Pixar’s ‘Coco VR’ lets you explore the land of the dead

Pixar dropped the trailer for its next film Coco two months ago, and with any release by the much-lauded studio, eyes turned toward what masterpiece it would spin out next. But they’ve got something else suitably modern to help promote the movie: A VR experience.

Discover places unknown in our first VR experience, coming to @OculusRift November 15 and Gear VR November 22, #PixarCoco’s release day. pic.twitter.com/DJVPcDXSpZ

— Disney•Pixar (@DisneyPixar) October 11, 2017

A “social” VR experience, to be specific — though what Disney’s promotional material means by that is unclear. It is a delightful next step for Pixar to embrace new tech opportunities, like its storytelling course on Khan Academy, but the studio is definitely behind in producing VR experiences — Alien: Covenant, Dunkirk and Blade Runner 2049 have all released their own earlier this year.

From the look of it, Coco VR will let players explore the vibrant Land of the Dead seen in the film’s trailer. Whether you’ll be able to make your own skeleton avatar or portray a character from the movie is unclear. Coco VR comes to Oculus Rift on November 15th and to the Gear VR on the film’s US release date, November 22nd.

Source: Coco VR (Disney)

‘Fortnite: Battle Royale’ claims 10 million players

We were initially skeptical of Epic’s attempt to repurpose its zombie tower defense-shooter Fortnite into a battle royale mode — after all, the genre’s champion PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds sold ten million copies only six months after it launched. We shouldn’t have doubted it. Fortnite: Battle Royale just surpassed the ten-million-player milestone last weekend just two weeks after it launched.

In two weeks since we’ve launched, over 10 million of you have played Battle Royale. We can’t say thank you enough. https://t.co/v39jBGe9qd pic.twitter.com/pkC7fhdl4K

— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) October 11, 2017

Those aren’t exactly comparable metrics, since Fortnite: Battle Royale is free-to-play and PUBG retails for $30, meaning the latter has already amassed a ton of money while the latter spins up its microtransaction revenue streams. For an apples-to-apples comparison, though, Epic estimated that 3.7 million people played Fortnite: Battle Royale on Sunday, while PUBG has nearly 2 million daily players according to Steam Charts.

The new kid on the nascent ‘battle royale genre’ block is seriously challenging the reigning champ — but PUBG might not take the usurpation lying down. Its studio Bluehole loudly complained about the overt similarities between its game (released last March) and Epic’s new spin-off, and even vaguely threatened the latter in a statement when it said the company would “contemplate further action.”

Via: Glixel

78% of Teens Surveyed Own an iPhone, 82% Plan to Purchase

The iPhone’s popularity among teens continues to grow, according to new data gathered by investment firm Piper Jaffray for the fall edition of its semiannual U.S. teen survey.

78 percent of teens surveyed own an iPhone, up two percent from the spring 2017 survey conducted earlier this year. 82 percent of teens said their next smartphone will be an iPhone, the highest amount of interest ever noted in one of these surveys.

This jump in interest can perhaps be attributed to the 2017 iPhone lineup, which includes the iPhone X with an edge-to-edge display and a TrueDepth camera for facial recognition purposes.

Teen interest in the Apple Watch is also up, and 17 percent of teens surveyed said they plan to buy an Apple Watch in the next six months, up from 13 percent in spring 2017.

Piper Jaffray says the survey is a “positive point” on iPhone 8 demand and iPhone X demand, and increasing interested in the Apple Watch.

Apple Music also made an appearance in the survey, gaining share alongside Spotify and YouTube as teens move away from streaming services like Pandora.

On-demand music services like Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music (30%, 20%, and 17%) continue to gain market share among teens, as more traditional platforms and Pandora continue to lose share.

Piper Jaffray’s fall 2017 teen survey covered 6,100 teens across 44 states in the United States with an average age of 15.9 years.

Tags: Piper Jaffray, teen survey
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Yelp for iOS Gains Support for Apple Pay

Yelp’s iOS app received a major update today, introducing support for Apple Pay for the first time.

With Apple Pay support, Apple’s payments service can be used to make purchases from local businesses through Yelp for things like delivery or takeout food.

When you make a purchase and then go to the checkout and payment process, Apple Pay is now listed as an available purchase option in the Yelp app alongside credit card and Paypal. Apple Pay is a purchase option for a wide range of items within the Yelp app, including food, concert tickets, and more.

Big news. You can now use Apple Pay to make purchases from local businesses on Yelp. So go ahead — book an oceanside couples massage, get tickets to that John Mayer concert, or get those lobster rolls delivered.

The Apple Pay update became available in an update released this morning. Yelp can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Related Roundup: Apple PayTag: Yelp
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Spark for iOS and Mac Gain New Reminder and Send Later Features

Popular email app Spark for Mac and iOS was today updated with several new features aimed at professionals, including “Send Later” and “Follow-up Reminders.”

Send Later is designed to allow users to schedule emails to be sent at a later time instead of right away. Spark users can compose an email and then schedule it at the time when it’s most likely to be read.

The feature can be accessed by choosing the Send Later icon when composing an email, which will pop up an option to choose a time.

Follow-up reminders are meant to remind Spark users to follow up on emails that have been sent out and not responded to.

Professional follow-up is an art that both sender and recipient appreciate. Everyone gets busy and can easily miss important emails. In this case, friendly follow-up reminders help you get a response when the timing is right. Use follow-up Reminders in Spark to ensure that your message doesn’t end up in limbo.

On iOS devices, the Spark app has been updated with a new email composer to accommodate the two new features. The new design is meant to make it easier to choose the From email address, and more explicit CC and BCC buttons are supposed to make it easier to manage CC/Bcc contacts.

The new Spark features are available today in both the iOS and Mac apps, which are free downloads. [iOS: Direct Link] [Mac: Direct Link]

Tags: Readdle, Spark
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Alibaba reportedly plans to spend $15 billion on ‘moonshot’ projects

Research and development in the tech industry is a pretty big deal. Google spins off its massive advertising revenues into all sorts of wild projects aimed at finding the next big thing. Apple and Amazon both spend billions each year, too, with both companies building R&D centers around the glove. China’s largest online commerce company, Alibaba, appears to be following suit, with a plan to more than double its research and development spending from $6.4 billion annually to $15 billion over the next three years, according to a report at Bloomberg. The expenditures will help fund next-generation technology discoveries and “moonshot” projects that could disrupt entire industries, Bloomberg says.

Alibaba has plans to set up seven research labs and hire 100 scientists, whose focus will be artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and quantum computing, according to the Bloomberg report. Machine learning, visual computing and network security are reported to be specific areas of interest. Labs are planned for the US, Russia, Israel and Singapore, and collaborations with universities like UC Berkely will be funded, as well, says Bloomberg.

Amazon leads the tech world in R&D spending, with a reported $16.1 billion spent, followed closely by Alphabet ($13.9 billion) Intel ($12.7 billion), Microsoft ($12.3 billion) and Apple ($10 billion), as seen in a report on Recode using FactSet data. Alibaba will outpace all but Amazon, assuming the other companies don’t increase their own spending in the next three years, which is unlikely. Still, China’s leader in e-commerce is taking a big step forward to compete on a global level with these western companies.

Source: Bloomberg

Privacy-focused Telegram can share your location in real time

Telegram is big on privacy, but that doesn’t mean you always want to keep things hush-hush — in fact, you may want to reveal exactly what you’re up to. Appropriately, the company just updated its Android and iOS apps with an option for live location sharing. Turn it on and everyone in a chat can see where you are in real time for as little as 15 minutes or as long as 8 hours. As you might imagine, that could be more than a little helpful if you’re meeting up with someone or want to know when your friends get home.

The Telegram team is also improving things for music fans and polyglots. The in-app media player has received an overhaul that includes better support for playing music files like MP3s. Also, language support in the interface is much better this time around, including timely support for Russian as well as French, Ukranian, Indonesian and Malay. Persian is also coming, Telegram says. In that sense, the biggest news surrounding Telegram may simply be that it’ll feel more at home for more people.

Source: App Store, Google Play, Telegram

Smart crosswalk uses virtual markings to react to conditions, increase safety

Why it matters to you

A smart crosswalk doesn’t just look cool, it also helps modern cities bolster the safety of pedestrians.

Do you remember when Steve Jobs showed off the original iPhone, and made a big deal about its virtual buttons, instead of physical ones, because this meant they could change according to each app’s requirements? An innovative new road design concept created by U.K. design collective Umbrellium is applying that same philosophy to crosswalks. Called the Starling Crossing, it’s an innovative, futuristic concept that uses object tracking and LEDs to adjust virtual markers on the road depending on what is happening at any given moment.

“What we’ve done is created an interactive road surface that can display a pedestrian crossing at any location in a road, any size and orientation — even create colored road markings to serve as guidance or warning to people who might be about to get into a dangerous situation,” Usman Haque, one of the creators involved with the project, told Digital Trends. “It responds dynamically in real time to pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers to create the optimum crossing layout and road markings for a given time of day or a given situation.”

For example, should a child run into the road unexpectedly, a large buffer zone could be displayed around them in the smart crosswalk to make their presence and trajectory immediately clear to nearby road users. The  road surface display could also adapt to environmental conditions, such as taking into account wet weather when determining car buffer zones to avoid accidents, or keeping certain polluting vehicles further away from a school crossing. Like a Nest thermostat, the idea is to create a system that’s able to learn patterns over time and then adjust road markings accordingly.

“The design of the pedestrian crossing that we are familiar with hasn’t been updated much since the 1940s,” Haque continued. “But these days we inhabit our cities in very different ways: streets are more busy, [and] we have mobile phones in our hands to distract us. When we hear about road technology, so much of it is about [things like] autonomous vehicles. What we wanted to do is create a pedestrian crossing technology that puts people first, responding to their needs.”

The Starling Crossing was commissioned by the U.K. insurance company Direct Line and the design firm Saatchi & Saatchi. Right now, it’s still a proof-of-concept only, although we’d love to see something like this play a part in tomorrow’s smart cities.

“This was the first full-scale working prototype, so there will be plenty more testing and development needed in a future rollout, but we don’t have any specific dates or locations to share at this time,” Haque said.

$199 Oculus Go delivers stand-alone VR with no phone or PC needed

Why it matters to you

Here’s another upcoming stand-alone VR headset that doesn’t require a smartphone, or a tethered connection to a parent PC.

During the Oculus Connect 4 keynote on Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that the company is currently working on a stand-alone VR headset called Oculus Go. Similar to the upcoming stand-alone “Daydream” headset initiative from Google and Qualcomm, you won’t need a smartphone to experience virtual reality. You also won’t need to tether the headset to a parent PC like Facebook’s premium VR headset, the Oculus Rift.

According to Zuckerberg, Oculus Go will ship in early 2018 for $199. He didn’t reveal anything else outside the brief tease, but Facebook’s head of VR Hugo Barro came out on stage to provide a few more details about the upcoming stand-alone VR product. He said it targets that sweet spot between high-end and mobile so you can get a tether-free, device-free full-motion VR experience without breaking the bank.

For starters, Oculus VR designed the headset to be super lightweight, and provide soft elastic straps with high adjustability, so you can forget about them once you dive into a virtual experience. The faceplate also consists of a new mesh fabric that’s breathable for an extremely comfortable fit. The remaining shell and front appear built from hard plastic to protect the components within.

On the hardware front, Barro wasn’t exactly forthcoming. But he did spend some time talking about the viewing experience, which relies on next-generation versions of the custom lenses used in the Oculus Rift. He said these lenses provide the same field-of-view and significantly-reduced glare as the Rift versions. They’re also backed by a “fast-switch LCD screen” packing a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution, and a higher pixel fill rate than an OLED screen can allegedly accomplish. This resolution promises a reduced screen-door effect for sharper text and cleaner images.

But that’s not all: Oculus Go will sport integrated spatial audio. That means if you see a virtual dog barking in the corner of your left eye, the sound will stem from the dog’s direction. Turn to look directly at the animal, and the barking source will move with the dog as it centers in your view. Barro said your friends and family will be able to hear the audio too, without wearing a headset.

Finally, Barro said that Oculus Go is binary compatible with Samsung’s Gear VR. That means the Android-based apps you purchased for Samsung’s smartphone-based VR headset will work with Oculus Go right out of the box. That also gives us a clue as to what’s inside Oculus Go, considering Samsung’s Galaxy-class smartphones rely on Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, or its own in-house Exynos chips.

Qualcomm actually provides a developer kit for stand-alone VR headsets based on its Snapdragon 835 processor. It includes dual front-facing cameras for tacking your position in the real world, which rely on a separate processor that handles the motion-tracking. This frees up the Qualcomm chip to deal with the processing and graphics rendering of the virtual experience.

Barro said that developer kits for Oculus Go will be made available in November. Given that it will be compatible with Gear VR apps, it will already have a large library of experiences right out of the box. A retail version of the Oculus Go will arrive in early 2018.

$199 Oculus Go delivers stand-alone VR with no phone or PC needed

Why it matters to you

Here’s another upcoming stand-alone VR headset that doesn’t require a smartphone, or a tethered connection to a parent PC.

During the Oculus Connect 4 keynote on Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that the company is currently working on a stand-alone VR headset called Oculus Go. Similar to the upcoming stand-alone “Daydream” headset initiative from Google and Qualcomm, you won’t need a smartphone to experience virtual reality. You also won’t need to tether the headset to a parent PC like Facebook’s premium VR headset, the Oculus Rift.

According to Zuckerberg, Oculus Go will ship in early 2018 for $199. He didn’t reveal anything else outside the brief tease, but Facebook’s head of VR Hugo Barro came out on stage to provide a few more details about the upcoming stand-alone VR product. He said it targets that sweet spot between high-end and mobile so you can get a tether-free, device-free full-motion VR experience without breaking the bank.

For starters, Oculus VR designed the headset to be super lightweight, and provide soft elastic straps with high adjustability, so you can forget about them once you dive into a virtual experience. The faceplate also consists of a new mesh fabric that’s breathable for an extremely comfortable fit. The remaining shell and front appear built from hard plastic to protect the components within.

On the hardware front, Barro wasn’t exactly forthcoming. But he did spend some time talking about the viewing experience, which relies on next-generation versions of the custom lenses used in the Oculus Rift. He said these lenses provide the same field-of-view and significantly-reduced glare as the Rift versions. They’re also backed by a “fast-switch LCD screen” packing a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution, and a higher pixel fill rate than an OLED screen can allegedly accomplish. This resolution promises a reduced screen-door effect for sharper text and cleaner images.

But that’s not all: Oculus Go will sport integrated spatial audio. That means if you see a virtual dog barking in the corner of your left eye, the sound will stem from the dog’s direction. Turn to look directly at the animal, and the barking source will move with the dog as it centers in your view. Barro said your friends and family will be able to hear the audio too, without wearing a headset.

Finally, Barro said that Oculus Go is binary compatible with Samsung’s Gear VR. That means the Android-based apps you purchased for Samsung’s smartphone-based VR headset will work with Oculus Go right out of the box. That also gives us a clue as to what’s inside Oculus Go, considering Samsung’s Galaxy-class smartphones rely on Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, or its own in-house Exynos chips.

Qualcomm actually provides a developer kit for stand-alone VR headsets based on its Snapdragon 835 processor. It includes dual front-facing cameras for tacking your position in the real world, which rely on a separate processor that handles the motion-tracking. This frees up the Qualcomm chip to deal with the processing and graphics rendering of the virtual experience.

Barro said that developer kits for Oculus Go will be made available in November. Given that it will be compatible with Gear VR apps, it will already have a large library of experiences right out of the box. A retail version of the Oculus Go will arrive in early 2018.