$200 Wiral Lite gives your phone or GoPro sweet video effects without a drone

Why it matters to you

The Wiral Lite means cable cam systems aren’t off limits to amateur photographers anymore.

Cable cam systems create sweet video effects, but their price, size and complex setup makes them a largely professional accessory. But one startup is aiming to bring the gliding motion effects of expensive cable systems to any user in the form of Wiral Lite, a cable camera system designed for compact cameras.

The system fits in a backpack, sets up in three minutes, and accommodates a number of different lightweight cameras, including GoPros and smartphones. The California-based company is working to bring the largely professional accessory to consumers with a mix of affordability and simplicity.

Wiral Lite is a motorized cable system — after setting up the cable around trees or posts, the cable system moves along the line using an included remote control. The system allows filmmakers to adjust speed from 0.006 mph up to 28 mph, shooting for up to three hours on the built-in battery. A time-lapse mode also allows for moving time-lapses at three different speeds. The company says the motor doesn’t create any distracting sounds.

The motorized body folds in, making it possible to tuck the system into a backpack, along with the winding cable. The motorized dolly only weighs 1.3 pounds, but can accommodate cameras up to 3.3 pounds, including GoPros, smartphones and lightweight cameras with a 1/4-inch tripod thread. A 164-foot cable is included.

Developers say the Wiral Lite can help achieve drone-like effects in no-fly zones, as well as shooting in spots that are difficult to fly in because of tight spaces.

While cable systems are common video tools, most don’t have the easy setup, compact design or price of the Wiral Lite — factors which likely led to the Kickstarter gaining complete funding in just three minutes. The Kickstarter campaign is now at nearly a quarter of a million dollars, well past the original $30,000 goal. Now with over 1,000 backers, the campaign reached $200,000 in the first 24 hours.

The startup plans to begin shipping the Wiral Lite in March. If manufacturing is successful, early backers can pick up the cable system for about $200. When the accessory hits retail stores, the company expects to list the cable camera system for twice that amount. The Kickstarter campaign is open until November 16.

WhatsApp rolls out real-time location-sharing feature for iOS and Android

Why it matters to you

Friends wondering where you are? WhatsApp’s new feature tells them for you.

We’ve all been there. You’re heading to a friends place and running late. Said friend impatiently texts you, asking where you are. You text back, and the frustrating exchange continues until you finally, apologetically meet up. Good news if you’re a WhatsApp user, though: Your phone can handle the back-and-forth for you.

On Tuesday, October 19, the Facebook-owned messaging app announced Live Location, a new feature that lets you share your real-time coordinates with one or more WhatsApp chat buddies. It’s encrypted end to end to ensure privacy, Facebook says, and has an expiration timer that automatically stops location sharing after a predefined window.

Here’s how to use it: When you’re texting someone (or a group of someones) in WhatsApp, tap the Location menu under the plus-shaped Attach button. Hit Share live location, add a comment, and choose how long you’d like your coordinates to remain public. Tap the Send button, and you’re good to go — your WhatsApp friends can see you now.

WhatsApp

Multiple people can share their locations at the same time, in which case they’ll populate WhatsApp’s in-app map all at once. And it’s platform agnostic — location sharing will roll out to Android and iOS users in the coming weeks.

Live Location isn’t Facebook’s first experiment with location sharing, interestingly. In 2015, the social network added a one-tap location sharing to Messenger, and in May tested a real-time location feature that shared your whereabouts for an hour at a time.

But while competitors like Google have been relatively quick to embrace real-time social mapping, Facebook has taken a more cautious approach. There’s a reason: Back in 2015, Messenger grabbed headlines for sharing users’ location information without their knowledge.

History might look kindly on Facebook’s recalcitrance. When Snapchat rolled out its location-sharing Snap Map feature earlier this year, privacy advocates and law enforcement officials accused it of “encouraging a […] flash mob mentality” and “[enabling] bad actors.”

“There is that risk of real bad actors […] someone stalking and someone being able to locate someone in the real world,” Michael Kasdan, an attorney specializing in privacy at Wiggin and Dana, told CNBC. “Teenage users […] don’t necessarily think about the privacy implications.”

HTC U11 Plus shown off in renders, official announcement coming Nov 2

The U11 Plus could come with an 18:9 display, rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, and a familiar design.

The HTC U11 might not have been the most popular phone of the year, but it certainly wasn’t the worst. The U11 offered solid performance, great camera, snappy software, and a gorgeous design. The U11 got people talking about HTC again, and the company is looking to kick things up an extra notch next month.

Earlier this week, renders for what is supposedly the HTC U11 Plus appeared online with clear looks at virtually every angle of the phone. There’s still the iconic glass black that shimmers and shifts colors depending on how light hits it, but there are a couple nice visual changes. The fingerprint scanner has been moved from the front to the back below the camera, and as a result, the front of the device features considerably smaller bezels. They aren’t quite as slim as what we’ve got with the Galaxy S8 or Essential Phone, but it’s an improvement nonetheless.

Speaking of the display, HTC will reportedly be moving over to an 18:9 form factor with a screen size of 6-inches. We’re expecting a QuadHD+ display, and while this isn’t anything revolutionary, it’d be a nice jump up from the U11’s 5.5-inch 16:9 setup.

As for other specifications, we’re expecting 6GB of RAM, 4,000 mAh battery, and no dual-camera system.

Following these renders and rumored specs, HTC announced on Twitter that it’ll be holding an event on November 2. The teaser image for the event features HTC’s “U” logo, with the caption “We’re bringing something new for the #BrilliantU.”

We’re bringing something new for the #BrilliantU. pic.twitter.com/EqmmyPTuIp

— HTC (@htc) October 19, 2017

Although HTC hasn’t officially said that this event will be for the U11 Plus, all signs do seem to be pointing that way. In any case, we won’t have too much longer to see what the company will be doing to send off 2017.

HTC U11

• HTC U11 review
• HTC U11 specs
• Manufacturing the U11: Behind the scenes
• Join our U11 forums
• HTC U11 vs Galaxy S8
• HTC U11 vs LG G6

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Google now lets you try out apps before downloading them in the Play Store

An unexpected, but welcome, move.

Back at Google I/O 2016, Google announced something called “Android Instant Apps.” Android Instant Apps is a system that allows app developers to shrink down their applications into smaller packages that can be used without having to download them locally onto your phone, and the initial use case for this tech was to allow you to jump into an app via a Google Search even if you didn’t have said app downloaded. However, Google has since announced another use for the platform.

“Apps to Try Now” was recently rolled out to the Play Store, and as you might expect, it allows you to instantly use an application without having to first download it onto your phone. If you like it, download the full version and keep on being you. If you don’t like what you see, simply stop using the app and go about your day – no need to then find the application and uninstall it from your device.

Android Instant Apps has had a pretty slow rollout, with the platform only being opened to all developers this past May. Pushing this tech to the Play Store only makes sense, and while it’s unclear if this will be available for paid apps in addition to free ones, it should still prove to be a nice convenience.

There are currently eight apps that you can try in this new manner, including the likes of BuzzFeed, NYTimes Crosswords, Red Bull TV, Skyscanner, and others.

You can check out the full list here.

How to enable and use Instant Apps on Android

Alphabet’s CapitalG is leading Lyft’s $1 billion investment run

Lyft’s total evaluation is now up to $11 billion.

Although Uber might have been first to market, Lyft is rapidly making a name for itself in the ride-sharing industry. The company announced through its official blog that Alphabet’s CapitalG investment arm is leading the company’s latest $1 billion investing run, and because of this, Lyft is now valued at a total of $11 billion.

This is a huge step for Lyft, and the fact that it’s working this closely with Alphabet is truly fascinating. Lyft and Waymo (Alphabet’s self-driving car division) struck up a partnership earlier in May, and Alphabet choosing to lead Lyft’s campaign in raising $1 billion reiterates Alphabet’s dedication to remaining on as much of Lyft’s good side as it can.

What’s also interesting about this deal is that CapitalG was a backer for Uber early on in the company’s life. However, with Uber and Waymo currently at each others’ necks, the relationship between Uber and Alphabet is likely pretty shaky.

Along with this increase in funds, Lyft also announced that it’s expanded its service to 95% of United States residents – up from 54% at this point at the beginning of the year.

Lyft also points out in its blog post that less than 0.5% of the U.S. population actually uses ride-sharing services, meaning that room for growth is substantial.

Now you can easily hail a ride from Uber or Lyft inside Google Maps

You can now purchase Google’s updated Daydream View VR headset for $99

Available in Fog, Charcoal, and Coral.

Google announced quite a few new toys at its October 4 event, one of which being an updated Daydream View headset. An exact release date wasn’t announced at the time of the announcement, but that day is now upon us.

There are three colors of the Daydream View to choose from, including Fog, Charcoal, and Coral. Fog is expected to ship within two to three weeks, with Charcoal and the gorgeous Coral option expected to ship by October 22.

The updated headset costs $99 with free shipping, and while that is more than the $79 asking price for the first-generation model, there are a lot of improvements this time around that make the added cost worth it – especially if you held out last year.

We won’t go through all of the improvements here, but the highlights for 2017’s Daydream View include an added head strap for more comfortable VR experiences, improved fabric material and padding, a new heat sink system, and plenty more.

If you’re interested and want to pick up a headset before Google runs out of stock, head to the link below!

See on Google Store

Amazon’s largest wind farm yet is up and running in Texas

Greenpeace slammed Amazon earlier this week for its environmental practices — namely, the fact that it doesn’t disclose much about its energy use or materials. But today, the company announced that its largest wind farm yet is up and running. The Amazon Wind Farm Texas, located in Scurry County, Texas, includes over 100 turbines and will generate enough clean energy to power more than 330,000 homes.

This isn’t Amazon’s first foray into clean energy. The Amazon Wind Farm Texas is among 18 others across the US, and the online retailer has another 35 in planning stages. Not only are they offsetting their carbon footprint, at least somewhat, but they’re providing more jobs and contributing to local economies. Kara Hurst, Amazon’s Worldwide Director of Sustainability, cites a company-wide goal of eventually powering their infrastructure using solely renewable energy.

It’s not clear whether this specific press release is a response to Greenpeace’s actions, but Amazon is clearly interested in garnering as much good will as possible, and they’re going about it in a great way. People can feel however they want about the company, but it’s hard to argue with a project like this. The wind farms also make clear that the retail giant is interested in many more endeavors than solely selling you more stuff than you need and delivering it within two days.

Source: BusinessWire

‘Aztez’: The bloody indie brawler that should’ve been big

Imagine: It’s 2012 and Matthew Wegner is sitting at his desk in the back of a one-bedroom apartment in Tempe, Arizona, pounding away at a keyboard. It’s night but thick black drapes are pulled over the window; the room is suffused with dim yellow light, casting sickly shadows over the papers tacked to the walls. Most of them are emblazoned with the name Aztez, depicting bloody battles among ancient Aztec warriors. Wegner’s fingers fall still as he closes a line of code and reviews his work. His computer hums, hot.

A ball of blinding white light suddenly explodes in the middle of the room, shooting sparks to the ceiling and singeing the carpet — Wegner jumps up and stares, wide-eyed, at the intrusion. As the glare fades, a familiar shape emerges. Wegner is looking at himself: a little older, a little more weathered, but definitely himself.

“Don’t do Aztez!” the second Wegner says, frantic. “I’m you from five years in the future. Trust me, stop working on this game. It doesn’t go well.”

The original Wegner finds his voice. “But everyone says it’s going to be great! We already have a lot of buzz.”

“It’s a trap. Quit Aztez. Now!” The light returns and swiftly envelops the second Wegner before popping out of existence entirely. His final words reverberate around the tiny, smoking room. Wegner blinks and shakes away his shock. He pulls out his chair and sits down. Moments later, his fingers are flying over the keyboard again, coding combat combos into Aztez.

“If, five years ago, future-me were to teleport into the room and be like, ‘I’m Matthew from the future — Aztez, just get off of it, don’t do it,’ I’d probably still finish it,” Wegner says, back in the real world.

“Yeah, I would too,” his partner, Ben Ruiz, agrees. Ruiz and Wegner are the founding (and only) members of Team Colorblind, an independent game-development studio based in the Phoenix area. Their first game, Aztez, hit Steam in August after seven years of work and five years of positive public attention. It’s a stylish brawler with deep strategy elements set in the ancient Aztec empire, featuring black-and-white environments splattered with bright red blood.

During development, Ruiz and Wegner rode a rising wave of love for indie games, as consumers discovered the depth of experiences available outside of the big-budget, DLC-obsessed, AAA marketplace. They rode that indie wave until it crashed. It’s difficult to say exactly when, because they didn’t feel the impact — they were trapped in a development bubble, building a game that the media, their friends and fellow developers all said would perform wonderfully once it was out in the wild.

At least, that’s what they said five years ago.

The video game industry evolves rapidly, constantly adopting new technologies and taking advantage of fresh distribution methods. As Team Colorblind continued to work, the indie market lost its new-toy sheen and became an established, overcrowded haven for anyone with GameMaker and an idea.

“If I was paying attention to Steam, maybe I wouldn’t be so blindsided by what happened, but I’m also not necessarily sure what I would’ve done differently,” Ruiz says. “If I’d have known like, oh, it’s a saturated market now — what the fuck do you do?”

After seven years, Aztez emerged from its development bubble — and it bombed. This time around, Ruiz and Wegner definitely felt the impact.

“Fucking madness,” Ruiz says.

The method

Ruiz chose Aztez’s release date extremely carefully. He knew they didn’t want to launch during the holiday season, which is generally dominated by the AAA money machine, so he looked at the summer. He scoured the charts of upcoming Steam releases, searching for a day without any big-name games. August 1st looked good. He locked it in.

“There were 40 other games that launched on August 1st,” Wegner says. One of those games was Slime Rancher, an adorable first-person title that had generated a rabid fanbase while it was still in Early Access. Another was Tacoma, the new game from the team behind indie darling Gone Home. Neither of these had shown up on the new-release charts Ruiz had studied.

“If I would’ve seen Slime Rancher, I would’ve been like fuck it, we’re going to wait a month,” Ruiz says. “Because there’s no reason to compete with that.”

Slime Rancher didn’t single-handedly destroy Aztez’s chances at success. However, with 39 other new games also hitting Steam that day, it was difficult for any title to truly stand out. Even an eye-catching brawler with a notable amount of name recognition.

This is a different world than the one Ruiz and Wegner operated in when they started working on Aztez in 2010. Back then, Steam was a curated space, where employees worked directly with developers to approve their games and get them on the store. A handful of titles went live every week and indie developers lucky enough to secure a Steam deal could generally bank on that release to see them through the fiscal year. Getting on Steam was like hitting the jackpot.

That changed in 2012. Indie games were all the rage, development tools were becoming increasingly accessible, and there were hundreds of new titles ready to be distributed every day. Steam set up Greenlight, a system where players themselves approved indie games for the store, and Early Access, where developers could publish games-in-progress for community feedback, allowing them to feed the hype beast from day one.

Meanwhile, Ruiz and Wegner continued working on Aztez, heads down, not paying much attention to the wider marketplace as it tilted around them. They had five years to go. Today, Greenlight is dead, but the Early Access model has spread to other platforms, including consoles.

“It’s almost like in the last five years, everyone was on Steam, and then it refractured and the consoles got markets back again,” Ruiz says. “Five years ago everyone was on Steam because new consoles would come out and they were like $1,000, right? So, it’s just this sin wave apparently, because it’s like oh yeah, that’s what happened with the previous generation, too.”

This tug-of-war between Steam and consoles continues today. Right now, it feels like there’s more opportunity for indie games to succeed on the PlayStation 4 or Switch (“They don’t say Xbox One. I don’t think anyone owns those,” Ruiz adds) than Steam. However, PS4 has been the reigning indie hub for a few years and its dominance might be coming to an end. Managerial shakeups have recently altered the company’s approach to smaller studios — Sony is losing the indie market and the Switch alone can’t support this ecosystem on behalf of all three major consoles. The momentum is poised to shift back toward Steam any time now, but the platform still has to deal with its oversaturation problem.

“I think we came out on the bad part of that rollercoaster, because you know, there’s a billion indie games that come out on Steam every single day,” Ruiz says.

Ruiz and Wegner aren’t making any money on Aztez and they’ve started picking up contract work again to pay the bills.

Back in 2010, they worked on the game exclusively on nights and weekends, but they managed to secure some investors early on and Ruiz has been building Aztez full-time since then. Wegner continued doing contract work and focused on the game in his spare time — over the past year, however, Wegner was full-time on Aztez as well.

Colorblind has to repay its investors before they see a cent out of Aztez. So far, they’ve sold roughly 2,000 copies of the game across Steam and other, smaller distributors. It sells for $20 when it’s not on sale.

“We have no money coming to us until we pay that back,” Wegner says. “Which is super frustrating, because if you sell two copies a day on Steam, you’re making $1,000 a month after Steam’s cut. If you sell 10 copies a day you’re making $5,000 a month.”

All of that cash — real and potential — is being funneled to Aztez’s investors for now.

“It’ll make money eventually,” Wegner says. “Funny thing is like, I’m 37, and I’ll be probably in my 40s, like, oh, Aztez made me some money, that’s cool.”

“Oh no,” Ruiz laments.

“Then I’ll put it towards my medical class for being a 40 year old.”

“I’m 33,” Ruiz says. “I might be in my 40s when Aztez makes some money.”

Ruiz and Wegner did a lot of things right when it comes to savvy indie distribution — Ruiz sent out press releases, published YouTube videos and got some high-profile streamers to play Aztez — but they were a few years behind the market. They launched on Steam when consoles might have been a better move.

Now, they’re working on PS4, Xbox One and Switch versions of the game. Aztez is actually running on all of those platforms, but it probably won’t launch until early next year, after the holiday rush.

By that time, it’s hard to say where the market’s energy will be. Aztez could easily miss out on the current console bubble, too. For instance, plenty of players today are excited about indie games on the Switch, but there’s no telling how long that interest will last.

“Maybe by the time we launch on Switch, you know, in whatever January, February, we will also be amongst the crowd again,” Ruiz says.

Ruiz and Wegner know all it takes is one good day to set Aztez on the path of financial solvency, and they know the console releases could be major. They’re also painfully aware all of their plans could fail spectacularly. It’s a tense waiting game.

“We’re in the part of the metaphor where, like, we hit the other car or the boundary, and flew out the windshield, and our faces and arms just ate street,” Ruiz says. “I kind of feel like we’re still in the street. So intellectually it’s like OK, we’re alive, I know we’ll be alive, this isn’t going to kill us. … I know we’re going to be okay, but everything blows right now. Just blood everywhere, like oh, dang it.”

Ruiz and Wegner may be disappointed, bleeding and sore — but they’re not defeated.

“Some day, there could be the spark that becomes the fire, and all of the sudden it gets into the right hands, and then the conversation starts and then it’s like oh, fuck,” Ruiz says. “We sold 10,000 units today and we did the next day, and then all of a sudden we’re a normal, successful game developer. That could happen at any time. But the fact that that is the nature of the universe is just torture. Because every day it doesn’t happen. And you know it’s not going to happen. … Once the consoles are done I’m going to be relieved to let that fall out of my brain. But as long as that’s in the future I can’t abandon it, I can’t abandon the idea that like, oh, it might turn around.”

51 percent of tech experts say fake news can’t be fixed

With content peddlers Facebook and Google still struggling to combat fake news, especially during crises like the Las Vegas shooting, the proliferation of such false content might seem like an unstoppable flow. If that’s your opinion, you’re in the (slight) majority. A Pew survey of over 1,100 “tech experts” and scholars found that 51 percent believed the fake news problem will continue to get worse in the next decade.

When asked to explain their reasoning, both groups centered their outlooks on the potential of technology to prevent (or fail to prevent) people from enacting their less-than-noble agendas. In practice, this has meant the string of Russian actors influencing the 2016 election and its aftermath, but their successful efforts have opened the door to other bad actors with nefarious motives.

Those who believe technology won’t stop their efforts had two major arguments: Human desire pleasing content will inevitably feed the fake news machines, and that technological advance will outpace our ability to comprehend and control it. The 49 percent who believe we’ll get a handle on fake news have serious faith in eventual tech fixes, along with our human capability to recognize a collective threat and collectively organize a solution. More extensive responses can be found on the survey’s page.

In the meantime, tech titans are still scrambling to produce fixes to stem the tide of fake news. Facebook continues to introduce possible solutions, like applying its algorithms to supply a fact-checking feedback loop, but fake news continues to slip through, as we saw yesterday with Google’s ads. And then, of course, there’s Twitter’s late policing.

Via: Recode

Source: Pew Research Center

Google considers ‘fixing’ the Pixel 2 XL’s display colors

While Google’s Pixel 2 XL has generally been well-received, there have been some complaints about its LG-made P-OLED screen. It’s supposed to reflect “natural” colors, but many see it as downright dull after years of seeing extra-punchy OLED displays from Samsung and other phone makers. What if you want that explosion of color? You might just get it. A Google spokesperson tells 9to5Google that it’s considering adding color options to the Pixel 2 XL beyond the “vivid colors” toggle you see today. It knows that some users want more saturation, and it’s open to software updates to add that “if that makes the product better.” Nothing is set in stone, then, but it’s promising.

The 2 XL has reignited a long-running debate in the mobile world: is it better to have color-accurate screen, or an exaggerated but potentially more pleasing screen? They both have merits. Bold colors will make photos and videos pop, but accuracy is better if you want to be sure that your snapshots reflect what you really saw. There’s a concern that some people are so used to punched-up colors that the 2 XL’s more accurate display seems lifeless — and without many options to tweak that display, prospective buyers either have to accept Google’s current approach or find another phone.

As it is, any options won’t completely address concerns about the P-OLED panel. It also produces a bluish tint when you look at the screen off-angle, and that’s clearly due to hardware alone. While it’s not going to wreck the experience (you do tend to look at a phone head-on while you’re using it), you don’t see this in many other OLED screens. Google and LG took a bit of a gamble on the larger Pixel’s visuals, and it’s not entirely clear that this bet paid off.

Source: 9to5Google