Weekly Rewind: A better hoverboard, solar paint, and a healthier tan

A lot can happen in a week when it comes to tech. The constant onslaught of news makes it nigh impossible for mere mortals with real lives to keep track of everything. That’s why we’ve compiled a quick and dirty list of this week’s top 10 tech stories, from what happened at E3 2017 to how to tan safely this summer — it’s all here.

Streamers and press duke it out at E3 2017, but let’s not forget we’re all gamers

Streamers and YouTubers are attending E3 2017 in record numbers, and that’s creating a bit of tension on the show floor. With bigger media outlets and streamers jockeying for the same demos and access, these growing pains are only natural, but it’s important to keep in mind that democratizing access at E3 is ultimately a good thing for gamers.

Since the event is open to the public for the first time, fans, streamers, and content creators who may not have large enough followings to qualify for press access are able to enjoy the biggest gaming event of the year right alongside big media outlets. At a few pre-show events, some publishers set aside streamer-centric seating right alongside the press.

Read the full story here.

Grab an umbrella! Animated GIFs are raining down on Facebook

The image format, Graphics Interchange Format, or GIF — commonly associated with those animated, looping photographs — is turning 30 on June 15, and Facebook is celebrating by adding the option to find and use GIFs within comments. Facebook is also asking readers that quizzical question: How do you pronounce GIF, anyway?

GIF support isn’t new to Facebook, of course, but the company says GIFs have become increasingly popular since support was introduced to Facebook Messenger in 2015, allowing users to chat with GIFs without opening up a web browser to find the appropriate animation. To date, users have shared almost 13 billion GIFs, from cute animations to funny video-like memes, inside the Messenger app in the last year alone. This amounts to about 25,000 per minute. Facebook says that number is triple the amount of GIFs sent from the previous year.

Read the full story here.

We could soon be painting our houses with ‘solar paint’ for clean energy

Imagine if painting the outside of your house not only made it look easy on the eye, but also took care of all of your home’s energy needs.

This, it seems, could soon be a reality as researchers in Australia have come up with a “solar paint” capable of absorbing moisture from the air and turning it into hydrogen fuel for clean energy.

Based at RMIT University in Melbourne, southern Australia, the research team has developed a unique paint containing a newly developed compound that acts like silica gel — that’s the stuff used in those little sachets that absorb moisture to keep things like food, medicines, and electronics in good shape.

Read the full story here.

Toyota is researching heart-monitoring cars that could prevent crashes

As occasional news reports have shown, having a heart attack or some other medical emergency while driving can prove devastating both for those in the affected vehicle and for anyone nearby when it happens.

With that in mind, Toyota is looking at the idea of incorporating technology into its cars that can predict such an event and bring the vehicle to a quick and safe stop.

Of course, with self-driving cars expected one day to rule the road, there would be no need for such technology. But with the widespread use of autonomous vehicles still a ways off, Toyota’s plans could prove an effective interim safety measure to prevent injuries (and potentially worse).

Read the full story here.

Roaming charges end in the EU, but Brexit confusion dampens celebrations

Mobile roaming charges for Europeans traveling to other European countries are no more. From June 15, 2017, travelers making a call, sending a text message, or using data will pay exactly the same as they do at home. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said in a statement: “Roaming charges will now be a thing of the past. As of June 15, you will be able to remain connected while traveling in the EU, for the same price as at home.”

The agreement was finalized in February, and had been a long time coming. Preliminary agreements were made in June 2015, but negotiations had been happening for a decade. What does it mean to you? If you’re an EU citizen, and travel to another EU country, you won’t pay extra for using your phone. The commission calls this a “roam-like-at-home” plan. The deal doesn’t mean everything will be free. Instead it means the services you use while roaming will be charged at the same rate you pay when on your home network.

Read the full story here.

Study finds ecigs may cause as much DNA damage as unfiltered cigarettes

Ecigarettes are still relatively new, which means that, unlike the case with regular cigarettes, we’re still in the early stages of working out how they’ll affect our health in the long term.

While some research has reported that they are considerably safer than tobacco cigarettes, a new study from researchers at the University of Connecticut claims something different: that vaping using a device filled with nicotine-based liquid can cause just as much DNA damage as smoking regular cigarettes.

The study involved the use of a new, 3D-printed electro-optical screening device capable of quickly detecting DNA damage. It showed that the damage caused by nicotine ecigarettes is approximately equivalent to that caused by smoking unfiltered tobacco cigarettes. The cellular mutations caused by DNA damage can lead to cancer. The level of potential DNA damage depends on how much vapor is inhaled by the smoker, as well as the quantity of other additives present.

Read the full story here.

We talk demigod-fatherhood with ‘God of War’ director Cory Barlog

The new God of War was first unveiled at E3 2016, revealing a wholly new game that builds on the storied franchise, and discards much of its conventions in favor of a fresh, bold new look and narrative style. At E3 2017 (watch the new GOW E3 trailer here), we got the chance to sit down with its director Cory Barlog, who we also spoke with last year. This time around, he discussed some of the finer points of demi-god fatherhood.

Perhaps the most noticeable change to God of War is Kratos himself. He’s still angry, but he’s sad about it. Which makes sense considering the horrors he endured — and inflicted — during his campaign of revenge against the gods of Mount Olympus.

Read the full story here.

Canvas replaces over-the-phone job interviews with texting

We’ve all been there: you send your spruced-up resume and references to a job recruiter, get a friendly acceptance email from said recruiter, and set up a phone interview. That’s where things get tricky; once you’ve spent days or weeks nailing down a time that fits both of your calendars, you’re stuck with logistical challenges like dodgy cell reception, background noise, and awkward questions that sound much better in an email than over the phone. That’s why Canvas, a new startup, is tackling things from a different angle: Text messaging.

Canvas, the brainchild of Aman Brar, Kelly Lavin, and Jared Adams, takes a “messaging-first” approach to job interviews. Instead of scheduling a phone call with a recruiter, prospective employees text them via a smartphone, PC, or tablet, as if they’re exchanging messages with a friend. Brar compared it to online dating.

Read the full story here.

New ‘hoverboard’ offers more practical features, less spontaneous combustion

Radical Moov’s name makes it sound a bit like a politically conscious 1990s electronic dance music collective. In fact, it’s a Mark Cuban-backed hoverboard which promises to be so good that it’ll banish all thoughts of lesser quality rideables that have sullied the good name of hoverboards over the years.

“Though Moov looks like a sleeker version of the hoverboard, the riding experience is very different since it’s a rigid platform and has weight-based steering,” co-founder and engineer EJ Williams told Digital Trends. “It’s a premium, American-made rideable that is both fun to ride and useful to get around.”

Read the full story here.

Scientists may have found a safer way to tan, minus the cancer risk

With summer here, chances are that you’ve probably spared a bit of thought for getting that sun-kissed, tanned look often associated with youth and vitality. The sad irony, of course, is that while we might associate suntanned skin with good health, prolonged sun exposure can lead to accelerated skin aging, as well as associated risks like skin cancer.

A new research project published in the journal Cell Reports suggests that things don’t have to remain that way, though. Scientists have discovered is a small molecule that may be able to stimulate the darkening of human skin, without exposing it to potentially harmful UV radiation. This involves inhibiting an enzyme called Salt Inducible Kinase (SIK), which naturally suppresses pigmentation. By inhibiting it, pigment synthesis is instead stimulated.

Read the full story here.

The LG Exalt LTE is an LTE-only flip phone available from Verizon

Why it matters to you

Are you still holding on to your old flip phone? There is now a device you can upgrade to, if you would like to keep the flip form-factor.

The humble flip phone is largely considered to be dead, but that is not stopping mobile manufacturers from catering to those who prefer the older form-factor. For example, Samsung recently launched the SM-W2017 flip phone. Now, LG is here with a competitor — the LG Exalt LTE.

The device is a little slimmer and more old-school than Samsung’s offering. It comes with a 3-inch LCD display with a resolution of 240 x 400, along with 8GB of storage, which is expandable by up to 32GB through a microSD card slot. The camera on the phone sits in at 5MP and the 1,470mAh battery life is rated from up to six hours of talk time.

Now, there is no fooling anyone here — this is not a top-of-the-line device, but it does serve to bring in a little nostalgia with its number pad and textured design. It is available through Verizon and does not support Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) but it does come at a relatively inexpensive $168 and you can pay it off over 24 months for $7 per month.

Perhaps most interesting, however, is the fact that this appears to be Verizon’s first LTE-only phone. Verizon is working to shut down its CDMA networks because it plans on using that network for LTE rather than for voice calls — so ironically enough, it seems like this flip phone is in a way heralding the future of cellular connectivity in the U.S. It does make sense — in order to fully shut down its CDMA network, Verizon needs to move customers off of it. That means it needs to get old flip phone owners to adopt new phones, which is where the LG device steps in.

Is the flip phone making a comeback? No, absolutely not — but just like some people still prefer real keyboards like the ones on a BlackBerry, some people also prefer the flip form-factor, so it makes sense that manufacturers continue to offer one or two flip models.

Don’t plug that e-cigarette into your PC unless you’re sure it’s safe

Why it matters to you

If you use an e-cigarette, you might want to keep it away from your PC’s USB port.

Not a day goes by, it sometimes seems, that we don’t hear about another way that hackers can attack our systems and steal our information. Keeping a system locked down and secure can seem like an impossible task when it can be vulnerable in ways that we’d never suspect.

One recent example is some work done by researcher Ross Bevington, who showed that the seemingly innocuous and decidedly low-tech e-cigarette can be used to break into a machine, as ExtremeTech reports. Don’t panic yet, however, because it’s not the vaporous aspects of e-cigarettes themselves that are at fault.

Bevington demonstrated the method of attack using an e-cigarette in a video that he shared on Twitter:

Sorry if I get vape pens banned at your work place…… pic.twitter.com/VYhIIvyDEx

— Wll buy derby ticket (@FourOctets) May 25, 2017

Basically, e-cigarettes require power to function, given that they heat up liquids to create vapors that users inhale as a substitute for burning tobacco. As with many devices today, some rechargeable e-cigarettes come equipped with USB connections to draw power from PCs — providing a handy way to keep vaping when you can’t get to a wall socket.

The problem is that any device that can plug into a USB port can hide electronics that can host malware that executes commands when plugged in and wreak havoc on a system. PCs have been designed to make it easy to run programs when USB drives are plugged in and that very convenience can make a system vulnerable to attack. The problem is so severe that some people are making tools that sit between a USB port and the outside world to form an elaborate barrier.

USB-based malware attacks are nothing new, nor are tools that can literally fry a motherboard merely by plugging in what looks like a typical USB flash drive. While modern systems do have some safeguards built in to stop code from executing, plenty of examples exist that enable these systems to be bypassed. The simplest response is to follow a strict policy of never plugging anything into your USB port if you’re not 100-percent certain it’s safe — and that includes waiting until you get to a plug before charging up your e-cigarette for a quick fix.

Best Android Phone Under $400

• Best overall
• Best looks
• Best audio experience
• Best for less

Best overall

Moto Z Play

See at Motorola

The Moto Z Play already has a sequel, but that doesn’t matter: at $399.99, this is the best phone under $400 you can buy. Why? It’s got everything you need in a flagship, including a great big screen, excellent performance, unbeatable battery life (seriously, this thing goes two days no problem) and support for Motorola’s growing line of Moto Mods accessories.

Bottom line: If you’re buying an unlocked phone and have a $400 budget, the Moto Z Play is your best bet right now.

One more thing: The unlocked version will only work on T-Mobile and AT&T in the U.S.; there’s a Verizon version available for slightly more money.

Why the Moto Z Play is the best

The phone to get if you want bang for your buck.

Phone prices are rising. That’s just a fact. So when you can find a best-in-class product, even if it’s not new on the market, you jump at it. The Moto Z Play was recently permanently discounted to $399.99, and that’s a perfect price for this near-flawless phone.

It starts with the excellent build quality, made of metal and glass, and extends to the incredibly smooth performance from the Snapdragon 625 processor and 3GB of RAM. You also have a very good 16MP rear camera, and a 5MP front camera with selfie flash. But the best part about this phone — oh, that the software is great, too — is the 3,510mAh battery, which lasts seemingly forever (but really about two days of heavy use). That can even be extended with one of Motorola’s useful Moto Mod batteries packs.

Best looks

Honor 8

See at Amazon

Do you like shiny things? The Honor 8 is plenty shiny for those of you attempting to add more sheen into your life. I mean, just look at the blue color featured here. It’s even more gorgeous in person, and it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

The Honor 8 is Huawei’s second attempt at entering the U.S. market. It’s got a 5.2-inch 1080p display, a 3000mAh battery, 4GB of RAM, and Huawei’s in-house developed Kirin 950 processor. The Honor 8 also has dual 12-megapixel rear-facing cameras, both of which work in conjunction to produce the best possible photo you could want. As we discussed in our review, it’s plenty capable of being your primary shooter.

The only drawback of the Honor 8 is that Huawei’s EMUI is a bit of a doozy to get used to. Its default launcher doesn’t offer an app drawer, so you’ll have to find another launcher if you’re used to having one. It also comes with a bit of bloatware and extra apps you might find redundant alongside Google’s offerings, though you can thankfully uninstall and deactivate them at will.

Bottom line: If you’re looking for last year’s flagship performance at an affordable price point, the Honor 8 is an impressive little package.

One more thing: The unlocked Honor 8 is only compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile’s networks, along with their associated prepaid MVNOs.

Best audio experience

ZTE Axon 7

See at Amazon

You might have forgotten that ZTE is a major player in the U.S. smartphone wars, but that’s okay. The good news is that the company is the brains behind the very impressive Axon line and the Axon 7 is a worthwhile choice if you don’t mind dealing with a clunky Android interface.

The ZTE Axon 7 offers a 5.5-inch Quad HD AMOLED display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 3250mAh battery. It also has a 20-megapixel rear-facing camera, though it’s not the best shooter in low light environments. But if you’re an audiophile, the Axon 7 might make your ears perk up.

Bottom line: If you’re tired of the same old smartphone brands in your life, the ZTE Axon 7 might be that “something new” that becomes your “something constant.”

One more thing: The Axon 7 is equipped with the bands necessary to work on a network like Verizon Wireless, but your best bet is to be an AT&T or T-Mobile (or their prepaid brands) subscriber before purchasing this device.

Best for even less

Moto G5 Plus

See at Amazon

The Moto G5 Plus is a wonder of cost-cutting in the right places. For either $229.99 (2GB RAM/32GB storage) or $299.99 (4GB/64GB) you get one of the most well-rounded budget phones out there. Featuring an excellent 5.2-inch display, a great 12MP rear camera, and awesome software touches, the Moto G5 Plus is truly a remarkable achievement.

Bottom line: You can’t go wrong with the Moto G5 Plus, one of the best budget smartphones available right now.

One more thing: The Moto G5 Plus has a smaller, cheaper sibling in the Moto G5.

Conclusion

The sub-$400 market is both extremely competitive and a little confusing. Smartphone prices are rising across the board, so it’s difficult to know whether you should buy last year’s flagship or this year’s budget device. The Moto Z Play falls kind of in the middle, since it’s still fairly new, but has been permanently discounted as we await its more expensive sequel. At the same time, devices like the Honor 8 and Axon 7 continue to offer tremendous value for the money, while the newer Moto G5 Plus redefines what it means to be a top-tier budget device.

Best overall

Moto Z Play

See at Motorola

The Moto Z Play already has a sequel, but that doesn’t matter: at $399.99, this is the best phone under $400 you can buy. Why? It’s got everything you need in a flagship, including a great big screen, excellent performance, unbeatable battery life (seriously, this thing goes two days no problem) and support for Motorola’s growing line of Moto Mods accessories.

Bottom line: If you’re buying an unlocked phone and have a $400 budget, the Moto Z Play is your best bet right now.

One more thing: The unlocked version will only work on T-Mobile and AT&T in the U.S.; there’s a Verizon version available for slightly more money.

Update, June 2017: The Moto Z Play is our new best phone under $400, while the Moto G5 Plus has taken over from the G4 Plus.

The Ultimate Guide to Star Trek: Bridge Crew

Welcome to the Bridge, Ensign. You have a lot to learn.

The best cross-platform multiplayer VR game you can play right now is, without a doubt, Star Trek: Bridge Crew. With no shortage of people to play with at any point of the day and plenty of things to keep your whole crew busy while you’re exploring the frontier, it’s time to get busy.

To help you along, we’ve assembled this Ultimate Guide for getting the most out of your Star Trek: Bridge Crew experience. Ready? Punch it!

Read more at VRHeads.com

Latest OnePlus 3 and 3T Open Beta preps OxygenOS for the OnePlus 5

The latest builds for the OxygenOS Open Beta program primarily offers bug fixes, update to OnePlus Community App.

OnePlus is currently rolling out the latest update to OxygenOS Open Beta 18/9 for both the OnePlus 3 and 3T. Open Beta 9 for the OnePlus 3T — and Open Beta 18 for the OnePlus 3 — looks to address a number of bug fixes along with updating the OnePlus Community App to V 1.9 ahead of the OnePlus 5 launch event next week.

Here’s a look at what’s changed, according to the changelog:

• Updated OnePlus Community App to V 1.9
• Bug Fixes:
  • Fixed occasional duplicate notifications
  • Fixed expanded screenshot duplicate stitches
  • Fixed app locker
  • Fixed inaccurate battery percentage
  • Fixed certain display issues with OnePlus Font
  • Fixed certain display issues in the weather app
  • Fixed camera occasionally unable to open
  • Fixed sending files with 3rd party apps via hotspot
  • Fixed inaccurate displayed network speed when activating hotspot

If you’ve already flashed an Open Beta onto your OnePlus 3 or 3T, you will receive this update as an OTA, otherwise, you can find the full ROM and instructions on how to flash it to your device from the OnePlus downloads page. The update file size is 76MB

It appears that OnePlus has squashed a number of annoying bugs with this release, and the responses in the forums have been generally positive with users verifying the build is certified in the Google Play Store and also verified by SafetyNet.

If you’ve downloaded and installed the update, let us know what you think in the comments below. But more importantly, let OnePlus know of any bugs or feedback because that’s what these beta programs are all about!

OnePlus 3T and OnePlus 3

• OnePlus 3T review: Rekindling a love story
• OnePlus 3T vs. OnePlus 3: What’s the difference?
• OnePlus 3T specs
• Latest OnePlus 3 news
• Discuss OnePlus 3T and 3 in the forums

OnePlus
Amazon

Podcast helped free a Swedish man after 13 years in prison

If you’re in prison for murder, may I suggest getting yourself onto a podcast? It worked for Kaj Linna, a Swedish man just released from prison after a podcast got him a retrial.

In 2004, Linna was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of a robbery and murder that took place on a farm in northern Sweden. The brother of the murdered man thought he recognized the voice of the attacker. That man had an alibi but he directed police to another person who ultimately fingered Linna. He was the prosecution’s main witness in a case that lacked forensic evidence.

But Linna maintained his innocence and the podcast Spar, hosted by journalists Anton Berg and Martin Johnson, investigated the case. During an interview, the witness that contributed to Linna’s conviction gave new information that contradicted his testimony and Linna used the recording of that interview in an appeal. It got him a new trial and eventually an overturning of his conviction. He’d spent 13 years in prison.

Spar is part of the growing true crime docuseries trend. It follows the wildly popular Serial podcast and Netflix’s series Making a Murderer, both of which brought national attention and skepticism to their featured murder cases. And who can forget The Jinx and its stunning final episode? Unfortunately for US true crime geeks, Spar is in Swedish, but if you’re really hankering for another binge, consider watching Netflix’s recent release The Keepers. And in the meantime, stay sexy and don’t get murdered. Genuine true crime fans will know what I mean.

Source: BBC

Snipers, tanks and turrets don’t exist in ‘Lawbreakers’

First-person, team-based shooters like Overwatch, Monday Night Combat and Team Fortress 2 all share a collection of common tropes. Players typically compete to move payloads or hold objectives, with teams built from a collection of classic character types: medic, tank, soldier and sniper. That’s not how it works in Lawbreakers, the upcoming character-based team shooter from Boss Key. According to lead designer Dan Nanni, the genre’s conventions made the game feel hamstrung and slow. “The first thing we wound up doing,” he said, “was throw all the rules away. Just throw them all away.”

The problem, Nanni said, is that traditional team shooter elements kept slowing the game down. “Snipers as an example,” he explained, “they’re built to slow the game down. They’re a mile away, sighting an entire location, and people are cautious when they approach. That naturally brought our game speed down.” At first, the team resisted taking such an iconic class out of the game, but after several failed iterations of the character, the team gave up — removing dedicated snipers from Lawbreakers entirely. It’s the same reason the team removed crouching, sight aiming and sprinting from the game.

Still, it was less about taking traditional elements out of the game than making sure each character could play an active role in it. Much like snipers, Nanni said that healing classes usually focus on following a tank, walking directly behind another player to keep its health up. This didn’t fit in with Lawbreakers’ fast-paced gameplay. “Everybody else is having this chaotic, fun experience, and they were taken out of it,” he explained. “Only following people.” Instead, Lawbreakers’ support classes heal players passively, freeing them up to participate in the more violent aspects of a match. “Every one of our roles is capable of being a killer. They’re verti-killers,” he clarified. “They’re about vertical gameplay and they’re about killing. We focused on that because we want everybody to contribute to the chaos.”

And the game is indeed chaotic — at least it feels that way at first glance. True to its design, Lawbreakers is incredibly fast-paced: a frantic arena battle that takes place between low and zero gravity zones. That alone would be exciting enough, but each of the game’s characters navigates that battlefield in a completely different way. The Wraith class slides across the ground and leaps off walls to gain traction in zero gravity while the Gunslinger role zips around the arena with short-distance warps. A character with the Titan class can leap huge gaps, crashing down with a damaging electric charge — a stark contrast to the Vanguard characters that use afterburners to charge forward in the direction of the player’s vision. Each character moves in a way that almost feels like it belongs in its own game.

This unique feeling extends to how each character moves on solid ground, how their weapons work and their special abilities. True enough, every character in Overwatch moves at their own pace, and has at least one ability that makes them special — but none of them feel quite as foreign to one another as the heroes and villains of Lawbreakers. It’s refreshing and potentially deep — I was able to stumble along with each character during my E3 demo with the game, but it was obvious I would have to put in dozens of hours to master them. Under the surface, none of them quite played like I expected.

Nanni says that’s typical: The characters were designed with specific gameplay styles in mind. “For example, our dual pistol role started out as a boxer.” The character was supposed to be a melee class, exclusively. Bold players would have brought fists to a gun fight, but finding a way to fairly bring a boxing character within punching distance proved too difficult. “We realized that the game is so fast that it wasn’t boxing that was important so much as that we wanted the character to use combinations.” They compromised with a set of pistols that acted like fists — a short burst fire weapon in the left hand to function as quick jabs and a heavy pistol in the right that served as a knock-out punch. “I think in the game there’s still references to the boxer style for that role from the engine perspective.”

That led to a game that uses the format of a role-based team shooter but ignores the conventions that have typically ruled the series. The standard tank, soldier, sniper and healer classes forgo the typical trappings to serve Lawbreakers’ faster-paced game design. It’s a good move. We only had a few minutes with the title, but it felt exciting and fresh. And well, that’s the point, isn’t it? “Just because one game says everybody has to sprint or crouch or have a sniper, it doesn’t mean we have to,” Nani concluded. “We need to have our game.”

Follow all the latest news from E3 2017 here!

Amazon’s ready to own the future of grocery shopping

“When I look at the menu,” Jeff Bezos allegedly said, “you’re the thing I don’t understand, the thing I’ve never had.” He was explaining to Matt Rutledge, founder of Woot, why Amazon had bought his online anti-retailer for $110 million. Bezos justified the purchase of the site the same way he’d ordered octopus for breakfast in a famous meeting, as described by D Magazine. Rutledge understood the point: If Amazon doesn’t understand something, it will use its financial clout to buy it and dissect it in search of its je ne sais quoi.

That anecdote might help us understand why Amazon has just purchased Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion. Rutledge went on to explain that Amazon employees hounded him for data in order to understand how Woot, a site that famously sold a “bag of crap” was successful. The partnership wasn’t to be a fruitful one, but it’s illustrative of Amazon’s corporate hunger for information. It’s likely that the company will send an army of employees to Whole Foods to examine every part of its business.

Of course, the company has assured people that Whole Foods will “continue to operate” under its own brand. In addition, nothing will change (for now) about how the grocery store operates, sourcing food from “from trusted vendors and partners around the world.” But behind the scenes, you can imagine individual outlets becoming laboratories for an enormous, constant experiment in grocery retail.

Give it a year or two and Amazon will know everything about running a brick-and-mortar business selling fresh produce. That data, mixed with the information it’s gleaning from its checkout-free Go outlets, will give it enormous insights on building the perfect store. The biggest changes, however, are likely to be behind the scenes. Amazon’s fresh grocery efforts are small fry compared with a national chain with 431 physical stores across the country.

Amazon has also spent the past few years sucking up every piece of information about customer purchasing habits it can. Retailers can make decisions based on macro trends of what people are buying, and when, but Amazon knows exactly what each of its users buys, and when. After all, between the Dash Button and Dash Wand, it can track how frequently people consume and reorder nonperishables like toilet paper and soap. Imagine if Whole Foods stocks only precisely what Amazon’s algorithms tell it to, potentially saving millions in unsold inventory.

Amazon is also working hard to ensure that it won’t be killed by the same forces that helped to damage traditional retailers. It recently scored a patent enabling it to block access to a competitor’s website within its locations. If you’re wandering down the aisle in a Whole Foods and you wonder if the bag of lentils you’re holding would be cheaper at Trader Joe’s, your query could be blocked. Amazon knows that “showrooming” of this kind helped online services at the expense of traditional retailers. Perhaps Amazon’s biggest innovation will be to ensure that the company won’t be undone in the same way that Amazon itself did for stores like Borders.

Source: Business Wire

‘Circle of Saviors’ made me equal parts hero and dweeb

Circle of Saviors is more fun than it should be. The cooperative hack-and-slash VR game glues you to a single spot, and you wield a shield and sword using HTC Vive controllers. Your buddy is armed with a crossbow (which is actually a Vive controller and a tablet screen). Meanwhile, you’re immersed in the battlefield, as a green-screen room digitally maps everything to a TV for spectators to watch. Sure, I’ve seen this done before, but swords and goblins are way better than teleporting and shooting.

You can see how I fared in the video above. I was no savior, but at least there was a crowd there to watch me fail. The game is already running in Tokyo arcade arenas, and it appears the company is looking to set up Circle of Saviors in places beyond Japan — it explains why the team made the trip to LA. The challenge will be finding entertainment centers with both the space and willingness to set up dedicated green-screen areas for one hilarious, but relatively simple, title.

Follow all the latest news from E3 2017 here!