Camera maker RED just announced a $1200 phone — the Hydrogen One

Well that’s one way to make an entrance.

RED, best known for its massively powerful cinema-quality cameras, has announced it’s making a smartphone called the “Hydrogen One.” Pre-orders have opened up at $1195 each, but that’s a starting price for just the aluminum one — you can spend $1595 for a titanium model as well.

Reading through its spartan pre-order page and informational PDF, it takes you a minute to figure out that it’s actually a smartphone and not some camera accessory. RED bills the Hydrogen One as “the world’s first holographic media machine. in your pocket. no glasses needed,” going on to say that this is “the future of personal communication, information gathering, holographic multi-view, 2D, 3D, AR/VR/MR, and image capture just changed forever.”

Wow. Okay.

So much marketing, so many buzzwords, such an assault on our senses.

So we know it’s a smartphone. Based on the photo above, it looks pretty radical at that — just as you’d expect if you’ve ever seen one of REDs cameras. It’s unlocked, runs Android and apparently “shatters the mold of conventional thinking.” (Whatever that means.) The display comes in at 5.7-inches but of course offers this “holographic” glasses-free 3D capability, which has yet to be explained. The immersive experience continues to its sound, which apparently can use an “H3O algorithm” to transform sound into multi-dimensional audio. We see a headphone jack, a USB-C port, and some (likely non-functional) heat sink fins.

The Hydrogen One is also apparently modular — the “foundation of a future multi-dimensional media system.” We can see very Moto Z-like pins on the back of the Hydrogen One, which RED says is a high-speed data bus for comprehensive and ever-expanding modular components, including future attachments for higher quality photos and videos. Just as you’d expect, the Hydrogen One is expected to integrate tightly into the RED camera systems as well.

So much marketing, so many buzzwords, such an assault on our senses. The Hydrogen One seems … interesting. In the same way the Saygus V2 kind of seems interesting. RED says pre-orders will ship from a “personal first production batch,” which is supposed to be in Q1 2018.

‘Destiny 2’ beta begins July 18th on consoles, hits PC in August

If you want to get your hands on Destiny 2 before it comes out this September 6th, Activision and developer Bungie have you covered. Folks who pre-ordered the game for PlayStation 4 can start playing July 18th, while everyone else on consoles will have to wait until July 21st. The test period runs until July 23rd and Bungie says that in addition a cooperative strike and adversarial multiplayer modes, the first story mission will be available to play as well. Folks who want to play with a mouse and keyboard have to wait until August for a PC beta. For a tease of what you can expect, check out the trailer embedded below.

Source: Destiny (YouTube)

Camera maker RED is building a phone with a ‘holographic’ screen

We’ve seen the venerable Kodak and Polaroid brands slapped onto smartphones before, but RED — makers of those pricey digital cinema cameras — is trying something a little different. The company just revealed its plans to release the Hydrogen One, a high-powered, unlocked Android smartphone with prices starting at an eye-watering $1,195. That gets you an aluminum phone with some crazy looking grips; the titanium finish will set you back an extra $400.

And here’s the really crazy part: if RED can actually deliver what it promises, the Hydrogen One may actually be worth the asking price.

The company’s bombastic press release claims the phone will pack a 5.7-inch holographic display capable of displaying in normal 2D media, stereo 3D stuff and RED’s special “4-view content” (whatever that is). That extreme display flexibility is all thanks to some sort of RED nanotechnology that the company didn’t feel the need to explain in any way. You’ll also find full support for augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality, because why not? The goal was to create a phone that didn’t additional glasses or headsets to take in all this rich media — we just wish they tried to elaborate on the tech more. Anyway.

RED is obviously best known as a camera company, so it’s little surprise that the phone can also be used to create those 4-view .h4v files and share them with others who have the right hardware. Beyond that, though, the company says the phone will integrate into its existing line of digital cinema cameras to act as a controller and external monitor. Oh, and the phone is modular, too: part of the Hydrogen foundation is a special data connector that allows for external add-ons to capture “higher quality motion and still images.”

So yeah, RED is basically promising the moon here. The company’s press release does get pretty candid at times, though: it very clearly states that you should not expect on-time order fulfillment after the first batch goes out, and that there’s no guarantee these prices will actually stick. Candor is great, but clarity would’ve been nice. The only other things we really know about the phone is that it has a USB-C port, takes microSD cards and has a headphone jack.

Given RED’s lofty ambitions and lack of experience in building phones, it’s hard not to be skeptical — so very skeptical — about all of this. The thing to remember is that the company basically came out of nowhere years back and became a serious player in cinema along the way. We’re not expecting an Apple-level success here, but the RED pedigree gives us hope that the Hydrogen One could be more than just a render and a laundry list of buzzwords.

Source: RED

Uber’s In-App Tipping Feature Expands to 121 Cities Across North America

Uber in June announced plans for a “180 Days of Change” initiative that added a new long-desired tipping feature for drivers.

Tipping was initially limited to Seattle, Minneapolis, and Houston, but Uber said tips would be available to all U.S. drivers by the end of July, and the company is making good on that promise.

Starting today, tipping is rolling out in 121 cities across North America, including New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and several cities in Canada. TechCrunch has a full list of all of the areas where tipping is now available.

The tipping feature will continue to expand to additional cities throughout the month of July, and Uber says it is still planning to have the feature available to all U.S. drivers by the end of the month.

Tips are optional for Uber riders, and the tipping screen will show up after a driver has been rated following the conclusion of a ride. Passengers have up to 30 days after a ride to provide a tip, and there are three custom preset tipping amounts ($1, $2, and $5) along with an option for a custom tip total.

Uber long resisted tipping even as competitors like Lyft implemented tips for drivers, with the excuse that it kept the service hassle-free. Uber is now aiming to bolster its public image and improve working conditions for drivers through the addition of tipping and other “180 Days of Change” features, such as a per minute waiting fee for riders, a shorter cancellation window, and a new Driver Injury Protection insurance option.

Tag: Uber
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Instagram adds photo and video replies to Stories

Instagram’s ephemeral Stories feature has been around for less than a year, but it’s already beaten Snapchat at its own game. Today, the social network is taking yet another swing at its rival with a new feature that lets you reply to Stories with a photo or video. That’s right, in addition to writing a message reply, you can now also respond with an image of your very own.

Basically, now when you’re watching a Story, there’s a new camera button at the bottom of the screen. Tap that, and you can either snap a pic of yourself, record a video or take a Boomerang. You can even move and resize the Story image that you’re replying to and insert that in your photo. Apply a variety of filters or stickers, and hit Send to ship your creation over to your friend. At the other end, your buddy will get your photo/video response in their Direct message inbox, along with the thumbnail of the original Story.

Instagram Stories continues to be one of Instagram’s hottest features. It now has 250 million daily users, which far surpasses the numbers on Snapchat, and it also has Live video, which its rival lacks. It’s not too surprising once you consider how hard Instagram has been pushing the Stories feature, plus Instagram’s existing userbase probably helped propel its popularity too.

If you’re interested in checking the new photo / video reply feature in Stories, you can try it out with the new update starting today.

There’s a college scholarship for talented ‘Overwatch’ players

If you’ve ever thought that your Overwatch plays were a fine art worthy of college recognition, then it looks like your dreams may have just been answered. After introducing a League Of Legends scholarship last year, The University of California Irvine (UCI) is now adding an Overwatch scholarship to its program. Starting later this year, those awarded a scholarship will be given $2500 a year towards their tuition fees. In return they are expected to spend between 15 and 20 hours a week split between practicing their plays, attending team meetings, entering competitions and even doing a bit of community service.

If that wasn’t cool enough, UCI has promised to provide participants in the program with a “professional-grade infrastructure” to help coach and improve their performance.

While there’s been a bit of doom and gloom surrounding Overwatch’s position as an eSport, it appears that the game was chosen as the next scholarship candidate thanks to the university’s recent competitive success. With its Overwatch team winning the Tespa Summer Series last year, it seems as though California Irvine wants to double down on its winning streak.

This scholarship program comes at a good time, with Blizzard currently gearing up for the impending launch of its official Overwatch League. With older tournaments resulting in spiraling costs and disgruntled eSports teams, this new league promises to foster a less pricey and more inviting competitive scene around the hugely popular shooter.

While the new League is still a bit of an unknown quantity, let’s just hope that UCI’s coaches can use their expertise to come online and teach Competitive players how to actually move the payload.

Source: GamesIndustry.Biz

‘Splatoon 2’s multiplayer web portal is coming to the Nintendo app

Splatoon for the Wii U made a strong argument for competitive multiplayer gaming on Nintendo consoles, but in a lot of ways, it was half baked. It had great characters, fun maps, ranked modes and tournaments — but failed to integrate any kind of official voice chat. It also had a companion web portal, but it offered only the barest of functionality. The game’s Nintendo Switch sequel is trying to fix both of those problems with SplatNet 2: a smartphone app that lets players view match and player stats, buy in-game gear and organize voice chat with teammates.

Technically, SplatNet 2 isn’t its own app, it’s a service built into the company’s upcoming Nintendo Switch Online app. That sounds minor, but it’s a huge improvement — Nintendo’s original SplatNet experience was built into a clunky web experience. It translated poorly to smartphones and offered only the barest amount of information: what maps were in rotation, what rank the player had and what gear they were wearing. The new app takes all of those features to logical conclusions: players will be able to view their past 50 matches in detail, including player loadouts, names and an overview of the score. Gear integration has been taken up a notch too — not only can you view gear, but you can use in-game currency to buy it in the smartphone app, making it available next time you pick up the game on the Switch.

The app has a few fun tools, like a meter that shows the total amount of ground you’ve covered with ink in-game and compares it to real-life landmarks — but the app’s killer feature is probably voice chat. The app will automatically drop you into chat with players on your team, but it can also be used to invite friends to join you in-game and in-chat. That’s a huge step forward for Nintendo in terms of online communication, but it’s still a little weird. Because the entire voice chat system is handled through the smartphone app, players who want to hear the in-game audio and participate in voice chat will have to buy cumbersome, wire-laden accessories to physically link their phone to their console.

Right now, the app only promises to allow voice chat between players in-game, and it’s not clear if the Nintendo Switch Online app will let friends chat cross-game, but integrating SplatNet 2 into the official app, at least, seems like a step in the right direction — integrating the shooter’s web-portal into a real app experience. So far, Nintendo has only announced Splatoon 2 for the online app, but it seems like it will be the online hub for all of the company’s multiplayer games moving forward. Want to try it out? You won’t have to wait long — the Nintendo Switch Online app launches on July 21st with support for Splatoon 2. Hopefully, the logistics of voice chat accessories won’t ruin the experience.

Amazon expands its wine lineup with three semi-exclusive bottles (updated)

“Alexa, get me some wine and make it the good stuff!” Amazon has revealed a new brand of wine called Next, from the King Estate Winery, that’s “the first wine ever developed from conception to release with Amazon Wine,” the company said. If you’re expecting some bargain hooch, think again: The three wines, a white, red blend and red, cost an impressive $20, $30 and $40, respectively.

King Estate Winery launched a whole new division called King Vintners that created Next. It will eventually produce four more brands alongside Next, though it didn’t say whether those will also launch on Amazon Wine. The company specializes in organic, limited production wines and calls itself “the kings of Pinot since 1991.”

Amazon Wine’s Nick Loeffler said “We’re thrilled to connect wineries, like King Estate, with millions of customers and give them an innovative format to launch new brands.” The Next brand will also be offered on Amazon and King’s own website, but no one has said if or when it will also be available in wine stores or elsewhere.

Amazon is pretty serious about wine, probably because about $38 billion worth of the fermented grapes were sold in the US in 2015, outstripping sales even in France (to be fair, America does have nearly five times the population). In Japan, another wine-mad country, it even has free sommeliers on call to let you know whether your wine has hints of tobacco or cherries, and which foods to pair with your purchase.

“When people lived in the same village [as the winemaker], the wines and cuisine developed together,” King Estates’ Ed King III says. “We’re launching Next on Amazon to re-establish the connection between winemaker and wine lover in today’s ‘digital village.’ ” That sounds great and it should give the estate a serious boost in profile, as long as they bear in mind that working with Amazon isn’t always easy.”

Update: Despite the press release stating “NEXT is the first wine ever developed from conception to release with Amazon Wine,” Amazon tells Engadget this isn’t exactly the case. NEXT was developed solely by King Estate and Amazon Wine is the launch partner. The only two places you can buy these three wines is through the winery or from Amazon right now. We’ve updated this post to reflect the clarification.

Source: King Estate Winery

Google’s free 3D drawing app is like MS Paint for VR

Google has released a new app that will make it much easier to create that VR experience you’ve whipped up in your head — and it won’t cost you a single cent. The big G’s “Blocks,” now out for the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift, will give you a way to draw 3D objects directly in virtual reality. It’s like Oculus Story Studio’s Quill and Google’s own Tilt Brush in that respect, except it leads to blocky, Lego-esque final products instead of painterly illustrations.

The company says Blocks is simple enough that you can use it even if you have no prior 3D modeling experience. “It’s designed to feel more like playing with children’s blocks than working with traditional 3D modeling software,” Mountain View’s announcement reads. The app even gives you various shapes and color palettes to work with, so you won’t have to start from scratch.

You can let your imagination run wild and create anything you want, though if you’re stuck, you can always check out other people’s creations on Google’s dedicated page for the project. When you’re done, you can export the object you created, whether it’s a simple watermelon or a complex mecha model, to be part of your VR or AR game/experience. You can also just create an image or a GIF out of it to keep as a remembrance of your efforts or to share with friends on the web. If Blocks sounds like a fun app to play with, even if you have no intention of creating a full VR experience, you can download it now from the Oculus Store or from Steam.

Source: Google

Add HBO to your Hulu plan before ‘Game of Thrones’ premieres

Hulu is trying to become your one-stop shop for streaming TV, and they’ve taken another step in that direction. Today, the streaming service announced they’ve added HBO and Cinemax to their lineup.

In 2015, Hulu made Showtime available to its subscribers for $9/month ($2 less than other platforms). It’s worth noting, though, that there’s no such discount with this current deal. Subscribers will pay $14.99/month for HBO and $9.99 per month for Cinemax, like they will anywhere else. Any Hulu subscriber, regardless of tier, will have the option to subscribe to these channels.

Another caveat: The subscriptions are only available on devices with the updated Hulu experience, which include the fourth generation Apple TV, Xbox One, iOS and Android. The subscriptions will include access to on-demand content, and viewers will have access to both east and west coast live feeds of HBO and Cinemax in coming weeks. HBO subscribers will also be able to watch the network’s broad range of channels, from HBO 2 to ActionMAX HD, live.

It may appear that there’s no advantage to signing up for HBO or Cinemax through Hulu, as there’s no price reduction. But if their Live TV service (currently in Beta for $39.99 per month) takes off, it becomes a much more attractive proposition. As the fight to win cable cord cutters escalates, Hulu just made itself a little more attractive with its range of offerings.