ISS crew’s 360-degree video is the closest you’ll get to space

You can always count on the crew of the International Space Station to harness technology to bring us up to the heavens with them. Back in July, they uploaded enough footage to map the entire station out on Google Streetview. Today, the crew uploaded the first spacewalk recorded in 360-degree video. Immerse yourself in footage of mankind maintaining its farthest outpost at the border of space.

The video was made by the Russian space agency Roscosmos in collaboration with Russian news outlet RT. It shows cosmonauts Sergey Ryazansky and Fyodor Yurchikhin performing station maintenance and launching three nano-satellites into space during 7.5-hour spacewalk performed back in August. Two of them, named Tanyusha, were created by students in Kursk. Another, the Tomsk-TPU 120 from the city of Tomsk, actually broadcasts multilingual messages that amateur radio enthusiasts can listen to by tuning into frequencies 437.025 MHz and 437.05 MHz.

The video captures the cosmonauts tossing three of the tiny satellites into orbit, letting them fall into gravitational limbo as the massive earth spins beneath it. Watch for the sheer daunting perspective on humanity and stay til the end as a time-lapse speeds up the spinning planet below.

Via: The Verge

Mattel cancels kid-friendly smart speaker amid privacy concerns

Mattel announced its digital assistant-powered smart speaker for kids, Aristotle, this past January. The Echo-style audio device was set to offer baby monitoring, games, facts and sounds to help soothe your children. Mattel promised it would be able to learn your children’s voices, too, and grow with their speech development. We caught a glimpse of Aristotle at CES this year, where we learned that the toy company created a custom AI engine with “natural language processing” to learn how your child pronounces words. According to a report at The Washington Post, the toy company has now canceled the device amid concerns of privacy and the role of technology in child development and parenting.

According to The Washington Post, two members of Congress sent Mattel a letter last week asking for more information about how Aristotle would store and retain any data collected on children. Mattel has already made assurances that any data collected would be in compliance with COPPA and HIPAA, and would use encryption to transmit any activity, including a baby monitor video stream.

Pediatrician Jennifer Radesky has her own concerns about the role of technology in early development. “My main concern about this technology… is the idea that a piece of technology becomes the most responsive household member to a crying child, a child who wants to learn, or a child’s play ideas,” she told The Washington Post.

When reached for comment, a Mattel spokesperson told Engadget the following: “After our new CTO, Sven Gerjets joined the company in July, he conducted an extensive review of the Aristotle product and decided that it did not fully align with Mattel’s new technology strategy. The decision was then made not to bring Aristotle to the marketplace as part of an ongoing effort to deliver the best possible connected product experience to the consumer.”

Source: The Washington Post

Airbus flying taxi concept on track to make first flight in 2018

It’s 2017, and yes, the flying car might be coming — but you probably won’t drive it. European aviation giant Airbus claimed that the company’s flying taxi concept is on track to make its first flight by the end of next year. While the first tests will be unmanned, the company plans to have humans pilot the four-person aircraft when it’s planned to start flying in cities around 2023, before eventually transitioning to fully autonomous trips.

Self-driving aerial taxis have been the plan since Airbus first announced the concept back in August 2016. While the CityAirbus’ look finally settled on a quad-rotor design familiar to any drone fan, the mission has remained constant: A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) electric-powered aircraft that will nimbly schlep four passengers through urban areas. The four-fan design should cut down on noise and the craft’s size, while splitting rides between a quartet of passengers could make it as cheap as a regular cab ride.

Of course, Airbus isn’t the only one to think it’s a good idea. Uber devoted a three-day summit to its flying taxi plans, which aim to have a test vehicle airborne by 2020, while Dubai just saw the maiden trial of a two-seated, 18-rotor taxi prototype built by the German company Volocopter. Looks like you’ll climb into a cab flown by a human (or computer) long before your own flying car (despite Airbus teasing a concept vehicle), but considering how much trouble we have driving on two axes, maybe that’s for the best.

Via: CNBC

Source: Airbus

Acer Predator Helios 300 review

Research Center:
Acer Predator Helios 300

PC gamers seeking affordable gaming on the go have plenty of options. Acer, Dell, and HP are out to prove that the PC industry isn’t dead, despite the naysayers. If anything, gamers are helping to keep it alive and thriving, as we’ve seen an explosion of gaming-related desktops and laptops cranked out over the last few years. As our Acer Predator Helios 300 review will make clear, these laptops offer a lot of value.

The version Acer supplied to us for review is sold for $1,300. It packs an Intel Core i7-7700HQ quad-core processor, Nvidia’s discrete GeForce GTX 1060 graphics chip for notebooks, 16GB of DDR4 system memory clocked at 2,400MHz, and a single 512GB solid state drive. The screen is a hefty 17.3 inches diagonally, but the maximum resolution you’ll squeeze out of this gaming puppy is 1,920 x 1,080.

These specifications are far from the quickest around – but they’re not a slouch, either. In fact, the Acer Predator Helios 300 looks great on-paper, given its price. Does its value hold up after a close look?

This Predator has some teeth

On the outside, the Predator Helios 300 has the appearance of a gaming laptop. It’s mostly black throughout the design, save for red accents sprinkled here and there. On the lid, you’ll find a brushed, hard plastic surface highlighted by the Predator logo along with two metallic, vertical red lines that offer no illumination. On the back, you’ll find the exhaust vents highlighted by two red lines, one of which expands across the bottom of the device in an attractive angled design.

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

In addition to the feet, you’ll see the main intake vent stretch out across the back half of the laptop’s belly, so playing graphically-intensive games on your lap isn’t suggested. The bottom also plays host to two easily-removed pop-out lids that are secured with a tiny screw in each. This provides quick access to the two memory slots (upgradable to 32GB), and what appears to be a compartment for adding a second SATA 3-based 2.5-inch hard drive or solid state drive

The only other red accents you’ll find on Acer’s laptop is a thin red line outlining the touchpad, and accented WASD keys for right-handed gamers (lefties use the arrows). The red accents are complemented by the laptop’s overall angular design, such as the three-sided edge along the top of the screen, and along the front of the device.

Packed with premium ports

Along the left side of the laptop you’ll find the Ethernet port, one USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-C port, one USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A port, an HDMI port, and an SD card reader. Meanwhile, the left side only plays host to the headphone jack, and two USB 2.0 Type-A ports. Wireless connectivity includes Wireless AC up to 867Mbps, and Bluetooth 4.1.

No game-centric frills with these inputs

In the keyboard area, you’ll see loads of wasted space. The keyboard itself rests in an angled depression sporting large, chiclet keys.

There’s nothing exciting to report here: no mechanical switches, no dedicated macro keys, or any other gaming-centric features outside red backlighting that’s only visible in normal lighting conditions through the WASD keys.

There’s no adjustable backlighting levels either — just on and off.

As previously stated, the touchpad is highlighted by a thin red line that does not illuminate. It’s a Windows Precision Touchpad input sporting a smooth, glass-like black surface. It moves the cursor accordingly without any effort, and supports four-finger gestures like pulling up the Action Center with four fingers.

1080p resolution will have to be good enough

With EVGA’s SC17 1080, we witnessed a completely flat screen with no protruding frame whatsoever. That’s not the case with Acer’s model, although the borders are nowhere near as thick as on the Alienware 17 R4 laptop. Improvements could also be made in how the screen connects to the base, as it relies on a visible hinge that leaves an ugly gap between the screen and the keyboard area.

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

However, the screen quality redeems clunky design. Black are dark and inky, reds are deep and brilliant, and the overall color saturation is visually more stunning than the washed-out colors you see on laptops relying on older display technology. We thought the Predator’s screen provided a great visual experience at any angle — yet when we compared it with other gaming laptops in our review portfolio, it did fall behind in a few areas.

If you need a gaming laptop right this second, the Predator Helios 300 provides great on-the-go gaming for the buck.

For one, we measured a contrast ratio of 640:1, which is less than what we measured on the Razer Blade laptop launched in early 2017, the recent HP Omen 15, and even Acer’s previous Predator 15 G9-593. However, it provides a better contrast ratio than the MSI GS63VR Stealth Pro, which has a recorded 610:1 measurement.

Yet the Predator Helios 300’s color accuracy isn’t too shabby. It falls behind the Origin EON15-S and the HP Omen 15, but provides better color accuracy than the Razer Blade, and Acer’s previous Predator 15 G9-5493 laptop. We also found the Predator Helios 300 to support 71 percent of the Adobe RGB color space, so you might want to look elsewhere if you’re a graphics designer or publisher looking for a work PC that can play high-resolution games.

Speaker location could be better

Backing this screen are two speakers that really needed to be relocated. When we tested EVGA’s laptop, we saw three facing speakers: one on each side of the touchpad, and a long rectangular speaker running across the top of the keyboard.

In this case, Acer planted the laptop’s two speakers on the bottom of the unit, so the sound is seemingly pointing downward and away from your ears. That also means there’s a lot of wasted space in the keyboard area.

Don’t get us wrong: Acer’s laptop produces decent sound. When it’s sitting on a surface, the audio is muffled to some extent, but there’s enough piercing volume to punch up through the keyboard area. Problem is, your ears really aren’t hearing audio in stereo, but rather enclosed sound with a slight metallic tint. Had Acer mounted the speakers in the keyboard area, the audio experience would likely be crisper and more engulfing.

We’ve seen this processor before

Backing this screen is Intel’s Core i7-7700HQ quad-core CPU for laptops, with a base speed of 2.80GHz, and a maximum turbo speed of 3.80GHz. In our Geekbench single-core testing, this chip scored 4,599 points, outperforming the same chip used in the Origin EON15-S, the Razer Blade, and the HP Omen 15. The same can’t be said in the multi-core test, as Acer’s laptop fell behind all three.

What’s interesting is the Predator Helios 300’s score when using Handbrake to convert video. The process took 472 seconds, falling slightly below the Razer Blade and the HP Omen 15 laptops. Yet it scored far better than the Predator 15 G9-593, which relies on an older Intel Core i7-6700HQ chip, as does the MSI GS63VR Stealth Pro.

Decent storage, but could be faster

What likely helped the Razer Blade convert the video faster than Acer’s solution was its speedy SSD. It has a read speed of 1,261MB per second, compared to the 1,1153MB per second we saw in the Acer Predator Helios 300.

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

The Razer Blade’s write speed is surprisingly slower than what we measured with Acer’s laptop, with a 312MB per second performance versus the Predator’s 582MB per second write speed. Both numbers are still extremely slow for PCI Express-based SSDs.

Despite the speeds, the laptop’s SSD only provides 512GB of storage, which should get you started. We’d prefer something bigger for a gaming laptop, but at least Acer provides a dedicated compartment for adding a secondary 2.5-inch hard drive or SSD. Acer likely didn’t provide secondary storage to keep the overall price down.

This predator is a monster on the battlefield

So, what about gaming? For starters, the Predator Helios 300 comes packed with means for overclocking through Acer’s PredatorSense software. The drawback is that you can’t switch speeds using dedicated keyboard keys. You’re also only overclocking the GTX 1060 graphics chip, so the boost won’t be phenomenal. That said, you can run games in three settings: Normal, Faster, and Turbo. Naturally, we had to taste-test all three flavors.

First up to bat is the Fire Strike benchmark in 3DMark. The Predator Helios 300 ruled the GTX 1060 world in this test, hitting 10,222 points in Turbo Mode, 10,112 points in Faster Mode, and 10,090 points in Normal mode. All three outperformed the MSI GS63VR Stealth Pro, the Razer Blade, and Acer’s previous Predator 15 G9-593.

Although the laptop provides physical means of updating the storage and memory, the BIOS isn’t gamer-friendly.

In actual games, we found the Predator Helios 300 to be a mixed bag. In For Honor with a 1080p resolution and medium detail  settings, the laptop produced more frames per second than the Razer Blade, the GTX 1060 Max-Q chip in the HP Omen 15, and the GTX 1050 Ti chip in the Origin EON15-S laptop. The same dominance stayed true when we cranked the detail level up to Extreme, with a 73.42 average framerate using the Turbo Mode setting.

In Battlefield 1, the Acer Predator Helios 300 did well too. Using a 1080p resolution and the Medium detail preset, the laptop’s Turbo Mode fell into second place behind the MSI GS63VR Stealth Pro. Even on Normal Mode, the laptop produced more frames per second than Acer’s previous Predator 15 G9-593 laptop, but somehow managed to fall slightly behind the GTX 1060 Max-Q chip in the HP Omen 15. When we cranked the detail setting up to Ultra, the Predator Helios 300 outperformed them all with an average rate of 85 frames per second.

But cowers when facing monster games

As expected, we didn’t see the same high numbers in the brutal Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. At 1080p resolution and using the High detail preset, the Turbo Mode only managed 54  frames per second, falling behind the Acer Predator 15 G9-593, and the MSI GS63VR Stealth Pro. Crank the detail level up to Ultra, and the laptop’s Turbo Mode fell into fourth place, with an average rate of 36 frames per second. Ouch.

In Civilization VI, we saw decent performance overall, but nothing inspiring when compared to its rivals. With a 1080p resolution and the Medium/Medium preset, we didn’t see any major variation across its three speeds, producing an average of 52 frames per second. That’s below what we saw with the HP Omen 15, Razer Blade, and two other similar laptops. We saw the same problem when using the Ultra / Ultra preset, which produced an average rate of 46 frames per second.

Finally, we’d like to note a limitation we discovered with the Predator Helios 300. There are no Display and Video options in Nvidia’s control panel, meaning the GTX 1060 is not the default graphics chip. To make matters worse, there are no options in the BIOS to switch the default graphics chip to the GTX 1060, so you can’t make any resolution or video changes within Nvidia’s control panel. That also means you can’t create a custom resolution, either.

That said, although the laptop provides physical means of updating the storage and memory, the laptop’s BIOS isn’t exactly gamer-friendly. There’s no mouse support, and no means of overclocking the processor or graphics chip to squeeze out customized performance.

Decent on-the-go PC gaming

Despite its performance, a gaming laptop shouldn’t feel like porting around a small desktop. Our in-house Alienware 17 R4 laptop is rather hefty, weighing roughly 10 pounds, and measuring 1.18 inches thick. By comparison, the Predator Helios 300 weighs a lighter 6.61 pounds, and measures just 1.14 inches. The Razer Blade laptop is even thinner at 0.88 inches, but it’s surprisingly heavier than Acer’s model, weighing almost eight pounds.

The real mobility competition is in the battery. You’re not going to see all-day endurance given the components inside, but we were tickled pink by how long Acer’s 17.3-inch laptop could last on a single charge. When using our iMacro test in Chrome, the battery gave up the ghost in 327 minutes. That’s shorter than what we saw with the Razer Blade, but a lot longer than the battery life seen in the MSI GS63VR Stealth Pro, the Acer Predator 15 G9-593, and the HP Omen 15.

Meanwhile, our video loop test produced similar results. The Predator Helios 300 lasted for 381 minutes, versus the 412 minutes seen with the Razer Blade. Both laptops lasted longer in looping video than the Origin EON15-S, MSI GS63VR Stealth Pro, the Predator 15 G9-593, and the HP Omen 15. Not bad at all!

Overloaded with unwanted junk

As we already mentioned, Acer installs PredatorSense on the laptop, which monitors the processor and graphics chip, and enables you to tweak the fan speeds of each (Auto / Maximum / Custom). This is also where you overclock the graphics chip using the specific, non-customizable Normal / Faster / Turbo pre-sets.

Acer Predator Helios 300 Compared To

Alienware 15 R3 (2017)

Asus ROG Strix GL553VD-DS71

Acer Predator 15

AVADirect Avant P750DM2-G

Asus ROG G752VS-XB78K

Acer Predator 17 X GX-791-73FH

Asus ROG G751JY-DH71

Origin EON 17-S (2014)

MSI GX70

Asus G750JX-DB71

Samsung Series 7 Gamer 700G7A

Alienware M17x R4

Maingear eX-L 17

Gateway P-7801u FX Edition

Alienware Area-51 m9750

Unfortunately, the list of other installed software is rather lengthy, some of which we had to disable from the startup to get clean performance. The list includes Microsoft Office 2016 (trial version), Acer Care Center, Acer Documents, Acer Recovery Management, Acer Collection, and so much more. Four Windows 10 gaming apps are installed too, along with XSplit Gamecaster, and World of Warships.

The warranty is longer than most

Acer’s Predator-branded laptops ship with a limited two-year warranty. Acer will repair or replace the product due to defects in materials and workmanship. Acer will also provide a refund if the company can’t replace the device, but you won’t fully get back what you shelled out due to depreciation. There’s no mention of a dead-pixel guarantee.

Our Take

On a whole, this is a great gaming machine for $1,300. There’s plenty to love at this price point, including means to overclock the GTX 1060 for increased performance. It’s attractive and easy to carry, and the battery is insanely good for a laptop packing high-end components for high-end gaming.

Is there a better alternative?

In our gaming benchmarks, Acer’s laptop seemingly competed with the Razer Blade, but that’s a $1,900 product with a smaller 14-inch screen. In fact, the laptops with the same processor and graphics chip combinations we’ve reviewed thus far relied on 15.6-inch screens. The fact that Acer’s product has a larger screen and the same internal components for a smaller price tag than the Razer Blade should be a huge selling point for the Predator Helios 300. It’s even lighter than Razer’s laptop.

How long will it last?

Given we’re at the tail end of Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 10 Series rollout, the chip in this laptop will likely become obsolete in the next six months. That’s the price you pay when sinking big funds into a gaming laptop. On the plus side, the GTX 1060 is a great chip for running games at a 1080p resolution, and you can go even higher when you connect an external display. The Intel processor is also fairly new, so the laptop should last for a couple of years before getting left behind by the PC gaming industry.

Should you buy it?

The Predator Helios 300 provides great PC gaming for the buck, and it should be your go-to rig if you want a gaming laptop that’s fast, affordable, and huge.

Shoulderpod expands with new grip options for smartphone photography

Why it matters to you

Shoulderpod makes it easy to add accessories to smartphone shooting in custom configured ways.

Shoulderpod is continuing to help mobile photographers and filmmakers get a literal grip with an expanded line of accessories. On Wednesday, October 4, Shoulderpod announced an expanded line of accessories for their modular smartphone grip.

Shoulderpod, owned by Manfrotto and the Vitec Group, is a customizable modular grip system that allows smartphone photographers to create a custom setup for shooting, from just a simple grip to adding a GoPro or an external microphone.

The latest modular accessories further the possibilities. The Z1 Cold Shoe allows for adding shoe mount accessories to the R1 grip system. The machine aerospace aluminum attachment is now available separately along with shipping with the R2 and X1 Pro kits.

The new Shoulderpod H1 is a handle designed for a more comfortable grip on the smartphone. Crafted from Sapeli wood, Shoulderpod says that the ergonomic shape allows the accessory to give smartphone photographers more comfort, even during longer shoots.

Another new option from Shoulderpod gives smartphone photographers a wrist strap to keep their smartphone secure. The W1 Wrist Strap is crafted from polyester with a brown suede leather finish.

The new accessories also include two new attachment plates for expanding with even more accessories, with the P1 Long Plate and the P2 Shortkit. The attachments are designed for expanding the K1 system or using the H1 kit handheld.

The latest launch also includes an upgrade kit so that owners of the smaller S1 or S2 systems don’t have to completely replace the system to upgrade to the larger R2, which allows users to mount an external microphone, light, action camera or battery.

The announcement also includes a K1 knob for using quarter-inch threaded accessories with the aluminum plates, as well as new options for replacement parts.

The modular grip and accessory systems are manufactured in Barcelona, Spain. Shoulderpod has been around since 2014, but the company says the modular system has already been readily adapted to mobile journalism, including use by BBC and CBS.

Shoulderpod systems start at about $25 for a basic grip and work up to the $120 professional rig with a number of smaller accessories to customize the system’s capabilities.

Amazing SpiderMAV drone fires off webs to gain added stability

Why it matters to you

SpiderMAV’s webshooting ability lets it perch when it needs some downtime, thereby extending the length of time between charges.

When it comes to new technologies, inspiration frequently comes from the animal kingdom. In the past, we’ve covered robots that run like ostriches, wind turbines modeled on humpback whales, and durable solar cells inspired by the honeycomb pattern of insect eyes. Now there’s a new one to add to the mix: web-shooting drones patterned after spiders. If Peter Parker was ever going to buy and use a drone, this would be the one for him!

Called SpiderMAV, this specular drone — which comes equipped with its own Spider-Man style webshooters — was created by the Aerial Robotics Laboratory of the U.K.’s Imperial College London. The drone is a modified DJI Matrice 100 drone with an additional magnetic perching module mounted on top, and a stabilizing module attached to its underside. When SpiderMAV finds a magnetic surface that it wants to perch under, it uses its compressed gas webshooter to fire out a line of polystyrene thread, which serves as an anchor. It then reels in the thread until it’s taut, and can then enjoy some motor-free hangtime while secured to the surface.

Imperial College London

“When facing design and control challenges in robotics we look at efficient solutions that are used in nature,” Dr. Mirko Kovac, who led the project, told Digital Trends. “Animals often face similar challenges as robots when moving in outdoor terrains, and bio-inspired approaches can provide value in terms of energy efficiency and robustness in complex environments.”

While Imperial College London isn’t the only research institute to be working on ways of letting drones “perch” to get some much-needed downtime, the use of spider webs certainly makes this among the more memorable solutions to the problem. One of the big advantages of the approach is that not only does it allow the robot to perch, but also to do so in a way that gives it some added stability. “We have looked at how spiders use their webs to stabilize in unknown environments,” Kovac continued. “By extracting the key principles of web building and web usage, [our SpiderMAV drone] can use string-based systems to perch for energy-efficient and wind-robust station holding.”

At present, the drone is still a work in progress, meaning that there has not been serious thought put into how SpiderMAV will disengage from the webs once they’re fired, or whether it might be possible to adjust its anchoring system so as to attach to other, non-magnetic surfaces. Still, this is very promising work that reminds us that there’s still plenty more innovation to be done in the drone world.

Google thought of everything with its new Clips lifelogging cam. Except ‘Why?’

In September 2016, lifelogging camera maker Narrative shuttered production citing “financial troubles.” Although it was far from the only option on the market, it proved to be the preverbal nail in the coffin for lifelogging cameras, which have since seen little revitalization and almost no signs of success.

Why then, just over a year later, would Google unveil Google Clips — a small, square, wearable camera designed to capture life as it happens, cherry-picking out the best moments using artificial intelligence?

All lifelogging cameras struggle to answer the same question: why?

At face value, Google Clips is an impressive little device. Through its 12-megapixel camera, Google Clips captures 15 frames per second and uses onboard machine learning to sort through the resulting images and find the best content from throughout the day — all on a device small enough to clip onto your shirt pocket. But are specs alone enough to revive lifelogging cameras, and is there a purpose that they need to fulfill?

As a whole, it seems all lifelogging cameras struggling to answer the same question: why? Nikon released its own wearable camera, the Keymission 80. Sony even conceptualized its own wearable, the Xperia Eye. And then, there are the many indie companies — from Kickstarter startups to no-name Chinese manufacturers — that all wanted a slice of the pie. But, like Narrative and its pioneering camera, all of them fail to answer the question, “why?”

Sure, having a clip-on camera saves a little time and convenience compared to pulling out a smartphone. But for the number of problems it solves, it also complicates things. Not only is it an extra purchase, running $250 in the case of Google Clips, but you then need to sync the device with your smartphone or tablet to transfer over the content and you also have to worry about charging up and carrying around yet another device.

Then, there’s the issue of content. How often, on a daily basis, are you doing interesting things worth recording? Lifelogging cameras promise to capture life’s most precious moments, but are those 1 percent of moments being captured worth wasting time, battery life, and convenience for the other 99 percent of the time? Probably not.

If any company can truly make lifelogging as simple in reality as it is in theory, it’s Google.

For most people, taking out a smartphone for that 1 percent is more than adequate, especially when you consider you need to take your smartphone out anyway to transfer over the content captured on a lifelogging camera. In fact, Google touts it as an accessory to the Pixel, and it isn’t compatible with every phone, namely the iPhone (yet).

All of that said, Google isn’t like most other companies that attempt to tackle lifelogging cameras. If any company can simplify the process and truly make lifelogging as simple in reality as it is in theory, it’s Google.

Unlike the aforementioned companies, Google is delivering both hardware and software. By tying together its continuously learning AI technology with the storage and convenience of Google Photos, it’s easy to see how Google could use its software and services to bridge a gap that’s been present in other companies’ efforts to take on lifelogging cameras. Plus, it helps that Google has the marketing power to promote it as a “must have” product.

If Google can reduce the interaction with lifelogging cameras while yielding the same results in terms of captured memories, they stand a chance to answer “why” with convenience. But it’s a big task to take on, and at $250, it’s hard to tell if general consumers would get onboard.

Even with the technology of the camera set aside, there’s also the issue of privacy. Is the world ready for a day and age where every person walking the street has a camera recording their every move, especially one that has features like facial recognition? You can argue that we are already living in a brave new world of cameras everywhere, but the thought is still unsettling.

There are a lot of questions to be answered. But if Google can tackle lifelogging cameras with the right approach, it might just be able to do it.

Video: Google Pixel 2017 hardware event recap

Google’s hardware loadout for late 2017 includes two new Pixel phones, the first Pixel laptop in years, new Google Homes, auto-translating earbuds and an AI-powered camera. At its event in San Francisco on Wednesday, the company unveiled a motherload of new gadgets across multiple categories, giving Google fans plenty to look forward to over the coming months.

Google’s full presentation runs for a whopping one hour and 45 minutes, so we’ve crunched it all down to a five-minute recap covering everything you need to know. Check it out above, and be sure to drop by our hands-on preview for more on Google’s latest handsets.

• Android Central on YouTube
• Everything you need to know about the Pixel 2
• Google Pixel 2 hands-on
• Google Pixelbook hands-on

Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL

• Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL hands-on: Act two is great
• Google Pixel 2 specs
• Google Pixel 2 vs. Pixel 2 XL: What’s the difference?
• Pixel 2 vs iPhone 8: Camera Showdown
• Pixel 2 FAQ: Everything you need to know!
• Join our Pixel 2 forums

Google Store
Project Fi
Verizon

Zillow is adding 3D tours to its real estate listings

Zillow is working on an app that will allow those hunting for homes on its site to get a 3D tour of houses they’re interested in buying or renting. The company says that 44 percent of home buyers and 47 percent of renters look for a new home outside of the region where they currently live, making it really important to have access to as much information as possible online.

With the Zillow Group Home Capture App, real estate agents can use an iPhone to take 360 degree photos of each room of a house. Once uploaded to Zillow Group via the app, the photos are then stitched together to create a 3D tour that can be added to a Zillow listing. Zillow says that a 3,000 square foot house can be captured in around half an hour.

The app is currently being tested among a select group of individuals in Scottsdale, Arizona. Zillow hopes to release the app in Phoenix at the start of next year and roll it out nationwide by the end of 2018. You can check out one of its 3D tours here.

Source: Zillow

Hulu’s next show pulls a gamer into the past to save the future

Hulu’s surely riding high after its original show The Handmaid’s Tale took home the Best Drama Series Emmy, but its next series looks to be a bit lighter-hearted. Created by Seth Rogan and frequent partner Evan Goldberg, Future Man tells the story of a janitor at a biotech company who beats a video game — only to be chosen by its creators for a mission to the past in order to save the future.

Even in the trailer, the show acknowledges The Last Starfighter-esque plot — and with Rogan and Goldberg at the helm (whose previous collaborations include Superbad, This Is The End and Sausage Party), the comedy looks like it might be a slick send-up of pop culture time-travel. And given how much nostalgia Hulu is serving up to its viewers, hopefully this self-aware show will be the right antidote.

Future Man stars Josh Hutcherson of The Hunger Games as Josh Futterman, a gamer tasked by two survivors of the future to kill an entrepreneurial scientist whose herpes cure leads to a planet-devastating war. Balking at lethal measures, Futterman convinces the future soldiers to go for plan B: Prevent the scientist from getting the disease in the first place, ostensibly by ruining his romantic life. Time-travel hijinks will most certainly ensue.

The entire 13-episode series goes live on Hulu on November 14th.

Source: ‘Future Man’ trailer (YouTube)