the Skeksis’ power, they set out on an epic journey to ignite the fires of rebellion and save their word,” a short description of the premise reads.

As much as I dread seeing another of my childhood favorites regurgitated for profit, the brief teaser trailer Netflix has released looks promising. Flashes of half-finished puppets show the goal is to recreate, at least in part, the original visual style of the ’80s classic. Fans will also be pleased to hear that Brian Froud, who served as conceptual designer for Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, is on board to help bring the various creatures of Thra to life. There’s no word on any release date as yet, but filming is due start this fall, according to Rolling Stone.

I dare say any more about the fantastical backdrops and creatures of The Dark Crystal in case you haven’t seen it, because you really, really should. Here’s to hoping Aughra makes a cameo in the new series at the very least, or I’m jumping on a Landstrider and galloping away from this cruel, Garthim-loving world.

Via: One Perfect Shot (Twitter)

Source: The Jim Henson Company, Netflix

‘Destiny 2’ plays matchmaker so you aren’t stuck with weirdos

Bungie wants to make it easier to join and play with other people in Destiny 2. Previously, clans were a complicated affair, making you log on to Bungie.net and connect your PSN or Xbox Live account to join them. During a live event today, Bungie revealed that a revamped Clan and matchmaking system will exist in the game itself. This and other new features fell like a welcome push to make the Destiny 2 experience more comfortably social.

In Destiny 2, the matchmaking system will help avoid putting you with other people who don’t play together as a team. When you join a clan in the game now, all your matches will be with people in your same clan, even if you’re not in a party with them. If you haven’t chosen a clan yet, you will have the option to match with one. Think of it as auditioning clans you might want to join.

In addition, Bungie has created “guided games” to match single players up with others to do standing dungeon Raids and the weekly unique Nightfall Strikes. These types of events require teams of players that work together to beat them; this new feature seems aimed at making that happen even without a group of buddies.

Introducing Guided Games.

In Destiny 2, solo players looking for groups can team up with Clans for challenges like Raids and Nightfalls. pic.twitter.com/HYpGHMKCJ2

— Destiny The Game (@DestinyTheGame) May 18, 2017

Slated for a September release, Destiny 2 will include a new story campaign, new subclasses to refine your character’s abilities and a streamlined Director interface that will let you jump from planet to planet without having to go to a separate orbit screen. In a move enabled by Activision’s ownership of Bungie and Blizzard, the PC version of the game will only be available via Blizzard’s Battle.net site, while console players will get physical and digital versions from Bungie. If you pre-order the game, you’ll also be able to jump into the early beta.

Source: Destiny/Twitter

Google Lens offers a clear view of the company’s future

Google Lens is both a return to form for the search giant, and a tantalizing glimpse into what lies ahead. Google’s early claim to fame was its ability to efficiently index the web and fetch search results quickly, bringing some much needed organization to the chaotic early days of the internet. Lens, similarly, uses computer vision and AI to make sense of your photos, videos and the real world. It’s basically Google search for everything outside of screens.

Most intriguingly, Lens is yet another way for Google to expand on its original mission statement: “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Though we’ve only seen brief a brief, pre-produced demonstration of Lens, it looks compelling. Through the Google Assistant, it can identify the type of flower you’re looking at or highlight reviews and ratings when you’re pointing your phone at a storefront. We’ve seen glimpses of these capabilities in Google Goggles and Yelp’s Monocle, both of which showed off the potential of AR, but were too early to be genuinely useful. Now, with the advantage of improved computer vision algorithms, better cameras and more capable devices and networks, Google is in a much better place to make AR an essential computing tool.

With Lens’s more advanced capabilities, we’re seeing just how far Google’s AR technology has come. Pointing your camera at a concert venue marquee, for example, lets you easily buy tickets or add events to your calendar. You could also quickly join a WiFi network by focusing Lens on a router’s login information. (Of course, that assumes nobody changed the network name or password.)

If you want to understand what makes Lens truly important, rather than just a quick whiz-bang keynote demo, you have to look at where computing is headed. We’re moving away from older input mechanisms, like keyboards and mice, and towards things like voice commands and computer vision. Devices of the future will need to see and hear the world to make sense of it. And, they’ll need to do all of that without any user input.

With Lens, Home and its larger focus on AI, Google is setting itself up to for the next big wave of computing. We’re already seeing Amazon invest in that with Alexa and its Echo devices; you can think of its upcoming camera-equipped Echo Look as a big step towards refining its computer vision capabilities. Microsoft also made it clear that it’s exploring all of these new facets of computing at its Build conference last week. The company is bringing Cortana to more devices and relying heavily on deep learning and computer vision with Story Remix.

While Lens has loads of potential, there are also reasons to be skeptical. Google’s AI capabilities have fallen short in the past, like when its Photos app mistakenly labeled black people as “gorillas.” As we rely more on technology to catalog and define the world’s information, companies like Google will have to make sure their algorithms reflect the nuances of human identity. Hiring a more diverse workforce would be a good a start.

For all the latest news and updates from Google I/O 2017, follow along here.

‘Snowpiercer’ director’s next film debuts on Netflix June 28th

A few years ago, Korean director Bong Joon Ho adapted a 70s French comic into film, creating the unexpectedly stunning and brutal Snowpiercer. The post-apocalypse movie barreled headlong into food scarcity, class warfare and child exploitation — topical issues even in our more “civilized” age. Ho’s next film, Okja, looks to pull a similar trick crashing outlandish characters into hot-button conflicts — and it’s coming to Netflix.

The movie tells the story of a girl, Mija (played by Ahn Seo-hyun), and her pet giant pig-hippo hybrid, the eponymous Okja. Unfortunately for their joyous love, the beast is the prototype for a genetically-Frankensteined race of livestock that will hyper-efficiently feed the world. That doesn’t sit well with a militant animal rights group, led by Paul Dano (Swiss Army Man) with Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead), who promise Mija they’ll free her adorable, massive pet and expose the livestock corporation’s head Miranda, played by a madcap Tilda Swinton (Snowpiercer).

If the trailer is anything to go by, the film will be another loony, violent satire from a visionary director. See it on Netflix on June 28th.

Source: YouTube

The Wirecutter’s best deals: Save $49 on a Vantrue dashcam

This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. When readers choose to buy The Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, they may earn affiliate commissions that support their work. Read their continuously updated list of deals here.

You may have already seen Engadget posting reviews from our friends at The Wirecutter. Now, from time to time, we’ll also be publishing their recommended deals on some of their top picks. Read on, and strike while the iron is hot — some of these sales could expire mighty soon.

Apple iPad (5th Generation)

Street price: $330; MSRP: $330; Deal price: $300

A nice drop on the new iPad lowers the price to $300 for the 32GB model. This $30 off sale is also available for the 128GB size ($400 with discount). Silver, Gold, and Space Gray colors are all eligible for the discount in both storage capacities. We’ll continue to track the new iPads for future sales but at present these match the lowest prices we’ve seen for it. Shipping is free.

The 5th gen iPad is our new top pick in our Best Tablet guide. Dan Frakes and Nick Guy write, “The 2017 standard iPad—the 9.7-inch non-Pro model, officially called the “iPad (5th generation)”—is a familiar device. Its body is almost exactly the same as that of the 2014 iPad Air,2 and except for improved processors, its internals mostly match those of the iPad Air 2, the model it replaces (and our previous top pick). Yet the 2017 iPad remains the best tablet on the market for most people because of that familiarity: It shares its predecessor’s unique combination of performance, features, hardware quality, app selection, and accessory ecosystem, and improves on its value.”

Roku Streaming Stick (3600R)

Street price: $50; MSRP: $50; Deal price: $40

While we’ve seen the Roku media streaming stick as low as $35, it typically sells for at least $10 more. The aforementioned $35 pricing tends to be offered during the holiday season only – otherwise, the Roku stick doesn’t dip below $40 (with a few rare exceptions), so this is as low as you’re likely to find one if you’re looking to cut the cord or just add a great streaming interface to your setup. Shipping is free.

The Roku Streaming Stick is our pick for the best media streamer. Chris Heinonen writes, “The Roku Streaming Stick is the best media streamer for most people because it offers the largest selection of streaming content, a clean and responsive user interface, and a useful search function.” He continues, “The Streaming Stick offers the same interface, speed, and content as the more expensive Roku 2 and 3. It also has a private listening mode so you can watch your content without disturbing others. You also get an RF remote instead of IR, so it doesn’t need to be in sight to work.”

1More Triple Driver In-Ear Headphones

Street price: $80; MSRP: $100; Deal price: $69

This is a new low price on our runner-up pick earbuds under $100. If you have a Costco membership, they’re available for only $65. If you don’t have a membership, don’t fret – the $4 surcharge isn’t too much of a burden and doesn’t detract much from the great deal price. We normally see these earbuds stick close to the $100 price range with occasional drops down to $80, so this is a great deal price to pick them up. Shipping is free.

The 1MORE Triple Driver In-Ear Headphones are our runner-up pick in our guide to the best earbuds under $100. Lauren Dragan writes, “For iPhone or Android users that require a three-button remote, the 1More Triple Driver headphones are a wonderful choice. Via a switch (according to 1More), one model works with iPhones and most Android devices, too. Although our panel wasn’t as in love with the sound of the Triple Driver as we were with the Marshall, everyone agreed that the 1More performed vastly better than the majority of the other headphones we tested this round.”

Vantrue OnDash R2 2K Ultra HD 2.7 Inch LCD Dashboard Camera

Street price: $129; MSRP: $160; Deal price: $80

While there have been other deals on the R2 at $90 with a $10 gift card, this is only the second time we’ve seen a deal for this Vantrue dash cam at a flat $80. It’s available with free standard shipping. This sale lasts until Saturday, May 20th.

The Vantrue R2 is our runner-up pick for the best dash cam. Eric Adams writes, “Its packaging, instructions, and general usability are on a par with the Z3, and its image quality is also top notch. While just as crisp as the Z3, the R2’s images have slightly more contrast. This makes them more attractive, but not quite as useful as they could be in different scenarios, as some areas tend to be too dark, and the night vision is also a hair darker.”

Turning to quality and value, Adams writes, “It also has a slightly wider 170° field of view, which exceeds our preference just a bit. But we’re hair-splitting here: Both the R2 and our top pick, the Z3, are sensational cameras…. If you like its slightly better photographic output or you need a dash cam right away and the Z3 is unavailable, we recommend the R2.”

Because great deals don’t just happen on Thursdays, sign up for our daily deals email and we’ll send you the best deals we find every weekday. Also, deals change all the time, and some of these may have expired. To see an updated list of current deals, please go to The Wirecutter.com.

Russia reportedly tried to hijack Pentagon Twitter accounts

The Russians aren’t just hacking emails to influence US politics. According to a report sent to US counterintelligence officials last month, Russia has started to use Twitter in it’s attack on our country. The report round that Russians sent infected messages to more than 10,000 Defense Department Twitter accounts, each tailored to the individuals’ interests and tastes. The attached malware connected those users to a server that gave Russia access to the victim’s Twitter account. Imagine thousands of legitimate Twitter users with the legitimacy of actual government officials sending out authentic-sounding misinformation and you’ll have an idea of the panic this may have caused among intelligence officials.

“At any given moment, perhaps during a natural disaster or a terrorist attack,” writes Time‘s Ben Wiseman, “Pentagon Twitter accounts might send out false information. As each tweet corroborated another, and covert Russian agents amplified the messages even further afield, the result could be panic and confusion.” It isn’t clear, however, whether any accounts were compromised by the Russian attempts, which were made after the 2016 election.

The problem isn’t confined to Twitter, of course. Facebook recently reported that it had found fake accounts on its own social network created to manipulate public opinion with fake news and disinformation. Time notes that government officials believe the original 2016 email scandal is only a small, more visible part of an ongoing Russian attempt to attack the foundation of the American democratic system. “If there has ever been a clarion call for vigilance and action against a threat to the very foundation of our democratic political system,” testified former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, “this episode is it.”

Via: The Hill

Source: Time

Apple CEO Tim Cook Spotted Testing Apple Watch-Connected Glucose Monitor

Apple CEO Tim Cook has allegedly been spotted testing a prototype glucose monitor that’s connected to his Apple Watch, reports CNBC. Cook, who is said to be aiming to understand how his blood sugar is affected by food and exercise, has been seen wearing the device around the Apple Campus.

Cook also mentioned the glucose monitor in a February meeting with students at the University of Glasgow. It’s not clear if the device he spoke of in Glasgow is the same one he’s been wearing around the Apple campus.

“I’ve been wearing a continuous glucose monitor for a few weeks,” he said. “I just took it off before coming on this trip.”

Cook explained that he was able to understand how his blood sugar responded to foods he was eating. He made modifications to keep his blood sugar more constant.

Current continuous glucose monitoring systems require a small sensor that’s worn under the skin to monitor glucose levels. Advanced systems from Dexcom include a transmitter, which can display glucose information directly on an iPhone or Apple Watch.

An iPhone-connected Dexcom continuous glucose monitoring system
Rumors have suggested glucose monitoring is the next major health issue Apple is aiming to tackle. The company is said to have a team of biomedical engineers working on developing sensors for non-invasively monitoring blood sugar levels. Apple is allegedly working on a continuous monitoring solution that would not require an under-skin sensor.

Apple’s glucose testing is reportedly far enough along that the company has started conducting feasibility trials at clinical sites in the San Francisco Bay Area, and consultants have been hired to sort out regulatory issues.

According to a recent rumor from BGR, Apple could be planning to add a non-invasive glucose monitoring sensor to a future version of the Apple Watch, perhaps through the addition of a smart band that would add functionality to the Apple Watch without requiring the sensor to be built into the watch.

Cook has said in the past that Apple does not want to put the Apple Watch through the FDA approval process, something that would need to happen for Apple to introduce a glucose monitor, so a modular add-on smart band could be an ideal solution for adding more advanced health tracking features without subjecting the Apple Watch itself to FDA oversight.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch Series 2, watchOS 3
Tag: Tim Cook
Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)
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CBS Sports for Android (review)

Overview

This sports app is a go-to source for MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, MLS and NCAA sports news, scores, and more. This one-stop sports app is available for all of your electronic devices, such as iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV.

Besides offering a large amount of features, like lightning fast scores, stats, and news, CBS Sports also offers a wide variety of different games you can interact with and even receive weekly cash prizes.

How to Use

In order to get started, you can find the app in Google Play and iTunes Store for a free download. Once you have completed the download on any of your devices, you are ready to indulge in all of the amazing features the app offers.

The app has a great look and feel to it, and offers you the ability customize your feed to match your favorite teams. That being said, when you first launch the app, expect to look through and select each of your favorite teams by searching through each sport category. Once you have customized your feed, make sure to allow push notifications so that you can be alerted about updates, such as scores, upcoming games, and stats. After you completed those steps, you will advance to the homepage of the app where you can toggle between scores, news, and teams.

Key Features:

The app has a very friendly user-interface. You can easily navigate between sports, leagues, and teams. The ability to cater your news and notifications, to your personal preference is easily manageable by simply selecting what you want to see. At the bottom of the app, you will find three tabs: Scores, News, and My Teams. For each tab, it will show only the news you want to see, in order to add another team, you simply select add at the top of each tab.

Think of the My Team tab as your home base for your favorite team. If you want to see something regarding your team, whether it is news, standings, or stats you can simply go there for your one-stop feed. If you hit your side panel tab at the top left of the page, you can also check into live radio Ex. Tiki and Tierney. You will also find access to College Sports Live and the CBS Sports Network there.

• CBS Sports Radio: Ability to live stream radio by simply pressing volume on or off to hear the latest gossip.
• Chromecast Enabled: Option to cast CBS Sports on demand and live video to your TV, and control video playback and volume directly from the app.
• Live Video: Get on-demand access to highlights, analysis, and original video programs.
• News, Standings, and Schedules: Personalize teams news and tweets you wish to see. Standings for every league, including college rankings. All of your teams schedules are easily displayed in one platform.
• Special Events: Access to a multitude of events, such as: NCAA March Madness, NBA Draft Day, PGA Tour, and more!

Conclusion

Overall, the app is very useful and clean-cut. There are not a lot of distractions, that being said there are some banner ads occasionally, but they no disrupt the usability and enjoyment of the app, which in most cases they do. The app is well organized and pretty straight forward. You can select what you want to see and about whom. Once you are done managing what you want to see, the app really does give a personalized touch and feel when navigating through the content. Besides for the apps main intended purpose, the extra features are entertaining depending on what you are into.

All in all, CBS Sports app is a reliable source for all your sports needs. CBS has a lot of Insider Information, which helps you stay up-to-date with what is going on around the world. I really enjoyed the look, feel and use of the app, i suggest downloading it for free on Google Play or iTunes Store.

Duolingo, the free language-learning app, says kon’nichiwa to Japanese

Why it matters to you

Duolingo, one of the world’s largest free translation platforms, is adding the language that users have requested most — Japanese.

There’s a reason Duolingo, one of the world’s largest free translation platforms, is consistently ranked one of the best ways to learn a new language. Its courses, which include Spanish, French, German, and almost two dozen others, combine gamified activities, flash cards, and voice recognition to ease language learners into foreign vernacular. Even better? It’s completely free on iOS and Android devices. And starting Thursday, it’s available in a new language: Japanese.

“This is by far the most requested and highly anticipated course launch in Duolingo’s five-year history, Luis von Ahn, co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. “No matter what we’d share on social media, tons of people would respond with, ‘That’s nice, but when are you launching Japanese?’”

The inherent complexity of the Japanese language, which the Duolingo team said necessitated the development of a “completely new way to teach,” made it challenging to adapt to Duolingo’s existing app and web formats. The solution was a holistic curriculum that covers all three Japanese writing systems: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji.

“While some courses get away with using only Romaji, the representation of Japanese sounds using the Western alphabet, learning all three [forms] helps people communicate more effectively,” Duolingo said.

Duolingo’s Japanese course walks beginning speakers through all Hiragana characters (about 50 in all), 50 Katakana characters, and 100 basic Chinese Kanji characters. They’re divided into themes like travel, food, and hobbies, all of which consist of a “practical mix” of vocabulary and grammar. You’ll find questions pertaining to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, for example, as well as popular Japanese subculture like anime.

Duolingo said the new course teaches all the vocabulary and grammar you need to pass the JLPT N5, a popular Japanese language proficiency test. And it abides by the JF Standard, a Japanese-language education framework for describing language ability.

“As a native Japanese speaker, it was an honor to help build this course so that millions of people can learn the language,” Hideki Shima, a senior software engineer at Duolingo, said in a press release. “I’m also proud that we created new formats and content to ensure the course’s effectiveness.”

Duolingo’s new Japanese course follows the introduction of a “language assistant” for iOS. The “Duolingo bot.” Much like the chatbots in Facebook Messenger, Microsoft Skype, and Google Assistant, it responds to language questions conversationally, providing corrections and suggesting responses where appropriate. It’s also smart enough to ramp up the complexity as you progress in a language.

It comes on the heels of Tinycards, a Duolingo’s AI-powered take on flash cards. The app is designed to teach math, science, geography, history, and more — you unlock levels as you go, and fill up a strength bar by answering cards correctly.

Duolingo is launching Tinycard decks for Hiragana and Katakana alongside the new course.

Duolingo, an outgrowth of a Carnegie Mellon University project that tasked students with translating basic words and phrases, now counts more than 170 million people among its active users. It was named the Best Education Startup at the 2014 Crunchies, and was the most downloaded app in the education category in Google Play in 2013 and 2014.

Web pages using Google’s AMP platform load twice as fast as before

Why it matters to you

Google’s AMP technology is speeding up the web. Now it’ll only take half as long to load an AMP-enabled web page.

Google’s making a bigger push for a faster mobile web. During a developer session at its 2017 Google I/O developer conference in Mountain View, California on Wednesday, the search giant gave an update on Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), an internet platform designed to speed up web pages.

Google said that AMP-enabled pages accessed from Google Search now load “twice as fast” as they did before, thanks to key optimizations made on the service’s back end. The AMP cache, which stores slimmed-down web pages on Google’s servers, now uses Google’s Brotli compression algorithm to reduce document size by 10 percent in supported web browsers, and compresses images 50 percent more efficiently without affecting quality.

Google also announced new AMP partners. Starting later this year, Tencent Qzone, China’s largest social network, and Weibo, the country’s third-largest website, will adopt AMP pages. Twitter said it would begin linking to AMP pages from the Twitter app for Android and iOS and Twitter Lite, its new, lightweight web app designed for low-end phones on unreliable connections. Tumblr said it would publish its 340 million blog pages across 500,000 domains in AMP. And E-Commerce giants eBay and Zalando pledged to implement AMP in the coming months.

They join recent adopters like Squarespace, Reddit, Flipkart, TripAdvisor, Disney, Drugs.com, the NFL, The New York Times, BuzzFeed, Food Network, Parse, Vox Media, Conde Nast, CBS Interactive, Tumblr, Bing, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and hundreds of others.

Google said that as of August 2016, AMP-enabled sites have created more than 150 million AMP documents across 232 locales and 104 languages.

The I/O announcements build on AMP’s growing momentum. At Google’s 2017 AMP Conference in New York City last week, the company announced that Baidu, China’s largest search engine; and Sogou, another Chinese search engine; and Yahoo Japan would implement accelerated pages. Google said that as of last year, AMP-enabled websites have created hundreds of millions of AMP documents across 232 locales and 104 languages.

And they follow on the heels of new features. AMP Lite, an optimized version of AMP that kicks in over slower internet connections and on low-end smartphones, results in a 40 percent reduction in data transfer. Another, AMP Bind, allows internet retailers like Gap.com to build product pages with interactive elements like color and size selectors.

“We’re taking advantage of AMP to upgrade experiences,” AMP product manager Rudy Galifi told Digital Trends. “We’re very transparent, and we’re continuously collaborating with AMP partners. The community is going to weigh in.”