Original Content for Daydream

Sometimes “Original” doesn’t mean Good.

Google has been partnering with assorted production and sporting companies to produce VR content for its Daydream Viewer. I think the idea is to show what can be done to improve on normal TV formulas and how companies can enhance peoples viewing with VR. Some of their attempts fall wildly short of “enhancing”. Let’s take a look at some of the examples.

Note: I will be critiquing this content by its use of VR first and foremost. The actual content is secondary to how the content uses VR to enhance the experience. If it wasn’t then all the sportsball stuff would instantly be the worst, I don’t like sport so will concentrate on the VR instead.

Read more at VRHeads

Saudi Arabia arrests one of tech’s biggest investors

Saudi Arabia is in the midst of a crackdown on alleged corruption, and its dragnet has caught one of the tech world’s most important investors: the country has arrested Prince al-Waleed bin Talal over money laundering charges. He has major stakes in satellite TV providers and in recent years has been one of the largest individual investors in a number of well-known tech giants, including Apple and Lyft. The royal is particularly important to Twitter’s fate. He poured $300 million into the social network in 2011, and his stake is second only to that of Twitter co-founder Ev Williams — even CEO Jack Dorsey has a smaller financial commitment.

Whether or not the charges are valid isn’t clear. They’re coming mere hours after Saudi Arabia formed an anti-corruption agency led by crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who hasn’t made a secret of wanting to consolidate power before his aging father King Salman leaves the throne. Prince al-Waleed’s father had opposed Prince Mohammed’s rise to power. Corruption has been an issue, however, and Saudi Arabia wants to eliminate as much of it as possible as it institutes economic reforms meant to reduce its dependence on oil by 2030. It’s been making huge investments in tech, including Uber’s ridesharing and Virgin’s space tourism.

Either way, the arrest could have a significant effect on tech investments. Prince al-Waleed’s existing stakes won’t necessarily dry up, but it’s safe to say he won’t be investing more if he’s convicted. And that, in turn, dries up a significant source of funding for the tech industry. Promising startups and cash-strapped incumbents will have a harder time raising the cash they need to stay afloat.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Wall Street Journal

Qualcomm may face takeover bid from chip rival Broadcom

Qualcomm is already facing headaches between antitrust cases and its patent spat with Apple, but there’s one more that might join the pile. The Financial Times reports that Broadcom, one of Qualcomm’s main rivals in the wireless chipset space, is planning an unsolicited $100 billion takeover bid. The move would easily eclipse Qualcomm’s previous record-setting bid to buy NXP (which has yet to be cleared), and Broadcom is supposedly willing to buy NXP in the process. A formal announcement could be made public before the weekend is out, if the scoop is accurate.

Qualcomm hadn’t commented on the report, but an FT companion piece cited insiders who claimed that the company would “prefer” to remain independent. This could be a hostile takeover attempt, to put it another way.

Broadcom also hasn’t confirmed anything. However, there are hints that it could entertain a takeover. The company recently announced intentions to “redomicile” as a US-based company instead of Singapore. Many thought that was an attempt to grease the wheels for the much smaller acquisition of Brocade (by sidestepping fears about foreign takeovers), but it’d make more sense if Broadcom was using its legal relocation as a launching pad for larger moves.

There wouldn’t be any mystery behind an acquisition, at any rate. Broadcom is well-known for its many mobile chips (you’ll find some in the iPhone X, for example) and its telecom infrastructure, but it doesn’t have much in the way of LTE and 5G chips. That’s a big problem in a world where smartphones dominate and many future Internet of Things devices will have always-on cellular connections. If Broadcom snaps up Qualcomm, it’ll be ready for whatever comes next — and would virtually dominate the mobile chip space.

Source: Financial Times (1), (2)

Apple Watches were crashing when asked about the weather

We hope you didn’t ask your shiny new Apple Watch about the weather on November 4th — you probably got a rude response. Many Series 3 owners reported that their wristwear crashed (specifically, the “springboard” interface restarted) if they asked Siri how the weather was that day. It wouldn’t crash if they asked about weather in subsequent days, but the odd hiccup affected users across North America and Europe. We’ve asked Apple for comment. With that said, there’s already a potential culprit… and it’s a familiar one for iPhone users.

Reddit user rgsteele has theorized that the crashing was related to the end of Daylight Saving Time. If you asked about the time either after DST was over or in areas that don’t observe it (such as the Canadian province of Saskatchewan), you were safe. And sure enough, the issue appears to be over: we’ve checked both before and afterward, and it’s now safe to ask Siri if it’s raining. The Apple Watch didn’t have this issue in previous years, but it’s notable that iOS devices had long-running alarm and calendar bugs related to DST shifts.

There’s no guarantee that the time change is the cause, and it’s not certain how much of the fault would rest in Siri’s servers versus the watch software. However, it’s a safe bet that Apple will want to prevent this from happening again — you don’t want a common voice command bringing everything to a standstill one day out of every year.

Via: MacRumors

Source: Reddit

New Rumors of Overwatch on Mac Surface, but Blizzard Engineer Says Still ‘No Plans’ for Launch

New rumors surfaced this weekend suggesting Blizzard’s first-person shooter Overwatch could be launching soon on Mac. A Reddit user on r/macgaming (via MacGamerHQ) managed to download an unlisted installer for Overwatch on Mac — titled “Overwatch-Setup.zip” — by apparently altering the download link for the PC version of the game available on the official Battle.net website.

The installer is properly signed by Blizzard and launches Battle.net — an app that centralizes all of the player’s Blizzard games into one place — with Overwatch appearing in the “Games” tab. Redditor Heyoni shared a few images of Overwatch appearing in Battle.net on their Mac, but as of now the game is not able to launch and delivers an error message when “Play” is clicked.

Image via Heyoni on Reddit
The Reddit thread discussing the news theorized the potential for this being a bug, or that it could be a hint for an upcoming announcement related to Overwatch’s debut on Mac. Blizzard just wrapped up its annual BlizzCon event, in which it unveiled a new support class for Overwatch named Moira, a new map called Blizzard World, and a new character cinematic focusing on Reinhardt. During the event, no news was given regarding Overwatch expanding to Macs.

Unfortunately, a comment made by an Overwatch engineer in a new interview suggests Blizzard is still not planning on launching the game for Mac anytime soon. Tim Ford, the lead software engineer for gameplay systems on Overwatch, told Gadgets 360 that Blizzard has “no plans” of launching Overwatch on Mac. Ford said this is due to “several technology decisions” Apple has made on Macs, which make it “a little difficult” for Blizzard to create a Mac version of the game.

With Overwatch being available on the PS4, Xbox One, and Windows PC, it’s one of the rare Blizzard games that’s not on the Mac. It’s odd considering that every other Blizzard title has graced Apple’s line of computers. Ford explained why Overwatch will not be making it to the Mac.

“We have no plans of giving this game on the Mac,” says Ford. “There are several technology decisions that Apple has made that has made it a little difficult for us to release Overwatch in the way we want it to be consumed, and that is why we haven’t pursued it.”

Before Overwatch launched in May 2016, Blizzard said a Mac version was not a priority because it was “just too challenging” at that point to support Apple’s platform, due to the “technology behind Macs.” Then, in May 2017, Blizzard vice president Jeff Kaplan said the company is keeping an “open mind” about bringing Overwatch to Mac gamers, it just needs the “priorities of our development process to line up with the capabilities of the platform.”

As news of the Mac installer spread online, Polygon reached out to a Blizzard representative, who stated that the Overwatch development team has “nothing to announce at this time” regarding a Mac launch for the game. For now, Overwatch is available to play on Windows PCs, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Tags: Blizzard, Overwatch
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