Gaming on the go: The best game controllers for the iPhone

The iPhone is the gamer-on-the-go’s dream. With thousands of games released every month via the App Store, you’re bound to run across a terrific iPhone game at some point or another. However, sometimes that perfect game requires better controls than those afforded by a touchscreen display. Thankfully, the best game controllers for the iPhone can provide you with a more tactile experience, one that falls more line with a traditional peripheral. As more and more mobile games start to look and play like current console titles, people have started to outfit their iPhones with controllers that make playing these games on a phone more akin to playing them on the recently-launched Nintendo Switch. Below, we’ve rounded up some of the better offerings for the iPhone 7, some of which also work for older iPhone models.

Mad Catz C.T.R.L.i ($46+)

The pitfalls that come with gaming on your iPhone are nearly all resolved with Mad Catz’s C.T.R.L.i. The gloss-black offering has Bluetooth, and if three of your friends have a C.T.R.L.i controller, you can all connect to the same iPhone and play local multiplayer in a variety of games (FIFA Mobile, Real Racing 3, Tales From Deep Space).  You also don’t have to worry about balancing your phone on your lap or table while playing, thanks to the the adjustable phone clip located at the top of the controller. The AAA-reliant device even comes with an HDMI cable and HDMI adapter, which allows you to play games on your TV. Now, if only the D-pad wasn’t so stiff…

Buy one now from:

Amazon

Mad Catz Micro C.T.R.L.i ($49+)

The Micro C.T.R.L.i is exactly the same controller as the original C.T.R.L.i, except it’s about an inch smaller overall. That might not sound like a big deal, but that inch can make a big difference for those who travel a lot and want to bring their gaming with them. It uses AAA batteries, but those batteries can give you up to 40 hours of gameplay, which isn’t a bad trade-off. Built-in Bluetooth, an adjustable travel clip, multiplayer support, and a compatible mobile app all come standard.

Buy one now from:

Amazon

SteelSeries Nimbus ($44+)

The Nimbus was built with the console gamer in mind. The device’s button layout and analog placement is a mix between traditional Playstation and Xbox controllers, and its pressure-sensitive buttons make for a gaming experience that not even some AAA console games can provide. The sleek peripheral comes equipped with a lithium-ion battery that can last for 40 hours, though, it lacks the adjustable phone clip found on the aforementioned Mad Catz models. The Nimbus does come with a helpful companion app, which lists the top free and paid games that are currently compatible with the controller. This controller is also the best option for anyone looking to take their iPhone gaming to their iPad or Apple TV.

Buy one now from:

Amazon

Gamevice Controller ($99+)

The Gamevice Controller is ideal for any gamer that plans to shuffle between their iPhone and Nintendo Switch. The controller wraps horizontally around your iPhone, ultimately giving it the look and feel of the Switch, but on a much smaller scale. It also plugs directly into your iPhone’s Lightning port and comes outfitted with its own Lightning connector, which allows you to charge your phone while you’re gaming. Its price point is a bit higher than our other recommendations, but few offerings can match the Gamevice Controller when it comes to sheer portability, thanks to the device’s pliable, folding design.

Buy one now from:

Amazon

PowerLead PL184CN Controller (22+)

If you want one of the best game controllers available for the iPhone, but you don’t want to pay the price tag for one, then the PowerLead is what you’re looking for. It has Bluetooth and a decent telescopic clip, but it doesn’t have any of the other fancy features found on the top-of-the-line controllers peppering our list. The battery can only last 20 hours on a single charge, and it’s difficult to use with your Apple TV. Still, it’s a relatively cheap offering, one that comes with five multimedia buttons that allow you to control both volume and playback.

Buy one now from:

Amazon

Live forever? Scientists say human bodies have no detectable maximum life span

Why it matters to you

Planning to live longer than 125 years? New research suggests that it may be possible, after all.

There’s an old Henny Youngman joke about a doctor who gave a man six months to live, only to find the man couldn’t pay his bill, so gave him another six months. That joke more or less summarizes a recent squabble in the academic world concerning the publishing of a new paper, arguing that what we thought we knew about maximum human lifespan may in fact be wrong.

Late last year, a scientific paper published in Nature by researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine argued that the maximum lifespan of humans is fixed, that there is a plateau at 115, and the “odds of anybody in the world surviving to 125 in any given year is less than one in 10,000.”

Provided your health holds out, living to the grand old age of anywhere between 115 and 125 may sound pretty good, but the study has now been subject to a rebuttal from biologists at Canada’s McGill University — also published in Nature. They argue that there is no evidence for such a limit and that, while one may conceivably exist, it’s not been found yet.

“We examined how old were the oldest people to die, since reliable reports could be obtained until modern times,” Dr. Siegfried Hekimi, one of the lead authors of the study, told Digital Trends. “In contrast to others who thought they could distinguish a plateau around the age of 115, we showed that no such plateau can be observed. Meaning that as far as anyone can tell the age of the oldest individuals to die might keep going up, just as the average lifespan is going up — at least in countries like Canada.”

Hekimi points out the way that average lifespans have increased over the years, from 1920 when an average Canadian would live for 60 years, to one born in 1980 who will live 76 years, to one born today who will live 82 years. We haven’t reached the plateau yet though.

“[Our work] tells us that when living conditions get better — extraordinarily better — then both average and maximum lifespan are likely to go up,” Hekimi said. “What do I mean by extraordinarily good living conditions? Think: enough food, warm shelter in the winter, cool shelter in the summer, vaccination, sewers, fresh uncontaminated food all year round, much lighter workloads.”

Ultimately, of course, it’s going to be average lifespans rather than maximum lifespans that are more significant. Still, if you ever thought you weren’t going to be able to pay your bills in the 115-125 years allotted by last year’s Nature study, never fear: things don’t have to end there!

Dutch students set to debut the world’s first bus running on formic acid

Why it matters to you

Forget electric-powered buses. The real way of the future could be vehicles fueled by sustainable formic acid.

Renewable energy is all the rage on the road these days, with an increasing number of companies turning to electric or hybrid vehicles as their ticket to the future. But even the most advanced of these automakers ought to be impressed by a new innovation from a student team at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. It’s being heralded as “the world’s first system that allows a bus to drive on formic acid.” The system, built entirely by Team FAST at the university, comprises an electric bus attached to a small trailer that converts formic acid into electricity.

So why use formic acid? As per researchers at Eindhoven, the compound is sustainable, carbon neutral, safe, and liquid. The acid occurs naturally in stinging nettles and in some ants, but is also easily manufactured at the industrial level, where it is most often used to preserve livestock feed. The students at Eindhoven have employed a blend of 99 percent formic acid and a performance enhancing agent to create a fuel called Hydrozine, which purports to have four times the energy density as a battery. And it is this fuel that ultimately powers the bus.

After initially presenting a model of the bus at the beginning of last year, Team FAST has now created a system that is a whopping 42,000 stronger than originally planned, and able to produce 25kW of power. The key to the bus’ power actually lies in the trailer, which splits Hydrozine into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The trailer behaves as a sort of range extender (which is why it’s been dubbed REX for short), allowing the bus to travel greater distances than it would be able to on its own. Currently, the team is completing final tests, and the formic acid-powered bus is expected to be operational by the end of 2017.

The bus is slated to be unveiled on Thursday, July 6, at which time the team is also expected to “look ahead to what these results will mean for the future.” Also anticipated in the grand debut is the first Hydrozine filling station.

“The mission of Team FAST is both admirable and ambitious,” said Eindhoven University. “Together with partners from the whole production chain, Team FAST is making Hydrozine a safe, sustainable and standard energy carrier for the future.”

$99 3D printer hopes to succeed where other Kickstarter-funded machines have failed

Why it matters to you

This could finally be the sub-$100 3D printer that succeeds where so many others have failed. We hope.

When you picture the way that products will be created in the future, you possibly imagine them being designed in virtual reality by designers wearing form-fitting Star Trek-style jumpsuits, and printed using beautifully-designed 3D printers. That’s a vision that a company called Kodama is trying to make a modern day reality with its new $99 3D printer Kickstarter campaign. Well, except for the Star Trek-style jumpsuits, that is!

In an accompanying Kickstarter campaign video, the company depicts the story of designer Jenny Wu, who creates her unique jewelry in stainless steel using a VR headset (not included), then exporting the file, and printing it using the Obsidian 3D printer.

“We’ve built a high quality, affordable 3D printer that focuses on the user experience and making 3D printing easy and accessible to everyone, from students to design professionals, in a package that’s pleasing to look at,” Michael Husmann, founder and CEO of Kodama, told Digital Trends.

Aside from its promise of VR-integrated design and attractive appearance, the other big selling points of the Obsidian 3D printer are its out-of-the-box, assembly-free ease of use and its low price. Starting at just $99 for your choice of either a black or white model, it aims to spit out products that are a comparable quality to printers with a considerably higher price tag. A higher tier $249 “Obsidian Deluxe” model comes with additional features such as a Smart LCD screen, heated bed, built-in camera, and more.

There have, of course, been a slew of sub-$200 3D Kickstarter printers which have failed to materialize, however. From Peachy Printer to Tiko, investing your money in the promise of a cheap 3D printer that actually materializes isn’t exactly a no-risk proposition.

When we asked Husmann what guarantees he could offer that this printer would be different, he answered simply: “We’ve done it before. We launched [our previous Kickstarter] Trinus in 2016, and went on to deliver it to 3,100+ backers in 80+ countries.”

If you’re interested in getting hold of an Obsidian unit for yourself, you can currently join the 2,900+ backers who have so far helped it earn more than 7x its $100,000 fundraising target. Shipping is set to take place this December. That’s just in time to quickly 3D print your Christmas gifts… provided it turns out as promised.

Explore from above in these incredible Dronestagram photography contest shots

Why it matters to you

Find aerial inspiration from this gallery of Dronestagram photography contest winners.

Camera drones offer perspectives that cannot be shot from the ground and the latest photography contest dedicated just to the genre shows just how the increasing availability of quadcopters is helping creativity soar. Dronsetagram, a social media platform dedicated entirely to sharing aerial content, today announced the winners of the fourth annual Dronestagram photography contest, held in partnership with National Geographic.

The contest collected around 8,000 photos — enough to prompt the judges to add a fourth category just for creativity. The top three photographers in the Nature, Urban, People and Creativity categories will receive prizes from the contest’s sponsors, which includes Europ Assistance, Kodak Pixpro, StudioSport, Lowepro, Zeinberg, and Homido, along with publication in National Geographic.

“I was blown away by the creativity of the photos in this contest. The photographers used drones to capture the world from new and unique perspectives,” said Jeff Heimsath, contest judge and photo editor at National Geographic Traveler. “The selection process was far from easy, this contest has certainly surfaced the best drone images from around the world.”

In the nature category, Dronestagram user Jcourtial earned the first place prize for his shot of a lavender field harvest. The machinery makes one green streak through the purple-filled image from the aerial perspective. The photograph was also among Dronestagram’s best photos of 2016.  “I went to Valensole hoping to get an original picture rather than the classic view with the sunset in the background. I knew this was the beginning of the harvest season so I hunted down tractors and waited patiently until some started to harvest in a pattern that would create a pleasing composition from above,” he said.

The second place winner went to Calin Stan for an aerial image of the road to Transylvania, Romania, while third went to Dronestagram user Florian for a look at an ice formation.

In the urban category, the top title went to user Bachirm for a look at an area in Dubai that, just 10 years ago, was only desert. Second place went to Alexeygo for a shot of workers on Mercury City Tower at dawn. An aerial shot over Madrid, Spain, took third place for user Luckydron.

Martin Sanchez took first place in the people category for a shot that takes advantage of the aerial perspective to create an optical illusion of a what, at first glance, appears to be a man falling off a building.

In the new Creativity category, Luke Maximo Bell took first for an aerial shot that took advantage of a low sun to catch striking shadows of two cows. The second place shot was actually a pregnancy announcement by user Macareuxprod, creating a vintage video game-inspired pattern in the sand and shooting from above. A drawing in sand also took third place for user Rga.

The Dronestagram photography contest is held every year.

DRAM prices likely to rise due to Inotera fabrication plant contamination

Why it matters to you

If you’re looking to build or buy a new PC, then you might want to get a move on before prices rise even further.

Building or buying a new PC has been a bit more expensive over the last several months due to a number of complicated factors. The production of solid-state disks (SSDs) has struggled to keep up with demand, the GPU market has been slammed by cryptocurrency miners buying up all of the available stock of midrange and high-end cards, and now DRAM pricing has become a sore spot, with a number of manufacturers scaling back on production for a number of different reasons. Now, a bit of bad luck promises to drive up prices even further, as DRAM maker Inotera (aka Micron Technology Taiwan) has shut down operations at its Fab-2 plant in Taiwan, as Evertiq reports.

The shutdown was prompted by contamination of equipment caused by a faulty nitrogen gas dispensing system in the facility, which led to contamination of the DRAM wafers themselves. Each wafer produces a number of individual DRAM chips, and the Fab-2 plant makes a total of about 60,000 wafer starts a month. That’s almost half of Inotera’s 125,000 monthly wafer starts and leaves the company’s other fabrication plant as its only source of DRAM fabrication capacity.

The impact on the DRAM market will be significant, as Inotera’s Fab-2 plant is responsible for roughly 5.5 percent of the industry’s total output of just over a million wafer starts for the third quarter. Until the company can clean things up and get the plant back into operation, which is likely to require some significant time to accomplish, DRAM prices can be expected to rise at least a bit. In addition, Inotera is an important producer of the LPDDR4 memory used in Apple’s iPhone, meaning that the shutdown could have a significant impact on the much-anticipated 10th anniversary iPhone that’s expected later in the year.

Overall, whether you’re building or buying a PC, a server, or a mobile device, it’s likely that you’re going to pay more. It’s unclear how long the outage will last and what the overall impact will be on DRAM pricing and availability, but anyone hoping that DRAM prices would stabilize and maybe even drop is likely to be disappointed.

EU considers yet another record fine for Google, this time over Android’s anti-competitive terms

The EU and Google continue to battle over antitrust allegations.

Google may be facing yet another decision in an antitrust investigation in the EU, according to a new report by Reuters, including a fine that could exceed $2.7 billion. The news comes just a few days after the EU finalized a record-setting $2.7 billion fine over Google’s practices involving shopping ads in search. It serves to reason, then, that a fine for something as large as terms of licensing Android would surely be larger than one for a certain part of search results.

The EU is reportedly forming a special panel of experts to further investigate Google’s practices around licensing the Android operating system to manufacturers, which it claims is anti-competitive in nature. If this discussion sounds familiar, it’s because it actually stems from an investigation into the matter back in April 2016. Discussions about Google abusing its market dominance have been around much longer that that.

The ongoing fight over Android licensing in the EU may finally lead to financial damages.

EU regulators claim that Google’s terms for licensing Android, which require a specific set of Google apps to be loaded on the phone and prevent manufacturers from making Android devices without Google’s services, are anti-competitive and ultimately hurt companies. Google’s argument, naturally, is that those manufacturers are free to make phones using the open-source build of Android and their own services if they choose to do so. In contrast with other antitrust regulations, like those here in the U.S., the EU doesn’t necessarily need to show an abuse of monopoly power in order to levy a fine — as it has shown in prior cases.

Reports claim that the European Commission could reach a decision on the matter by the end of the year. Aside from yet another massive fine, it could also potentially force Google to change the terms of licensing Android in order to fall within the EU’s demands for competition in the mobile space. Given recent decisions against Google, the possibility of another such decision doesn’t seem so far-fetched anymore.

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Christopher Nolan’s ‘Dunkirk’ will be biggest 70mm release in years

Christopher Nolan’s WWII flick Dunkirk is getting the 70mm treatment and reportedly, it will have the widest release of any recent film using the format. According to Deadline, 125 theaters will show the film in 70mm, more locations than both Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight and Nolan’s Interstellar, which also had 70mm viewings.

In 2015, The Hateful Eight played in approximately 100 70mm-equipped theaters before its wide release. In order to show the film in that format, Tarantino and the Weinstein Company resurrected the cast-aside 70mm projection equipment, which is much more involved and challenging to work with compared to digital projection systems commonly used today. Nolan’s Interstellar also played on 50 70mm-enabled IMAX theaters in 2014. Directors like Tarantino and Nolan like the 70mm format because of the different quality it gives to images on screen.

Warner Brothers bought the Hateful Eight 70mm projectors from the Weinstein Company for the Dunkirk viewings, tickets for which go on sale today. The film, which stars Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh and Harry Styles, opens July 21st and tickets for the regular viewings will be available on July 7th.

Source: Deadline

‘Rocket League’ packs tons of freebies in its ‘Anniversary’ update

No, cross-console multiplayer isn’t in today’s Anniversary update for Rocket League. But thankfully there’s enough (free!) stuff on offer here to take some of the sting off of Sony’s sustained stubbornness. We’re talking Rick and Morty customization options — including a Mr. Poopy Butthole topper — new music, fresh cars and the ability to change your ride’s engine audio. Oh, there’s a new stadium to tool around in as well. The update will start rolling out later today, at 6pm Eastern.

If you’re a fan of those new songs, developer Psyonix has teamed with iam8Bit to put those EDM clips to wax. Unlike today’s patch, however, that record collection isn’t free — the 3-LP, 180 gram set will run you the same price as a new retail game, $60.

Source: Psyonix