Apple to Announce Amazon Prime Video for Apple TV at WWDC

Apple plans to make a major Apple TV announcement at WWDC that should delight Amazon Prime subscribers – the addition of an Amazon Prime Video app for the Apple TV.

The news comes courtesy of BuzzFeed’s John Paczkowski, who often accurately shares details on Apple’s plans ahead of events. According to Paczkowski, sources of Apple’s plans say the company will announce an Amazon Prime Video app during its keynote event.

There are tentative plans for the app to go live in the summer, but its official release date could change.

With Amazon Prime Video on the Apple TV, Amazon also plans to resume offering the Apple TV through Amazon.com. Amazon stopped offering the Apple TV and the Google Chromecast in 2015, citing Amazon Prime Video incompatibility as the reason why. It is not known when the Apple TV will return to the Amazon website.

News of a potential deal between Apple and Amazon that would see the app made available on the Apple TV first surfaced last week. At the time, Apple and Amazon were said to be close to an agreement, and now an agreement has been reached.

Amazon Prime Video is one of the only major streaming video services that is currently absent from the Apple TV, and Apple TV owners have long wanted to see the Prime Video app on Apple’s device.

Related Roundups: Apple TV, tvOS 10, WWDC 2017
Tags: Amazon, Amazon Prime Video
Buyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Don’t Buy)
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Sleep Expert Who Worked on Apple’s Night Shift and Bedtime Features Leaves the Company

Sleep expert Roy J.E.M Raymann, who joined Apple back in 2014, has left the company and moved on to SleepScore Labs, where he will serve as Vice President of Sleep Science and Scientific Affairs.

Raymann joined Apple as the company was developing the Apple Watch, and at the time, his hiring spurred rumors that the device would have sleep tracking capabilities, which never materialized.

Prior to joining Apple, where he served as “Health and Health Technologies Staff,” Raymann was at Philips where he founded the Philips Sleep Experience Laboratory, a non-clinical sleep research facility.

According to his LinkedIn profile, while at Apple, Raymann worked on Night Shift, the Bedtime alarm, display recommendations and color filters, and HealthKit and ResearchKit.

News of Raymann’s departure comes just days after Apple acquired Beddit, a company that produces a sensor-equipped sleep monitoring system.

It’s not yet clear what Apple plans to do with Beddit’s technology, but Apple is continuing to sell the Beddit sleep monitor and has updated its privacy policy to note that it is collecting sleep-related data that could influence future projects at the company.
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Smash Hit: Elegancy meets amusement in this superb arcade game (Review)

In an era of soulless clones being uploaded every day to the Play Store, it is always good news to see refreshing games that bring forth new ideas or consolidate previous ideas in a nice package. Or sure, why not both?

Enter Smash Hit, by developer Mediocre, who isn’t mediocre at all, since it has delivered a neat, polished game, distancing itself from the masses who offer endless games with unforgiving difficulty and pixel graphics. Instead, Smash Hit provides a relaxed but challenging gameplay with some of the most refined graphics I’ve seen in a game lately.

Developer: Mediocre
Price: Free

Overview

Think of Smash Hit as a first-person on-rails shooter. But, instead of firing bullets, you fire metal spheres. Your goal is to go as far as you can while using these spheres as protection from incoming hazards. You do this by tapping anywhere on the screen, but you have to be careful and account for gravity.

Almost all of the elements you can interact with are made of glass, so throwing a ball at them will break them. There are some pyramid-like elements that, when broken, yield three new spheres. However, the rest of the glass barriers are there for blocking your progress, so you need to break them to progress. The game is over when you run out of spheres.

And it’s easy to run out of spheres, especially if you’re not careful. This is because you lose TEN spheres when you hit a hazard. Yes, ten. That’s a lot but it makes you super cautious about your movements, increasing the tension and immersion in the process.

The game gives you some instructions to get you going, but you could figure everything for yourself.

After a certain distance, you will reach checkpoints. When you eventually die, you can choose to start your game from these checkpoints instead of starting from the beginning. To use this feature, however, you will need to pay for the premium version ($1.99). This will also unlock new game modes and add a cloud save option. If you decide to go the free route, then you’re stuck with starting from the very beginning on all of your runs.

General Impressions

This is the kind of surreal environments you’ll find in Smash Hit.

Every day we are seeing more and more games throwing insanely difficulty levels for no reason. Your mental health will thank you, then, because Smash Hit is not a difficult game in the sense that it doesn’t throw you impossible tasks. You just have to be careful and you’ll be fine.

This is not to say that it will be a walk in the park. There are a lot of things wanting to block your progress. I still have a hard time trying to hit the switches for opening doors between sections. However, this is the kind of game you would want to play to sit back, relax, and have a good time.

Levels get progressively more difficult and imaginative as you traverse the game. A lot of moving, spinning, and rotating elements will start to appear out of nowhere. There’s even some kind of electricity walls that you disarm by hitting a block on the side of them. It’s really fun to discover new stuff as you progress through the game, preventing the novelty from wearing off.

In a really strange decision, Smash Hit doesn’t log you into Google Play Games automatically. Instead, you have to do it through the options screen yourself. This means that, until you log into it, your progress will not count towards achievements.

I still don’t know how to get around these giant hammer-like things.

Make sure you do this as soon as you start playing, and let’s hope that the developer implements a more streamlined way of connecting to Play Games, as thousands of other developers have already done.

Anyways, the achievements aspect of the game is very entertaining, and there are some pretty complicated ones that should give you a decent challenge, such as gathering 300 balls or playing 2000 meters without crashing.

Graphics and Sound

What a terrible player I was at first. Not that I’m that good right now either…

Graphics are, without a doubt, the highest point of this game. The environments you fly through are very varied and imaginative, and, even though there’s a rather limited colored palette, the game’s elements look fantastic and detailed. Special mention for the animations, All animations are very fluid, even in a device with average specs as the Nomu S10.

There are several areas and each one of them has a different design theme, so the game feels less monotonous this way. Coupled with the impressive sound effects, the audiovisual experience provided by this game is absolutely top-notch.

Speaking of sound, the developer has done an awesome job in converging both audio and graphics to create a cohesive experience. Not only the music is of great quality but it does a fantastic job of bringing a distinguishable aspect to each section of the game. It features very relaxing tunes that let you enjoy the journey through this glass-ridden land.

The nice environments are coupled with great music and sound effects to create a great experience.

Also, sound effects are really fantastic and believable. It seems like there was a lot of effort put into audio and graphics, and it has paid off. I assure you that it will take a long time for you to get bored of the fantastic sound of glass breaking. It seems like there was a lot of effort put into audio and graphics, and it has paid off.

Conclusion

Smash Hit deviates from traditional offerings in the Play Store in a good way. Providing gorgeous visuals, respectable audio elements, and a fun gameplay that is as simple as it is entertaining, this game manages to offer gamers a lot more fun than the normal “endless and unforgiving difficulty” combo that we see with more and more frequency in Android’s marketplace. In order to fully enjoy the game, the developer asks for a $1.99 purchase, but I think that it is totally worth it to pay such a small fee for a highly polished and elegant game as this.

Download and install Smash Hit from the Google Play Store.

Placeholders are making a comeback to OneDrive for Windows 10 in a fall update

Why it matters to you

Microsoft listened to customers, and is bringing placeholders back to OneDrive this fall, but the feature will be more than just visual thumbnails of cloud-stored files.

During Microsoft’s second Build 2017 keynote, Corporate Vice President in the Operating Systems Group Joe Belfiore introduced a new feature coming to Windows 10 this fall, called Files On-Demand. Based on OneDrive, the new service will help free up local device storage by pushing files into the cloud even though they’re still visible through File Explorer.

Files On-Demand seemingly brings the old “placeholders” feature back to OneDrive. It was originally offered on Windows 8.1. When users wanted to view or edit a file, they simply double-clicked on the placeholder, and OneDrive automatically downloaded it to the device. However, Microsoft replaced this feature with “selective sync” when it launched Windows 10 in 2015.

Currently, selective sync allows users to choose specific cloud-stored folders and files they want to synchronize locally on a Windows device. These locally stored files and folders are accessible through File Explorer, while all other cloud-stored data must be accessed via the OneDrive website or OneDrive app. However, Microsoft’s new Files On-Demand feature will provide local, visual placeholders in the OneDrive folder as well.

But that’s not all. Now that the Windows 10 platform knows what the user stores in the OneDrive cloud, desktop programs and Windows Store apps will be able to access these files. The files will seemingly work like any other locally-stored file unless the user doesn’t have an internet connection. If that becomes an issue, users can simply right-click on the file or folder and select “Always keep on this device.”

So how can users tell what files and folders are stored in the cloud? The Files On-Demand feature will inject File Explorer with a new cloud-shaped “status” column seated between the file/folder name and the modification date. Files and folders downloaded to the device will have a green check mark instead of the blue cloud icon.

“In addition to users, Files On-Demand benefits organizations and IT admins,” added Jeff Teper, corporate vice president for the Office, OneDrive and SharePoint teams. “Today, when someone syncs a SharePoint Online team site, files are re-downloaded on all synced devices when anyone makes a change. Files On-Demand will reduce network bandwidth by eliminating the need to continuously sync shared files on every synced device as teams collaborate.”

Windows 10 isn’t the only platform getting a OneDrive update. Android and iOS devices will soon have the ability to save entire OneDrive folders locally for offline use. Called OneDrive Offline Folders, any change made to the folders and their files while the user was offline will be synced once the Android or iOS device reconnects. The feature is available now for OneDrive Business accounts and Office 365 Personal/Home subscribers using Android devices.

As for iOS device owners, OneDrive Offline Folders will roll out over the next several months. Until then, Apple customers can test drive OneDrive for iMessage now, after updating the OneDrive app. This feature allows iOS device owners to share documents, photos, and other files with friends and family, without having to exit the iMessage app. Users can even share an entire folder if needed.

Placeholders are making a comeback to OneDrive for Windows 10 in a fall update

Why it matters to you

Microsoft listened to customers, and is bringing placeholders back to OneDrive this fall, but the feature will be more than just visual thumbnails of cloud-stored files.

During Microsoft’s second Build 2017 keynote, Corporate Vice President in the Operating Systems Group Joe Belfiore introduced a new feature coming to Windows 10 this fall, called Files On-Demand. Based on OneDrive, the new service will help free up local device storage by pushing files into the cloud even though they’re still visible through File Explorer.

Files On-Demand seemingly brings the old “placeholders” feature back to OneDrive. It was originally offered on Windows 8.1. When users wanted to view or edit a file, they simply double-clicked on the placeholder, and OneDrive automatically downloaded it to the device. However, Microsoft replaced this feature with “selective sync” when it launched Windows 10 in 2015.

Currently, selective sync allows users to choose specific cloud-stored folders and files they want to synchronize locally on a Windows device. These locally stored files and folders are accessible through File Explorer, while all other cloud-stored data must be accessed via the OneDrive website or OneDrive app. However, Microsoft’s new Files On-Demand feature will provide local, visual placeholders in the OneDrive folder as well.

But that’s not all. Now that the Windows 10 platform knows what the user stores in the OneDrive cloud, desktop programs and Windows Store apps will be able to access these files. The files will seemingly work like any other locally-stored file unless the user doesn’t have an internet connection. If that becomes an issue, users can simply right-click on the file or folder and select “Always keep on this device.”

So how can users tell what files and folders are stored in the cloud? The Files On-Demand feature will inject File Explorer with a new cloud-shaped “status” column seated between the file/folder name and the modification date. Files and folders downloaded to the device will have a green check mark instead of the blue cloud icon.

“In addition to users, Files On-Demand benefits organizations and IT admins,” added Jeff Teper, corporate vice president for the Office, OneDrive and SharePoint teams. “Today, when someone syncs a SharePoint Online team site, files are re-downloaded on all synced devices when anyone makes a change. Files On-Demand will reduce network bandwidth by eliminating the need to continuously sync shared files on every synced device as teams collaborate.”

Windows 10 isn’t the only platform getting a OneDrive update. Android and iOS devices will soon have the ability to save entire OneDrive folders locally for offline use. Called OneDrive Offline Folders, any change made to the folders and their files while the user was offline will be synced once the Android or iOS device reconnects. The feature is available now for OneDrive Business accounts and Office 365 Personal/Home subscribers using Android devices.

As for iOS device owners, OneDrive Offline Folders will roll out over the next several months. Until then, Apple customers can test drive OneDrive for iMessage now, after updating the OneDrive app. This feature allows iOS device owners to share documents, photos, and other files with friends and family, without having to exit the iMessage app. Users can even share an entire folder if needed.

Astrophysicists translate motions of TRAPPIST-1 planetary system into music

Why it matters to you

System Sounds reveals the workings of NASA’s recently-discovered TRAPPIST-1 system through the medium of music.

The universe is a pretty grand place, more than deserving of its own symphonic score. So why not let it compose its own?

That’s what a group of three talented Canadian astrophysicists and musicians have helped make possible, as a tribute to NASA’s recent discovery of seven Earth-sized exoplanets in the TRAPPIST-1 system, three of which orbit in the habitable zone.

“We’ve created a code that directly translates the motions of planetary systems into music,” Matt Russo, a post doc at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, told Digital Trends. “Although the deep connections between music and astronomical systems were first explored centuries ago by Johannes Kepler, the recent discovery of TRAPPIST-1 inspired us to try it out with 21st century technology. TRAPPIST-1 has the longest chain of resonances ever found, in which each planet’s period forms a low integer ratio with the periods of its neighbors. For every two orbits of the outer planet TRAPPIST-1h, the next one orbits three times; the next one after that four, then six, then nine, then 15, then 24. Not only does this mean that their orbits follow a steady repeating pattern but when the orbital frequencies are scaled into the human hearing range, the note corresponding to each planet form consonant notes in a chord which is surprisingly beautiful and eerily human.”

As you can see in the video at the top of this page, the so-called System Sounds plays a single piano note for every time a planet passes in front of its star, and plays a drum for every time a faster inner planet overtakes its neighbor. Based on this simple premise, however, the sheer number of parts in the TRAPPIST-1 system produces some incredibly dense music. Combined with a bit of a human helping hand in scaling up the orbital frequencies to make the period ratios whole numbers (“Over the past few billion years, the system has de-tuned slightly mainly due to tidal forces,” Russo said) the results spell out the inner workings of the newfound system.

Don’t expect it to work quite so well with other systems, though. “TRAPPIST-1 was really something special, and I’m not sure if we’ll ever find a system that’s as musical as that but I know many teams of observers are trying,” he explained. “There are several teams focusing on observing small planets around cool red dwarfs like TRAPPIST-1 and I can’t wait to see what they find. We’ll definitely translate the solar system, but will have to be a little more creative since the range of frequencies can’t fit into the human hearing range the way the planets of TRAPPIST-1 did.”

Russo’s collaborators on System Sounds include musician Andrew Santaguida and Dan Tamayo, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Toronto’s Center for Planetary Sciences and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics.

iPhone SE 2017: News and Rumors

Why it matters to you

If you’re after a smartphone that is both small and powerful, a next-gen iPhone SE could be your best bet.

Last year, Apple brought back the small phone in a big way when it released the iPhone SE. Functionally the internals of the iPhone 6S stuffed into the body of an iPhone 5, the SE satiated some consumers’ demands for a pint-sized handset without skimping on the power, as many other manufacturers often do. Although it may have seemed like a quirky one-off at the time, recent reports indicate the SE could return later this year with an all-new design.

So how is Apple’s next micro-marvel shaping up? Read on to find out.

Slashleaks

Design

Our first look at the new iPhone SE may have just arrived thanks to an image posted on Slashleaks. It shows us what is purported to be the phone’s rear panel, made of glass. If the leak holds true, the new SE will sport a vertically stacked camera and flash setup, and a glossy exterior. The lack of metal indicates the SE could receive the same wireless charging technology rumored to be present in all of Apple’s 2017 iPhones.

The paperwork behind the hardware provides more details, telling us the new handset could receive the same Ion-X glass present in the Apple Watch Sport. It is unclear whether the strengthened glass will simply coat the front or both sides of the device.

While Ion-X glass is less durable than the sapphire used in more premium versions of the Apple Watch, it boasts improved light transmittance and is less reflective. It’s similar to the Corning Gorilla Glass found in many Android devices.

The return to a more rounded design with the next-generation SE might put off some customers who were won over by the original’s retro aesthetic. That said, it is important to remember that this image is unverified and clearly not final.

There is still a lot of time between now and the fall, when Apple is expected to debut the iPhone 7S. And although most of the attention has been paid to Apple’s upcoming range-topping iPhone 8, the next SE could be a much more affordable, accessible option for many users who don’t need to spring for Cupertino’s latest and greatest. Check back here over the coming months for more updates.

This printer doesn’t use ink and can reuse the same piece of paper

Why it matters to you

This laser printing probably isn’t coming to home offices anytime soon, but could make security labels smaller than a single pixel.

Ink isn’t forever, but a new printing method could keep colors from fading over time because it doesn’t use ink. Researchers at the Technical University of Denmark developed a method for printing — in color — by etching microscopic patterns into plastic.

The method, published on May 5, doesn’t use traditional paper either but instead uses a plastic sheet that’s coated with germanium — a chemical element that looks like, and is chemically similar to, silicon. As the laser passes through the material, the germanium melts, etching tiny shapes to make an image. A final coating protects those tiny plastic carvings.

So how can miniature carvings in plastic create a colored image? The human eye perceives color based on reflected light — bounce a red light off a white object, and that item is going to look red. What the researchers discovered is that by adjusting the shape of each microstructure, they could change the wavelength of light that mini carving reflects, creating the perception of color.

The colors don’t resemble a traditional photograph — they appear to more closely resemble a film negative in their odd colors — but the unusual printing method could lead to a number of new advantages. First, the resolution of the resulting image is incredibly high. While a typical printer will use 5,000 dots per inch, the laser printer uses 127,000 in the same space. Besides just giving prints more detail, that high resolution could be used to make tiny watermarks, perhaps turning something like the raised stamp on an official birth certificate into a small but detail-heavy dot.

The printer is also capable of creating an image as small as 50 micrometers — which is smaller than even a single pixel on an HD display. Eventually, the technology could also lead to 3D displays. Oh, and the printer can re-melt a used piece of the plastic “paper” which takes recycling to a whole new level.

Osmo’s Coding Jam uses music to teach kids how to code

Why it matters to you

It’s not easy to make coding fun — especially for young kids. But Osmo’s Coding Jam just might do the trick.

Music is a strong motivator — and a powerful learning tool. One study found that students who listened to their favorite songs wrote twice as much while doing so as those who didn’t. But budgetary concerns and standardized tests have led some public schools to de-emphasize arts in favor of math, language arts, and other testable subjects.

Pramod Sharma, the founder of Palo Alto, California-based startup Osmo, thinks it doesn’t think it has to be that way.

Osmo, the clever augmented reality platform that use the iPad’s front-facing camera to blend digital and real-world objects, was among the most innovative toys we saw two years ago. Ever since the tech made Time’s 25 Best Inventions of 2014, Osmo’s been chipping away with improved kits and new ideas.

The newest is Coding Jam, an app kit that blends coding education — a longtime component of Osmo’s games  — with music. Like Osmo kits before it, kids download a companion app for iPad and interact with menus using physical cardboard pieces.

“We keep thinking about the intersection between physical and digital,” Sharma said. “We think it has the potential to be transformative. Music maps really well to coding.”

Coding Jam, which has been in development for more than a year, gives kids the freedom to create their own music mixes. Once they boot up the app, choose a randomly generated “stage name” (i.e.”Patient Cute Goldfish”), and complete a brief tutorial, they’re ready to recruit a band member. There are over 20 cartoon monsters and anthropomorphized animals to choose from, each with twelve unique sound effects.

Then, kids get to work composing short songs with Osmo’s cardboard block system. One block — a “beat” — triggers a note on one of the characters’ instruments. Another, a “pause” block, stands for silence (akin to a musical “rest”). And another, “repeat,” starts a selected sequence of beats and pauses over from the beginning.

The complexity ramps up from there. Kids can add accompaniments in the form of second and third characters. And a special type of block — “memory” — can play back and store notes as part of longer sequences.

Coding Jam ships with sharing features, too. Kids can save jams and share them among the app’s online Jam TV community, and download — and “like” — others’ compositions. They can see the sequence of blocks that make up the track, and remix them however they choose.

At launch, kids won’t be able to export their music to other apps. But eventually, they’ll be able to share them in the form of ringtones.

Sharma said Coding Jam is less about music theory than coding fundamentals — the team consulted with musicians to ensure that the app’s sound effects complement each other no matter how they’re combined. Rather, Sharma said, Coding Jam aims to put ideas like looping and sequencing into musical terms that kids can understand.

“That’s the coding angle,” he said. “Looping, for example, is a very fundamental unit of thinking. It’s a powerful idea.”

Some of the inspiration for Coding Jam came from MIT research about the importance of a physical, tangible element to learning for kids. Programming is an activity with a steep learning curve and it can seem inaccessible. Introducing a physical element makes it easier for children to understand, said Sharma.

To that end, the team has aimed for continuity. Coding Jam’s blocks are based on the same visual design language as the pieces that ship with Osmo’s Coding kit — the idea being that kids can apply what they learn in Coding Jam to the Coding kit. Even some of the animated characters in Coding Jam come from Coding kit, and from Pizza Co., a kit the team introduced late last year.

“We’re getting into the ‘universe’ concept,” Sharma said. “We made a programming language that works in conjunction with other kits. Kids are more likely to pick up something that looks familiar, and we’ve tried to do that.”

Osmo’s existing kits are in more than 20,000 schools, and ship with lesson plans. Many of those schools have been beta testing Coding Jam, Sharma said. “We’ve seen kids crowd around an iPad and share a pair of headphones,” he said. “Teachers are super excited — they’re hungry for coding.”

Coding Jam launches today on the Osmo website. If you already have the Osmo base, you can pick up the new Coding Jam pack for $50. Alternatively, you can buy the complete package, including Osmo Coding and the base, for $75.

It’s officially aimed at kids aged 5 to 12, but should appeal to kids aged 4 and up.

Underwater robots are live-streaming from the bottom of the ocean right now

Why it matters to you

Livestreaming ROVs not only let scientists participate in underwater expeditions from land, they also educate the general public on the wonders of the ocean.

Anyone who has ever been snorkeling, let alone any kind of deeper diving, knows how endlessly fascinating it can be to get a glimpse at the varied flora and fauna found on the ocean floor. But what if you could travel down much further than a few meters? And, best of all, what if you could do it from the comfort of your own home, without getting your hair wet?

That’s the goal of two separate projects, both currently underway, and both of which are live-streaming high-def footage from the bottom of the deep sea via remotely operated robotic vehicles (ROVs).

The first such project is the Global Explorer submarine robot, which is vlogging its exploits 80 miles off the coast of Chesapeake Bay, the point at which the North American continental shelf meets the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. The mission ends today (although no doubt you’ll no doubt you can catch up via replays), but involved chronicling methane seeps on the U.S. Mid-Atlantic margin between Baltimore Canyon and Hatteras Canyon at water depths of between 400 and 1,600 meters.

The second project is the Okeanos Explorer, which runs through May 19, with the goal of gathering critical baseline information about poorly understood deepwater areas in the Pacific. This means near-daily ROV dives in American Samoa, the Jarvis Island, Kingman Reef, and Palmyra Atoll units of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, before returning to Honolulu. Dives typically take place from about 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. SST (3 p.m. to 12 a.m. Eastern or 12 to 9 p.m. Pacific).

“What you’re seeing with both our expedition and the Global Explorer feed is a new telepresence model of conducting science,” David McKinnie, a senior adviser with NOAA’s Ocean Exploration Program, the organizers of the Okeanos Explorer project, told Digital Trends. “When you’re exploring in an unknown area, you can’t possibly have all the expertise on board that you might need. A telepresence model of exploration allows your science party to be largely on shore, but still available. Because they can see a high definition view of what’s happening on the seafloor through the eyes of our robot, and that can be transmitted in almost real time, with a delay of just several seconds, scientists can be as active on shore as they could be on a ship in terms of their participation.”

In addition to letting scientists guide the ROV from land, or annotate videos, McKinnie said that the other great advantage of the live-streaming technology is as a general interest educational tool for the viewing public: quite literally bringing cutting edge research into people’s homes.

“Even though I’ve been with this program for a while, the fact that you can get a high-definition video feed from 6,000 meters down to somebody’s desktop in a few seconds is something that I still find remarkable,” he said.

More projects like this please!