Facebook reminds you Messenger video chat exists with new effects

Facebook Messenger has had video chat capabilities for a couple of years now, and last December, it finally added group chat capabilities. Today, the company is unveiling even more features to Messenger’s video chat service such as animated reactions, filters and effects to hopefully make Messenger video calling a lot more fun.

Messenger video chat reactions are essentially the animated versions of the five Facebook emoji icons you probably already know: love, laughter, surprise, sadness and anger. Tap any of those emoji icons and the reactions will appear on screen as animations — the love icon, for example, will prompt hearts to fly around your head, while the laughter icon will prompt several laughing emoji heads to crowd the screen.

As for filters and effects, those who are familiar with Facebook’s Snapchat-style Camera will probably already recognize them. The filters range from mild color changes to bolder black and white transformations, while mask effects can add everything from a crown to bunny ears to your head. And if you open or close your mouth, you could even trigger some fun animations. We should note that mask effects like these have already been in Messenger video chat since last December; there’s just simply more of them now.

And as you’re having fun with all of these new video chat features with your friends, you can also now capture the moment for posterity by tapping the camera icon. It’ll screenshot the chat, which you can then post to Messenger Day, send it to the folks you’re chatting with, or share on other accounts. If you’re keen on adding more flair to your own video chats, you can try out the new Messenger features starting today.

Exceedingly difficult ‘TumbleSeed’ just got a bit easier

For those who have struggled through and given up on the exceptionally difficult rogue-like TumbleSeed (don’t worry, we had a hard time too), a patch was just released that makes the game a bit easier to navigate. The team behind TumbleSeed has acknowledged the game’s flaws and where they went wrong in their design, explaining the situation in a detailed blog post.

Greg Wohlwend, one of TumbleSeed’s designers, said in the post that the problem with the game is that there are too many new things introduced at one time, making it overwhelming for players. “It’s a pressure cooker filled with gunpowder that only a monk could endure,” said Wohlwend. And he notes that the difficulty has led to poor reviews and low sales.

Wohlwend goes on to say that the game’s bright colors and overall aesthetic make the game appear really accessible, but the gameplay didn’t follow through on that accessibility — something he regrets. “The whole game is designed to be accessible with the exception of that huge gap in the middle we forgot about,” he said.

To fix the difficulty issues, the TumbleSeed update adds four additional mountains that are the same every time you play rather than randomly generated. Auras are now always beneficial and eight more of them are available. There’s also a new weekly challenge along with additional changes to seed powers and enemies.

The update is available now and all of the changes are detailed on Steam.

Source: Aeiowu

Amazon Echo Show review: Seeing is believing

Siri may have ushered in the era of the digital assistant, but Amazon’s Echo (with Alexa) really took that concept and put it in our homes. The Echo wasn’t an immediate, breakout hit — but having Alexa around to ask questions, manage smart-home devices, play music and much more has turned out to be a pretty great thing. It’s a concept Google and Apple are now chasing (to varying degrees), but Amazon isn’t standing still.

The $230 Echo Show is the first Echo with a touchscreen, and since it was announced, we’ve been wondering how much a display will really add to the Alexa experience. It depends on what you want to do with it and where you put the Echo Show in your home. But after a week with Amazon’s latest, I’m convinced that yet another touchscreen in your life actually makes the Alexa experience better in a lot of ways — and that’s not to mention the special tricks the Echo Show brings.

Hardware

Images of the Echo Show appeared online a few days before it was formally announced, and the immediate reaction was one of disdain. Seeing it in person makes it a little bit better, but there’s no way around it: The Echo Show is an oddly angular and blocky device. It’s also strangely large, almost bulbous at the base. It’s definitely not the sleek cylinder that we’ve come to associate with the Echo. The matte-black plastic (it’s also available in white) picks up fingerprints quite easily — but this isn’t a device that you’ll be moving around often, so that shouldn’t be much of a problem.

It turns out, that wide base houses the Echo Show’s two speakers, which perform much better than I expected (more on that later). They make up the bottom half of the device, while the top is dominated by the 7-inch, 1024 x 600 touchscreen. That’s the same resolution as Amazon’s Kindle Fire 7 tablet, and while it’s certainly nothing to write home about, it fits the Echo Show’s purpose.

It’s not something you’ll be staring at for hours on end; instead, you’re more likely to be giving it quick glances throughout the day. To that end, I found it performed well; it’s bright and clear enough, and viewing angles are fine. Given that the Echo Show can play back video from YouTube and Amazon, a panel that hits 720p would have been nice, but I didn’t spend any time really thinking that the screen wasn’t up to par.

On top is a 5-megapixel video camera, which you’ll use for video calls and, potentially, third-party services down the line. The top features three buttons: two for volume control and one to mute the Echo Show’s eight-microphone array. The mics are set in an oval around the buttons up top, but there’s no light ring like what you’ll find on the original Echo. Instead, the bottom of the screen glows blue when you talk to the Echo Show. That works fine — it’s just not as elegant as the light ring.

Overall, the Echo Show hardware is solid and functional, but not much more. I will say, that once I placed it on my shelf, I spent less time thinking about its strange form factor. It does a good enough job of blending into the background, which is really what you want from a device like this. It’s not something that’ll draw attention, and that works for me.

In use

Setting up the Echo Show is a very simple affair and the first time that the touchscreen shows its usefulness. It’s pretty easy to go through the setup process right on the device, although the Alexa app for iOS, Android and Amazon’s own Fire devices will also do the job. Once you get the Show connected to WiFi and sign in with your Amazon account, you’re basically off and running.

If you’ve used an Echo before, everything you can do with that one is an option here, as well. I set up my location (for weather alerts), Google Calendar, my Todoist account and a few music services (including Spotify and Amazon Music) in the Alexa app and then I could easily access my personal info.

The default view on the Echo Show is a rotating view of your calendar appointments, to-do items, weather and a bunch of trending news stories. In all cases, the screen prompts you to ask Alexa for more details on whichever particular item is on display. Talking to Alexa works just as well on the Show as the standard Echo; I had very few instances where it didn’t pick up my voice right away, though there were definitely occasional moments of confusion as it tried to understand what I wanted.

A big part of the value I found in the Echo Show was how useful it was to… well, have the device show me information. When I asked about the weather, Alexa would respond and show me the forecast for the next few days. When I asked about my to-do list, I could see it and hear it as well. Having some time to sit there and digest the info in a visual way was immediately useful. It’s not necessary, but it is nice. And if you’re not right in view of the screen, you can still talk to the Echo Show and get the info you’re looking for.

The screen augments most of Alexa’s usual features, but it also enables a number of things that you couldn’t do before. Chief among those is video calling. Amazon added voice calls and messaging to the Echo family recent, but the Echo Show is the only one with a screen and camera. You can make video calls with anyone who has the Alexa app set up on their phone — regardless of whether they actually have an Echo Show yet.

Unfortunately, as of this writing the feature isn’t fully live, but I was able to do a test call with an Amazon representative, and it worked just as smoothly as you’d hope. The incoming call lit up my screen with the name of the caller, and the speaker started playing an alert to get my attention. I could pick up the call with either my voice or by tapping the button that appeared on the screen, and then the call just went on without any issues. Naturally, you can ask Alexa to place voice and video calls as well as send messages.

I don’t do video calling much, but this could be a killer feature for many families. Being able to do a video call hands-free was definitely better than holding my phone the whole time. But just about everyone has a phone that can make video calls, and that’s probably enough for most people. I could imagine this being useful for families with older relatives, though; the Echo Show is probably a bit easier to use. Of course, that means setting up yet another calling service, because the Show doesn’t support apps like Skype or Hangouts.

Another new feature that takes advantage of the screen is integration with smart-home cameras. The Echo Show will work with cameras from Amcrest, Arlo, August, EZViz, IC Realtime, Ring, Nest and Vivint. By saying a phrase like “Alexa, show the front door” you’ll be able to pull up the feed from that camera right on your Show. That’s another feature I wasn’t able to test — but given that the Echo is quickly becoming an essential hub for smart devices, households already with smart-home cameras might find the Echo Show worth shelling out for.

What’s most intriguing about the Echo Show is how third-party developers will use the new hardware. Alexa is getting more skills all the time, and seeing what makes its way to this new screen will certainly be worth keeping an eye on. Unfortunately, there’s nothing out there yet that I can try, but the smart way Amazon has used the screen to enhance existing Echo features makes me excited to see what developers do here.

Music and entertainment

One of the best things about the original Echo was just telling it to play whatever music popped into your head, and the Echo Show is even better in that regard. That’s primarily because the Echo Show’s speaker represents a solid upgrade over the original model. It’s still not in the same realm as dedicated audio speakers that Sonos is making, but it’s a lot better than the Google Home.

The screen also makes searching for music a lot easier. You can ask Alexa to show you top playlists on Spotify or the top songs on Amazon Music and a grid pops up on the display. You can then tell Alexa to scroll to the right to see more, but it’s easier to just swipe through the selections. Each item on the list has a number, and you can then just tell Alexa to “play No. 3.”

If that’s too much work, you can still just tell Alexa to play specific albums, songs or playlists, or just tell it to play music from a certain genre. Once the music is playing, the Echo Show displays lyrics from the song, though you can turn that off easily enough if you find it distracting.

Depending on where the Echo Show sits in your home, you might even want to watch video on it (despite that low-resolution screen). As you’d expect, you can just say “show me videos on Amazon Prime” or “play clips from YouTube” and things just start right up. Browsing Amazon Prime videos is similar to browsing songs or playlists: There’s a list that scrolls to the right and you can then tap or ask Alexa to play your selection.

That’s fine for casual browsing, but if you want to find a specific movie or video, you’ll need to ask Alexa to pull it up. Fortunately, the search is fairly contextual, so you don’t have to say the exact title word for word to find the YouTube clip you might be looking for. Alexa also responds to hands-free commands like skipping forward or back, adjusting volume and pausing your content. I don’t think I’d watch an entire film on the Echo Show, but if you spend a lot of time cooking and want to watch a few sitcoms while you’re at it, it’ll do the job nicely.

It’s worth noting that the Echo Show can also output audio to a Bluetooth speaker, just like the original Echo. So if you have a better speaker lying around and want to upgrade your audio setup, it’s a fairly trivial matter.

The competition

The Echo Show doesn’t have any direct competition. If you’re considering a voice-activated speaker, your choices are basically the Echo or Google Home. While Google has added plenty of features to Home since it launched last fall, Amazon still has the more-complete ecosystem here. If you’re deeply entrenched in Google’s world, Home is a good choice, but Amazon works pretty well with most Google services at this point.

If you’re trying to choose between the standard Echo and the Echo Show, you’ll want to consider where it’ll go in your home and what you want to do with it. My Google Home typically sits in my living room next to the TV, and I wouldn’t want another device with a screen there. But in a kitchen, office or bedroom, this little display could come in handy.

Another consideration is how interested you are in video calling and other future features that will rely on the screen. If you buy one without a screen, you’re locking yourself out of any potentially interesting use cases that could come down the line. For an extra $50, there’s a good chance you’ll get a lot of extra functionality out of the Echo Show, and the screen enhances plenty of the day-to-day info you’ll want to check on the device.

Wrap-up

Amazon essentially created a category with the Echo, and the Echo Show marks the first significant re-thinking of what a voice-activated home-hub can be. Ultimately, the screen isn’t essential, but it proved to be very useful. And the improved speaker quality is almost worth the $50 upgrade over the standard Echo by itself.

Aside from costing more money, the only downside to the Echo Show is that it’s more obtrusive than the slim, cylindrical Echo. But if one more screen won’t disturb your room too much, the Echo Show should be a strong contender for people looking for a virtual home assistant.

The SNES Classic is real, arrives on September 29th for $80

The delicious rumors are true: Nintendo is gearing up to launch the SNES Classic, a miniaturized version of the glorious original Super Nintendo Entertainment System. According to Nintendo’s Twitter account, the system will be available on September 29th with 21 games built-in — including the never-released Star Fox 2.

Super Mario World, Earthbound, Star Fox 2 + 18 more games? Now you’re playing with super power! #SNESClassic launches 9/29. pic.twitter.com/BPPGjpskPT

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) June 26, 2017

The $80 system generously includes two controllers this time (the NES Classic only came with one) and fits in the palm of your hand, just like last year’s throwback model.

In addition to Star Fox 2, the SNES Classic comes with other massive hits like Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Donkey Kong Country, F-Zero, Super Metroid, Mega Man X, Yoshi’s Island and more.

Interestingly, Nintendo is opting to do region-specific releases this time — the UK and other territories will get the Super Famicon styling — it’s the same console, just with some different visual flair.

Step back into the ’90s with #Nintendo Classic Mini: Super Nintendo Entertainment System, launching September 29th https://t.co/Jf9wfMkd6i pic.twitter.com/Sq83yEVGNf

— Nintendo of Europe (@NintendoEurope) June 26, 2017

There’s no question this will be an incredibly hot holiday season item, but we’re going to be skeptical about Nintendo’s commitment to the SNES Classic after last year’s debacle. It was basically impossible to get your hands on an NES Classic from the moment it launched, and Nintendo never really caught up with demand. Instead, they just discontinued it, apparently giving up on the truckloads of money they could have made keeping it around.

We’re really, really hoping Nintendo doesn’t make that mistake this time.

Here’s the complete list of games:

• Contra III: The Alien Wars™
• Donkey Kong Country™
• EarthBound™
• Final Fantasy III
• F-ZERO™
• Kirby™ Super Star
• Kirby’s Dream Course™
• The Legend of Zelda™: A Link to the Past™
• Mega Man® X
• Secret of Mana
• Star Fox™
• Star Fox™ 2
• Street Fighter® II Turbo: Hyper Fighting
• Super Castlevania IV™
• Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts®
• Super Mario Kart™
• Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars™
• Super Mario World™
• Super Metroid™
• Super Punch-Out!! ™
• Yoshi’s Island™

Source: Nintendo

HMD’s Nokia 6 will arrive in the US next month for $229

Like so many European acts that tried to make it big in the US, Nokia never really managed to crack the market in its original form. But HMD Global, the company that produces smartphones using the Nokia brand, is hoping that will change with the arrival of the Nokia 6. The company has announced that, a little later than expected, the handset will be available in America at the start of July. Unfortunately, there’s no carrier deal or other such tie-up, and instead you’ll have to purchase the device, for cash, on Amazon.

The device is a perfectly reasonable mid-range Android device, packing a 5.5-inch HD display and a body hewn from aluminium, or aluminum, now that it’s being sold in the US. Tucked inside is a Snapdragon 430, 3GB RAM, 32GB storage and space for a microSD card, running Android Nougat. Imaging-wise, there’s a 16-megapixel primary camera and 8-megapixel forward-facer, although we don’t expect either to be as good as those from OG Nokia.

As for pricing, you’ll be able to snag the phone in matte black or silver for $229 at some point next month. Those able to delay their gratification a little longer will be able to pick up the phone in blue or copper at some as-yet unspecified time.

Pandora’s CEO might leave the company he founded

Pandora has had a busy year so far and now, there are rumors circling around co-founder and CEO Tim Westergren. According to Recode, Westergren will be stepping down from his current role. There are currently no candidates to replace him, so he’ll likely remain in the CEO slot until someone new is chosen.

In a world that’s become accustomed to on-demand music, operating as an Internet radio service has been a challenge for Pandora. Back in March, it launched Pandora Premium, a competitor for Spotify and Apple Music, that was built on the Rdio assets the company acquired. And last month, reports circulated that Pandora was looking for a buyer. A few weeks later, news broke of Sirius XM’s $480 million dollar investment in the service.

But is this rebrand and reorientation enough? It’s unclear, and that’s why it makes sense that Westergren might be stepping down. He cofounded the company 17 years ago and has been running it since 2016. Someone with a fresh perspective in the CEO role might be valuable at a time when the company is reinventing itself. We reached out to Pandora to see if they could shed some light on the topic, but they have no comment at this stage.

Source: Recode

Google’s YouTube party app is available without an invitation

You no longer need an invitation to see whether or not Uptime, the YouTube social viewing app, lives up to the hype. Google incubator Area 120 has made the app accessible to anyone in the US with an iOS device — sorry, there’s still no Android version. The app has gone through a few upgrades since its debut, including a new home screen to help you discover videos, support for music videos and an option for finding friends through Facebook. Either way, the core concept remains the same: you can either watch videos ‘live’ with your friends or watch their reactions to a previous session.

While this represents a formal launch of sorts for Uptime, it’s safe to say that it remains an experiment. Google doesn’t publish Area 120 apps under its own name or otherwise put them on the same level as its official apps. With that said, we wouldn’t be shocked if some of Uptime’s shared viewing features eventually find their way into the official YouTube app.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: App Store

DHS has a video game-like trainer for active shooter incidents

Today, the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate announced the release of a virtual training platform for active shooter incidents. The Enhanced Dynamic Geo-Social Environment, or EDGE, is a program that creates a virtual active shooter scenario through which first responders can train themselves. EDGE launches today and is free for all first responders.

The platform was built on Epic Games’ Unreal engine, which has also been used to create training programs for NASA astronauts and the US Army. The scenario that’s available now is set in a 26-story hotel in Sacramento, California and every part of the hotel is accessible to the trainee. First responders from different disciplines can train side by side and different setups can be created depending on what training lesson instructors want to focus on.

“In this day and age, it is essential that responders have every tool at their disposal to prepare for and respond to critical incidents,” William N. Bryan, Acting DHS Under Secretary for Science and Technology, said in a statement, “When decisions must be made in a matter of seconds, every bit of training helps to save civilian and responder lives. EDGE harnesses the power of cutting-edge gaming and defense technology to make training accessible, engaging, and affordable to all responders — from rural volunteers to those serving our major metropolitan areas.”

A second training scenario is scheduled to be released this fall and it’s a school shooting scene — fitting in the most horrifying of ways. A video on the DHS website is available for more information on EDGE.

Source: Department of Homeland Security

Google’s ‘Uptime’ App for Watching YouTube Videos With Friends No Longer Requires Invite Codes

In March, Google announced and launched a new iOS app called “Uptime,” which let users watch YouTube videos in real time with their friends. At the time, the app required invite codes to gain access, but now the developers have quietly expanded Uptime’s availability to everyone on the iOS App Store [Direct Link] (via TechCrunch).

Uptime’s hook is that it not only lets you watch videos simultaneously with other Uptime friends, but if you check out a video after your friend watched it then the app will keep their live reactions attached to it and play them back as you watch the video for the first time. When watching a video at the same time, users’ avatars progress around the screen in a live-tracking feature so you always know where everyone is at any moment in the clip.

Uptime launched with quite a few social networking features like friend lists, watch histories, and video sharing in feeds, and the app has further expanded in subsequent weeks with easier friend finding via Facebook, a revamped Home screen that surfaces popular videos, and support for music videos. Although finding an invite code was never particularly hard, the wide access to Uptime should now let more users interested in the app test it out with their friends.

Skype is getting in on live-watching as well, confirming earlier in June that it plans to launch a feature sometime in the future that will let Skype callers synchronize and watch streaming videos together, and those videos will begin with support directly from YouTube.

Uptime was created through Google’s internal incubator program, Area 120, which encourages employees to take 20 percent of their week to focus on independent side projects, leading to small but interesting apps like Uptime.

Tag: Google
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Apple Seeds Fourth Beta of watchOS 3.2.3 to Developers

Apple today seeded the fourth beta of an upcoming watchOS 3.2.3 update to developers for testing purposes, nearly two weeks after seeding the third watchOS 3.2.3 beta and more than a month after releasing watchOS 3.2.2.

Registered developers can download the fourth watchOS 3.2.3 update through the Apple Watch app on the iPhone by going to General –> Software Update. For the beta to be installed, the Apple Watch needs to have 50 percent battery, it must be placed on the charger, and it has to be in range of the iPhone.

Apple restricts watchOS betas to developers because there’s no way to downgrade software on an Apple Watch. Non-developers will need to wait for the public release to get the update.

We didn’t find any notable features or bug fixes in the first three betas of watchOS 3.2.3, suggesting the update focuses primarily on under-the-hood improvements.

watchOS 3.2.3 is likely to be one of the last updates to the watchOS 3 operating system, as Apple has shifted its focus to the next-generation version of watchOS, watchOS 4, which was introduced at the June Worldwide Developers Conference.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch Series 2, watchOS 3, watchOS 4
Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)
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