Merge VR launches $1 million fund to fuel VR and AR developers

There are a lot of great ideas out there — they just need the resources to make them happen.

Hoping to spur VR and AR development to grow the platforms even further, Merge VR has announced it is launching a $1 million fund for developers who build for Merge platforms. Several studios are participating in the Merge VR Developer Fund, including React VRX, Draw & Code, Steelehouse Productions and Chicken Waffle.

Marge already offers up its Cube Dev Kits at no cost, and hundreds have already been delivered around the world. But if you want to try and take your VR or AR idea to the next level, you can also apply to get funding from the Merge VR Developer Fund.

As an applicant you’ll obviously need to offer up a proposal of your app or game experience, a breakdown of your budget needs, information on your team, and a portfolio of previous work. If you think you have what it takes and could use the funding to get your ideas out there, hit up the Merge VR Developer Fund page to learn more.

Press release:

June 6, 2017 – San Antonio, TX — Merge VR today announced it has created a one-million-dollar Merge Developer Fund to support the AR/VR developer community building apps for the Merge platforms, including the award-winning Merge Cube.

Launched in 2015, the company’s VR Goggles are compatible with both iPhone and Android devices to experience VR apps, 360 video, 3D movies and more. The team is currently gearing up for the widespread launch of its newest product, the Merge Cube, that allows users to hold and interact with holograms. Merge first unveiled it at CES 2017 where it won the award for “Most Unique Product.”

Merge is openly inviting developers all over the world to join them in shaping the future of AR. “We created the Merge Developer Fund to broaden our support of the dev community,” says Jeremy Kenisky, Merge VP of Creative. “The Merge Cube introduces an entirely new experience to the world, and the developer fund provides an awesome opportunity for devs to get creative and be ambitious.”

Studios already participating in the Merge Developer Fund include React VRX, Draw & Code, Steelehouse Productions and Chicken Waffle.

“When a kid can pick up a physical object and see it turn into something else in the palm of their hand — then play with it, it’s magic,” says Chad Lee, CEO of React VRX. “Developing products that create this magic is exciting for us. We can design so many interesting things around the cube and hope to partner with Merge to make it ‘Toy of the Year’!”

“As soon as we encountered Merge VR and their vision to open up immersive technology to a younger audience, we were inspired,” says John Keefe, Co-founder of Draw & Code. “Now, the Merge Cube is quite literally putting this exciting tech into the hands of the next generation.”

As the only VR goggles rated ages 10 and up, the marshmallow-soft Merge VR Goggles have become a favorite among younger VR explorers and educational institutions. Since first releasing the goggles in the US, retail distribution has expanded to more than 5,000 stores in 13 countries and is rapidly growing.

Merge Cube Dev Kits are available at no cost, and more than 400 have already been delivered to developers around the world including museums, schools and Hollywood studios. Developers interested in learning more or applying for funding can visit dev.mergevr.com/fund.

If you’re buying Beauty and the Beast, make sure to connect Disney Movies Anywhere

Most digital copies are a letdown. Disney’s are not.

We’ve all seen it: buy the movie before it’s out on Blu-ray, and you don’t get any special features, and your copy is stuck in one store forever. It sucks, right? WRONG! Disney has a digital system that makes buying the movie early an actually tempting thing to do, and it all has to do with connecting digital stores and awesome app implementation.

Before you go buy Beauty and the Beast, please download Disney Movies Anywhere. You will not be disappointed.

Disney Movies Anywhere is a venture that Disney has undertaken in cooperation with Google Play, iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, and other stores to offer their digital copies on all your favorite digital platforms. If you buy a Disney movie on Google Play, Disney Movies Anywhere can see the purchase once it’s connected to your account and then give you that same film on iTunes, so you can load it on the iPad before a family trip. Here’s what we do:

Download Disney Movies Anywhere.
Open Disney Movies Anywhere.
Log into (or create) your Disney account. This is the same Disney account you’d use on Disney.com, the Disney Store, or a Walt Disney World vacation.
Tap Connect Account
Choose the service you’d like to connect.
Log in to that service to connect the account.

If you want to connect your account to Apple iTunes, log into the Disney Movies Anywhere website on your desktop computer or Disney Movies Anywhere app on your Apple device.

Now, buy a movie. Any Disney movie you buy will show up on every digital store you’ve connected to your account, and with the copy of your digital film in Disney Movies Anywhere, you’ll also be able to access any shorts and special features associated with the film. For big blockbuster movies like Beauty and the Beast, there will be a lot of special features. For smaller movies, like The Parent Trap, you’ll only get the movie, but you’ll get that movie anywhere that Disney has an agreement.

What if I want to buy the Blu-ray?

Great news! Remember those digital codes that come in a lot of Blu-ray combo packs? For Disney movies, those codes go right into Disney Movies Anywhere. This means that you can spend $20 buying Beauty and the Beast on digital and get all the special features on Disney Movies Anywhere, or buy a shiny Blu-ray combo pack for that same $20, pop that digital code into DMA, and get that magical digital copy with all the special features PLUS a physical copy for when you want to use that Blu-ray player gathering dust in your entertainment center. The physical copies are essentially free, so why bother buying a digital-only copy online?

I am a huge Disney fan. I wait for the Blu-ray because it is the only Blu-ray I can buy that comes with a decent digital copy. Even better? This time, I don’t have to wait an extra three weeks for that Blu-Ray combo pack!

Apple’s 2TB iCloud plan will only cost you $10 a month

A slew of announcements came out of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference yesterday including a price drop for the company’s 2TB iCloud storage plan. It may not be as sexy as the HomePod, but it’s still pretty good news.

The plan’s price was cut in half to just $10 per month, which used to be the cost for the now non-existent 1TB plan. Apple’s other upgraded storage options are still priced at $1 for 50GB and $3 for 200GB of space. This now puts Apple’s value way ahead of Google Drive and Dropbox at that storage level, both of which charge $10 per month (or slightly cheaper if paid for annually) for 1TB of storage. It’ll be interesting to see how Apple’s competitors, who have a history of battling it out over pricing, respond to their freshly-reduced cost.

For those requiring a ton of storage space, however, you’ll still have to turn elsewhere. Whereas iCloud caps out at 2TB, Google Drive offers up to 30TB and Amazon’s Cloud Drive gives you unlimited file space for $60 per year. And for free storage, Google Drive is still one of your best bets, offering 15GB compared to iCloud’s and Amazon Prime’s 5GB and Dropbox’s measly 2GB.

Apple’s 2TB plan at the new price level is available now and anyone previously subscribed to the 1TB plan has been automatically upgraded.

Via: The Verge

Source: Apple

Pokemon coming to Nintendo Switch in September

Nintendo Switch owners will get their first Pokemon game this September, with a remastered version of Pokemon Tournament to be released for the console on 22 September.

Pokemon Tournament DX is an enhanced version of the Wii U game released in Europe and the US last spring. It will feature an extended cast of Pokemon to fight with, including Decidueye, Croagunk and more.

Nintendo has announced that the fighting game will be playable at E3 2017, so Pocket-lint will get its hands on it then. From our plays of the Wii U version, we already know that it’s a surprisingly addictive foray into Pokemon battles.

#PokemonUltraSunMoon will launch on Nintendo #3DS on November 17th! pic.twitter.com/vXTBsiuA4y

— Nintendo UK (@NintendoUK) June 6, 2017

Sadly, a rumoured Switch port of either Pokemon Sun or Moon doesn’t seem to be on the cards after all. Instead, Nintendo has announced new 3DS versions of the game(s).

• Pokemon Go: How to play and other tips and tricks

Pokemon UltraSun and UltraMoon are coming, with different storylines to the existing handheld games.

They will be available on 17 November this year and will also undoubtedly be shown properly for the first time at E3 2017 next week.

The classic Pokemon Gold and Pokemon Silver games will be available as part of Virtual Console for the 3DS on 22 September too.

OnePlus 5 will launch on 20 June

After months of rumours and leaks, the OnePlus 5 finally has a launch date, 20 June 2017. 

• OnePlus 5: Release date, rumours and everything you need to know

OnePlus will be live streaming the reveal on its company website at 5:00pm BST on the day. There will also be several pop-up events in various countries around the world, including London, New York and Berlin, where the phone will be shown off to a live audience.

The OnePlus 5 is shaping up to be a serious “flagship killer”, given the specs and features we already know it will arrive with. They include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, the same processor chip used by the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Sony Xperia XZ Premium

Excited to launch the OnePlus 5 on June 20 https://t.co/vC1vkzE6o8. I think @getpeid is too ???? pic.twitter.com/QsURqy4ptW

— Pete Lau (@petelau2007) 6 June 2017

It’s also tipped to come with a dual-lens camera, something even the Galaxy S8 doesn’t have, although this hasn’t been officially confirmed yet. OnePlus has previously teased an image taken on two different cameras, and asked which we think was taken on the 5. It doesn’t take a genius to work out the company is referring to the much clearer image in question. 

We do know OnePlus is taking the camera seriously, after it confirmed it has formed a partnership with DxO to “support their exciting mobile photography strategy”.

Elsewhere, the OnePlus 5 should feature a Quad HD display, at least 6GB of RAM and either 64GB or 128GB of internal storage. 

We don’t have long to wait until the full unveiling of the OnePlus 5, and rest assured we’ll bring you all the latest news as and when we get it. 

‘Arms’ is the successor to ‘Punch Out’ the Nintendo Switch needs

The original Punch Out may be heralded as a classic 8-bit NES game, but it’s one I didn’t play until I was in college. I’d heard it mentioned as I grew up but always dismissed it out of hand. Sports games, particularly those with celebrity endorsements, meant nothing to me as a child. When I eventually picked up a battered copy at a local flea market, I discovered the game was a masterpiece of simple, but challenging, gameplay. My experience with Arms on the Nintendo Switch is almost identical. It looked underwhelming until, of course, I played it.

Believe it or not, it’s not the boxing theme that ties these games together. It’s that they’re both deceptively simple. Nintendo’s original pugilist action game masquerades as a straight slugfest. Punch your opponent. Dodge. Block. Punch again. It seems obvious, but actually playing this way almost guarantees a loss. That’s because Punch Out is secretly a puzzle game. You can’t win by being a “better fighter,” you have to suss out your opponent’s “tell” — openings hidden by taunts and affectatious animation that let you break through each character’s increasingly impenetrable defenses. It’s a baffling hurdle for first-time players, but it’s a challenge that’s immensely satisfying to overcome.

Arms doesn’t use Punch Out’s “tell” mechanic, but the core game is no less deceptive. At a glance, it looks like a dressed-up Wii Sports ripoff, but flailing its motion controls wildly or mashing buttons won’t get you anywhere. Instead, players have to master the “puzzle” that lies behind every great fighting game — a ballet of each character’s special moves, attributes, strengths, weaknesses and timing. In Arms, this means knowing which arms (the weapons in the game) can block another weapon’s attack, or knowing how to use a fighter’s special attribute (such as Min Min’s defensive kick move) to deflect an incoming punch. It means learning how the speed of each telescoping attack can be used to create a tactical advantage.

It’s this hidden challenge — and overcoming it — that makes both of these games great. Players can pick up either title and have fun with the basic gameplay, but the complexity beneath the surface transforms each experience into something genuinely satisfying. Figuring out how Bald Bull telegraphs his punches (in Punch Out) or learning how to counter attacks by equipping different arms (in Arms, of course) makes the player feel smart and accomplished. This design that rounds out the gameplay and lends what could have been a shallow title a challenging experience curve.

For Arms, this culminates in a game that is easy to pick up and play for fun but has a huge amount of depth for players to dive into. The basics of punching and dodging are easy enough, but every arm changes how a character plays and effects what kind of attacks they can counter or overpower. Different loadouts change punch speed, which can have a huge impact on the amount of time you have to tactically react to your opponent’s movements and exploit them to land a counter or grab attack. Between the game’s strong core fundamentals, and its hundreds of possible loadout and character combinations, Arms becomes a game where skill and knowledge absolutely matter — at least if you want to compete online or in the single player mode’s higher difficulty levels.

The game has its flaws. Beyond multiplayer, the grand prix mode and a few mini-games, it just doesn’t offer much. Much like Super Smash Bros, Nintendo’s Arms will ultimately live or die on the strength of its charming characters and core gameplay. For me, that’s probably enough. I may have discovered Punch Out decades after the fact, but its expertly crafted gameplay and design brings me back to it again and again. After putting a dozen hours into Arms, I feel the same way about it. This is a title with good fundamentals and solid core gameplay — and I’m glad I didn’t dismiss it out of hand as I did with Nintendo’s original boxing game.

Lyft and nuTonomy aim to improve self-driving car comfort

Ride service companies like Uber and Lyft are focused on the technology of self-driving cars, but what about everythingn else? Lyft is now exploring the passenger aspect via a partnership with self-driving software firm nuTonomy. The idea, the companies say in a news release, is to gain knowledge on areas like passenger comfort and safety, “from routing and booking to the performance of the driving system and how it interacts and communicates with the rider.”

Lyft and nuTonomy will be doing R&D in the Boston area at the Raymond L. Flynn marine park and nearby at Seaport and Fort Point. During trials, “an engineer from nuTonomy rides in each of its vehicles during testing to observe system performance and assume control if needed,” the company said.

nuTonomy, a startup that sprung from MIT, has some experience in those areas, having launched the first-ever automated taxi service with Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Renault Zoe electric vehicles in Singapore. (It also had its first accident shortly after that.) The company is also running its own small self-driving trials on a small stretch of road in South Boston.

Lyft, meanwhile, has teamed up with a few rival self-driving companies so far, including GM and Google’s Waymo. Waymo told the NY Times that as a partner, Lyft can help it “reach more people, in more places.” Indeed, once the tech becomes reliable enough to put on the streets without supervision, companies will focus on paying customers to try to recoup the massive investments they’ve laid out so far.

Following initial trials, Lyft and nuTonomy could expand to gather even more data and learn “about the ideal function, performance and features of an autonomous mobiliy-on-demand service,” they say. nuTonomy could use that knowledge soon, as it plans to take its Singapore ride-sharing service out of trials sometime in 2018.

Source: nuTonomy

UK police make first arrest triggered by facial recognition

Police in South Wales have arrested a man using automatic facial recognition software. It’s the first time a person has been seized this way in the UK, according to Wales Online, following a series of trials at large-scale public events including Download music festival and Notting Hill Carnival. The most recent was the Champions League final in Cardiff, which took place last Saturday (June 3rd). The man, however, was arrested three days beforehand (May 31st). In a statement to Ars Technica UK, police confirmed he was a local resident and “unconnected” to the game in Cardiff.

“The facial recognition technology is currently being tested as [a] proof of concept in order to determine its potential and feasibility within a challenging, real-world policing environment,” a police spokesperson said. “The UEFA Champions League has clearly provided a perfect testing ground. While early indications are proving positive, we will continue to develop our understanding of its capabilities and limitations.”

The setup used by the police is unclear. For the Champions League final, officers used a “real-time” hardware and software solution developed by NEC. It’s possible that a similar system was used for the arrest, as well as the broader trials taking place in the city centre. A request for tender published by South Wales Police does, however, mention a “Slow Time Static Face Search” linked to 500,000 custody images in a “Niche Record Management” database, which seems to be separate from the real-time monitoring. Regardless, multiple vans have been spotted in Cardiff with cameras on the roof and a “facial recognition fitted” warning on the side.

While monitoring and detection clearly takes place on the move, it’s possible the police are analysing and cross-referencing the images elsewhere. Whatever the situation, the arrest is evidence of the technology’s potential to pick out people in a crowd. Running faces against a database of wanted criminals, or anyone with a track record, should give the police a better idea of who is nearby. It does, however, raise ethical questions about public privacy and potential surveillance overreach.

“South Wales Police has made significant progress in the development of its technology in the past 18 months, and that work is only set to continue as we strive to ensure we arm our officers with the very best technology commercially available – providing the public benefit is both proven and justifiable,” the spokesperson added. “The technology will be tested in a variety of circumstances and location in the months to come, assisting in our assessment of the viability of the project moving forward.”

Source: Wales Online, Ars Technica UK

Amazon discounts Prime for customers with EBT cards

Amazon announced today that customers enrolled in a number of different government assistance programs can now get Prime subscriptions for $6 per month. As of now, the offer is limited to those with a valid EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer) card, but the company plans to extend the benefits to assistance programs that don’t use EBT in the future.

The price is almost half of a standard monthly Amazon Prime subscription and works out to be a nearly 25 percent discount off of the typical yearly membership cost. It also comes with all of the expected Prime perks including free two-day shipping, Prime Video, Prime Music and Twitch Prime.

The discounted Prime offer comes after an announcement earlier this year about a pilot program allowing AmazonFresh and other online grocery stores to extend their services to Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) enrollees. Because a Prime membership is now required for AmazonFresh, the new program could allow more SNAP users to actually take advantage of the grocery delivery service.

Customers with an EBT card can enroll now and subscriptions can be renewed yearly up to four times.

Via: Business Wire

Source: Amazon

Nintendo hasn’t forgotten about ‘Pokémon’ on the 3DS

Okay, so, today’s brief Nintendo Direct didn’t reveal the Switch version of Pokemon Sun and Moon, but if you aren’t a fan of traditional fighting games and still prefer the 3DS to the Switch (see: battery life) there was still some silver lining for you from today’s Pokémon Direct. Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon will be released November 17th. The pair will feature pocket monsters not found in the original releases and a different story, along with new features that “will allow you to enjoy your adventure even more, making this truly an ‘ultra’ title,” according to the video. Sure! So, while they’re definitely the “latest installments,” they really aren’t 100 percent new per se.

More than that, Pokémon Gold and Silver are making their way from the annals of history — the Gameboy Color, to be exact — to the 3DS Virtual Console. They’ll also be compatible with the Pokémon Bank app and will be released on September 22nd, the same day as Pokken Tournament on Switch. There weren’t any further details regarding the handheld Pokemon, but with E3 starting this weekend, that’s bound to change pretty shortly.

Source: Nintendo (YouTube)