Cricket replaces 8GB and 12GB plans with two unlimited options

Two unlimited plans sounds nice, but there’s a small catch.

Prepaid service plans are great options for customers that want affordable monthly bills without all the bells and whistles from the likes of AT&T and Verizon, and one of your better options in this field is Cricket Wireless. Cricket made some nice changes to its service plans earlier this month, but a new one that’s just been spotted isn’t quite as joyful.

According to Droid Life, Cricket removed its 8GB and 12GB data plans on November 8 and effectively replaced them with its Unlimited 2 and Unlimited options. Having two unlimited plans versus two limited ones might sound like an upgrade, but that isn’t necessarily the case.

On one hand, you’re looking at a potential larger monthly cost. The 8GB and 12GB plans used to cost $50/month and $60/month, whereas Unlimited 2 and Unlimited will set you back $55/month and $60/month, respectively. Unlimited 2 and Unlimited come with mostly the same features, but Unlimited 2 will limit your download speeds to a sluggish 3Mbps. If you upgrade to Unlimited for $5 more per month, you’ll increase to Cricket’s regular 8Mbps.

Along with the two unlimited plans, you still have access to Cricket’s 2GB and 5GB data plans that recently got upgraded from 1GB and 4GB.

See at Cricket

Apple retakes the top spot in wearable device shipments

It looks like Xiaomi’s reign as the wearable device champion was short-lived. Canalys’ latest estimates indicate that Apple regained the lead in wearable shipments during the third quarter of the year, shipping 3.9 million smartwatches over the summer. That’s only slightly ahead of Xiaomi’s 3.6 million and Fitbit’s 3.5 million, but that’s no mean feat when the Apple Watch is typically far more expensive (Xiaomi’s Mi Band 2 cost $23 when new) and only works with one manufacturer’s smartphones. And it’s no surprise as to why Apple pulled out in front: new hardware.

Canalys’ researchers attribute the shifting ranks to the Apple Watch Series 3 launch. Demand was strong enough that there were shortages in “major” markets, including China. And apparently, Series 3’s cellular data support is a big draw — analysts reckon that Apple shipped about 800,000 LTE-capable watches in the quarter. For comparison, Samsung is believed to have sold roughly 500,000 Gear S3 watches (LTE or otherwise) in the same period.

This doesn’t mean the wearable space is suddenly red hot. While Apple, Xiaomi and Fitbit did well, Canalys believes the overall market shrank 2 percent to 17.3 million units. As it explains, demand for “basic bands” (that is, entry-level activity trackers) was on the decline. That’s likely to be even more true now that Apple is more likely to keep up with Series 3 demand, and Fitbit is getting into full-fledged smartwatches with the Ionic. It’s no longer enough in many cases to give people their step count and heart rate. They increasingly expect a full-fledged smartphone companion, and the market is changing accordingly.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Canalys

Amazon Australia could sell more than books come Black Friday

Amazon’s Australian marketplace is going live “really, really soon,” the company’s local CEO, Roco Braeuniger, announced at a recent event. Apparently, “really, really soon” could mean next week: According to CNET, the e-retail titan has told third-party sellers in a letter to get their goods ready, because it’s hoping to launch the Australian marketplace by Black Friday. Amazon has yet to confirm the launch date, but it makes sense that the company is aiming to start things with a bang.

Black Friday is one of the holiday shopping season’s biggest days, after all, and it’s also quickly followed by Cyber Monday. Peter Kearns of 180Commerce, which helps Amazon sellers grow their brands, told CNET that the company has been actively recruiting sellers from the US and Australia to populate its marketplace before Thanksgiving week.

Amazon itself announced during its Australian Summit that its warehouses in the country are ready to fulfill orders both for its own offerings and for third-party partners. It also said that it’s aiming for a two-day turnaround for purchases. As Lifehacker Australia noticed, although Amazon’s Oz website is still dominated by Kindle books, it’s been getting more and more product listings — try searching for “power boards,” for instance. Australians will just have to get their credit cards ready in case the marketplace really does go online in time to offer awesome Black Friday deals.

Source: CNET, Lifehacker Australia

Razer’s latest gaming keyboard can survive spilled drinks

Razer’s keyboards have been many things, but tough generally wasn’t one of them — knock your drink the wrong way and that elaborate input device was toast. That won’t be as much of a problem in the future, as Razer has unveiled a new version of its signature BlackWidow Ultimate with IP54 water and dust resistance. While the rating doesn’t mean you can dunk the keyboard in the pool (you’d want IP67 or better for that), it’s good enough that your gaming session won’t be ruined by a splash or two.

Beyond that, it’s a familiar formula: you’re getting Razer’s mechanical switches (the Green Switch, to be exact) with 10-key anti-ghosting and full programming support. You’re limited to green lighting, but you can still create lighting effects like ripples and waves. The new Blackwidow is available online right now for $110 (€120) and should spread to stores worldwide before the year is over.

This isn’t a novel idea, to be clear. Corsair and others have had water-resistant gaming keyboards. Razer is arguably the most recognizable brand of the bunch, though, and the inclusion of water resistance in its flagship keyboard is bound to make the feature more commonplace. Don’t be surprised if splashproof design eventually becomes a must-have for keyboards like this.

Source: Razer

I wore a (virtual) flamingo head while smelling of the wetlands

At 9am, I was invited to inhale a fragrant cocktail of earthworm, soil, sea and, ugh, sulphur. This first part of Dance with flARmingos sets the stage, coaxing participants to imagine themselves in the wetlands that the iconic flamingo calls home. Iconic yes, but as artist Kristin Lucas noted, plastic flamingos (and other representations) “far outnumber the actual bird”.

The birds’ habitats have struggled to survive against ecotourism, overpopulation and climate change, affecting the numbers of birds in the wild even further. Dance with flARmingos uses a barrage of techniques beyond olfactory assault to both endear you to these birds and make you think about the threats to their home.

Once the wetlands cologne had faded a little, I was guided to an iPad running an augmented reality interface. Positioned on a window sill, I aimed the iPad through the window to reveal not only a handful of human-sized CGI flamingoes, but also two human participants, strapped into a Hololens headset, and transformed into an oversized flamingo head. The effect is like peering into a zoo, with two fake “flamingoes” getting in the way. The invisible zoo gets a little busier when more birds, with a tagged leg, join the fray.

Each of these tagged birds represents one of over 20 flamingoes that Lucas has actually adopted in the wild, and tapping on them throws up a mini-map on the iPad, showing its migration patterns across different parts of the world. It’s a smart way of grounding these, c’mon, silly-looking birds back to the real world.

The birds are intentionally simplified and boxy: The animation is a little bit scrappy, making the rendered creatures look a lot like puppets. Occasionally, they interact as a flock. They walk around each other in similar patterns, and once the mating rituals begin, the excessive dance moves are almost in sync — we’ve all seen wildlife documentaries where crowds of animals are doing pretty much the same thing, at the same time.

The third and final part of the experience puts you into that invisible zoo, with a mixed reality experience that allows you to participate in the mating ritual dance — if you’re low on inhibitions, anyway. While Hololens’ mixed reality experience might be the future beyond heavy VR headsets, the fact you can see other viewers and participants (instead of a virtual world that blocks out the real one) left me very aware of the iPad-equipped “zoo” visitors.

When you strip away the experiential and high-tech interactivity, Dance with flARmingos delivers a message of precarious wonder. Flamingos-made-of-boxes made me smile, but the animal itself is more than some kitsch symbol. The team behind flARmingos tells show attendees that it has sponsor forms for anyone interested in adopting (and helping to protect) this species — technical showcases like this help connect animals in need of financial support with those that can.

Typically, when you sponsor an animal, you might get a photo and an ID tag to monitor its movements, but you’re unlikely to ever meet your feathered beneficiary. Dance with flARmingos, then offers a charming, symbolic space to connect.

Dance with flARmingos was made possible through funding from the Engadget Alternate Realities grant program, established in May 2017. It debuted, along with four other prize-winning immersive-media projects, at the Engadget Experience on November 14th, 2017.

‘Your Hands Are Feet’ describes feelings where words can’t

The interactive experience Your Hands Are Feet is a smorgasbord of feelings. Take the titular example. Creators Amelia Winger-Bearskin and Sarah Rothberg wanted to pinpoint the feeling of shoes not fitting quite right. Ill-fitting footwear is not a catastrophe, but a mild annoyance that bugs you throughout the day. You can still get things done, but not as easily. It’s as if, in their mind, their hands were feet.

If it does not make sense in words, that’s okay. The point of their demo — whose first playable version debuted at the Engadget Experience today — is that virtual reality can convey this feeling in a way that other mediums, like text, can’t.

Earlier in its development, Winger-Bearskin and Rothberg explained how they wanted to find fresh ways to describe nuanced emotions. In Your Hands Are Feet, you select a virtual egg and lob it into a portal to kick off a vignette conveying one such feeling. It’s not immediately apparent what you’re supposed to do, and that surprise is part of the enjoyment.

One scenario places you in a surrealist kitchen — equipped with a sink, cooker and cactus — with feet on the ends of your limbs (you can still pick up a phone on the counter). Another surrounds you with hundreds of eyeballs staring at you, meant to evoke the sensation of seeing yourself through someone else’s eyes. Or, you might end up in a window cleaning cart with a giant pink razor, dispatched to shave a giant’s leg. Lopping off its jet black cylindrical bristles while in an oversized bathtub in the desert is satisfying, but you can never get a clean shave within the time limit. It’s a psychedelic spin on a Sisyphean task that can never be completed.

Other interactive metaphors include the feeling of being at “the corner of three corners” (imagining your past and future self) or that “everything has vibes” (touch the environment and your controllers will vibrate).

In essence, Your Hands Are Feet is about the subjective ways we see the world. It feels like a disorienting trip into someone else’s psychological structures; the weird ways we conceptualize our experiences in our heads. Each experience evokes different emotions: The infinite stretch of eyes are creepy, the giant shaving is both futile and amusing.

While many VR experiences try to place participants in another person’s external world, this project places you deeper inside someone else’s mind. The alternate reality the project presents is an internal one. Winger-Bearskin and Rothberg hope they can offer new frameworks through which people can see the world.

“We’re showing people these new ways of viewing the world and those ways will come up for them,” said Rothberg, who teaches VR at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. “Whenever I shave my legs now it’s like ‘oh yeah it’s like there’s a tiny person.’”

They’ve made both an experience and a statement about what VR can do: describe the world in a language that’s unique to the medium.

Winger-Bearskin, the director of nonprofit Idea New Rochelle, founder of the Stupid Hackathon and former opera singer, describes VR as “a place where you can prototype the human experience through a computational environment.” Her hope is that it can “maybe create some new ways that we can frame and communicate the way we think and feel to each other.”

It’s commonplace now to hear of virtual reality as an “empathy machine” and the idea of creating human connection, seeing the world like another person does, is part of Your Hands Are Feet, too. The difference is that connection comes not from sharing an external environment, but understanding your own mind better. The next step is to connect with someone who sees their life events through the same metaphorical construct.

“I feel like that is the way that I can step closer to empathy: if I can say ‘we have common experiences,’” said Winger-Bearskin. The creators of Your Hands Are Feet want to give people the tools to convey a complex emotional state to someone else. By understanding themselves better — even via the most obscure, Spongebob-meets-Psychonauts universe — they can hopefully understand each other better, too.

Your Hands Are Feet was made possible through funding from the Engadget Alternate Realities grant program, established in May 2017. It debuted, along with four other prize-winning immersive-media projects, at the Engadget Experience on November 14th, 2017.

‘Untrained Eyes’ puts an AI spin on looking at yourself in the mirror

What if you stood in front of a mirror and saw someone who barely looked like you? That’s exactly what happens in Untrained Eyes, an interactive sculpture debuting today at the Engadget Experience, a one-day event that showcases exhibitions which mix art with technology. Untrained Eyes, created by conceptual artist Glenn Kaino and actor Jesse Williams (Grey’s Anatomy), doesn’t require a headset to be experienced. Instead, the project uses your face, a mirror, a Kinect and machine learning to show you pictures of people who you may look like — or not.

Sometimes you won’t get a person who resembles you in any way, but that’s the entire point of Untrained Eyes. When Kaino and Williams set out to make this project, it was always with the intention to shed light on the inherent flaws of artificial intelligence algorithms, particularly those utilized in image search databases. The experience itself works effortlessly. You walk up to the installation, wave at the mirror and then, within a few seconds, you’ll be presented an image of your alleged doppelgänger. The images displayed are pulled from a curated dataset that will “match” your appearance, based on your facial attributes.

In its current iteration, Untrained Eyes features five mirrors, which wasn’t the original idea. Kaino said that, toward the end of the development process, he realized that the installation would be better with more than a single mirror. That way people could see each other’s reactions to their image results. And you can definitely see the difference when someone who tries it gets a picture of Brad Pitt, as opposed to another human being who’s, well, less attractive. People will keep going back in front of the mirror, waving their hand, and waiting until they get an image of someone who they’re satisfied with.

An Engadget editor gets an unlikely match.

Regardless of the results, Kaino wants Untrained Eyes to make everyone think about the bias of image searches on the internet, be it on Google or other platforms like it. For example, he pointed to the fact that when you search Google for “men,” most of the results you get served are pictures of white men. Then, there was the time in 2015, when Google Photos mistakenly labeled black people as “gorillas.” These are just two instances where machine-learning has failed. “If there’s anyone that could have an infinite dataset of everyone in the world, it would be Google, “Kaino said, “and even then they have massive failures.”

Ultimately, those failures served as inspiration for Kaino and Williams to create Untrained Eyes. The reward has been the effect it has on people’s insecurities when they see “themselves” in the mirror. “The paradox is, once you see yourself. Even when we people get matches that are close to them, they immediately start distancing themselves [from the mirror],” Kaino said. “They might be happy with it but they’re like, ‘Oh, but my hair is a little bit better than that person,’ or ‘Those aren’t my eyes, but it’s good enough. There’s an immediate distancing that happens despite any of the gratification.”

I, for one, know I felt much better when I saw Johnny Depp in my Untrained Eyes mirror and not Salt Bae.

Untrained Eyes was made possible through funding from the Engadget Alternate Realities grant program, established in May 2017. It debuted, along with four other prize-winning immersive-media projects, at the Engadget Experience on November 14th, 2017.

Volvo’s parent company now owns a flying car startup

Those reports from the summer that Volvo’s parent company had snapped up flying car startup Terrafugia? They were true. Geely has officially completed its acquisition of Terrafugia, turning it into a fully-owned subsidiary of the Chinese automotive giant. Terrafugia will remain based in the US and will continue working on flying cars, but it will have Geely’s deep pockets and automotive experience to back it up. It’s also taking on a new board of directors that includes a mix of veteran Terrafugia backers, Geely execs and Bell Helicopter’s managing director for China.

Terrafugia is quick to address concerns that this could hurt the US economy, however slightly. It received the green light from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, and says it “tripled” its engineer count to nearly 100 in anticipation of Geely’s cash. Terrafugia might not be US-owned, but it’ll contribute to the workforce.

The real question is whether or not this will give Terrafugia the spark it needs. The company promises to have its first flying car on the market in 2019, and its electric TF-X vehicle (above) should be ready by 2023. However, the company’s efforts have been stuck in a seeming limbo: we’ve been talking about its Transition aircraft for years. Geely’s funding and know-how could finally turn those promises into a reality, but it’s far from guaranteed. Also, there’s the not-so-small matter of establishing a market for flying cars. Right now, they’re largely sci-fi fantasies that few people can justify, let alone afford. You may be more likely to see taxi drones than piloted hybrid vehicles.

Via: Electrek

Source: Terrafugia

U.S. ITC Investigating Claims Apple Infringed on Patents Owned by Aqua Connect

The United States International Trade Commission today announced that it has launched an investigation into allegations that Apple infringed on patents owned by Aqua Connect.

Back in October, Aqua Connect and its subsidiary Strategic Technology partners filed complaints against Apple with the United States International Trade Commission and the District Court for the Central District of California accusing Macs, iOS devices, and Apple TVs of infringing on two of its patents.

The two patents in question include U.S. Patent RE46,386, “Updating a User Session in a Mach-derived Computer System Environment” and U.S. Patent 8,924,502, “System, Method and Computer Program Product for Updating a User Session in a Mach-derived System Environment.”

According to Aqua Connect, both of the patents relate to screen sharing, remote desktop, and terminal server technology. Aqua Connect says that it built the first remote desktop solution for the Mac in 2008, which Apple later built into its iOS and macOS products in the form of AirPlay and other functionality without permission.

“Aqua Connect invented and built the first fully functional remote desktop and terminal server solution for Mac in 2008,” said Ronnie Exley, CEO of Aqua Connect. “Initially, our product had Apple’s full support. But years later, Apple built our technology into its macOS and iOS operating systems without our permission. These lawsuits seek to stop Apple from continuing to use our technology in their macOS and iOS operating systems.”

Aqua Connect’s complaint with the International Trade Commission asks for an exclusion order and a cease and desist order that would bar Apple from importing its products into the United States. The ITC says it will be investigating “certain Apple Mac computers, iPhones, iPads, iPods, and Apple TVs.”

The investigation is based on a complaint filed by Aqua Connect, Inc., and Strategic Technology Partners, LLC, of Orange, CA, on October 10, 2017. The complaint alleges violations of section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 in the importation into the United States and sale of certain personal computers, mobile devices, digital media players, and microconsoles that infringe patents asserted by the complainants. The complainants request that the USITC issue a temporary exclusion order and a temporary cease and desist order based on a motion for temporary relief, and that the USITC ultimately issue a limited exclusion order and a cease and desist order.

Aqua Connect’s patent infringement lawsuit separately accuses Apple of willful infringement and seeks damages.

Tags: ITC, Patent lawsuits
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The Game Awards nominees include ‘PUBG,’ ‘Zelda’ and ‘Persona 5’

The Game Awards, the industry’s equivalent to the Oscars or Tony’s, seeks to commemorate the year’s best titles — and boy, what a year 2017 has been. By our April roundup, we’d already seen many of the titles on this year’s ballot. This year’s awards show, the fourth annual, will be livestreamed on December 7th.

Game of the Year nominees feature obvious contenders Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Horizon Zero Dawn, Super Mario Odyssey and Persona 5 — along with PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Those first three are among a quartet of heavily-lauded games (along with Destiny 2) that scored six category nominations each. By publisher, Nintendo has snagged the most nods with 23 nominations, then Sony Interactive with 15 and Activision coming third with 7. Check out the full list of nominated games here.

While select juries handle the big categories, The Game Awards reserves some for fan votes, including Best Esports Player, Best Esports Team, and Most Anticipated Game. You can cast your ballot for those on the awards’ site or through Google, Twitter or Facebook Messenger.

The Game Awards added two new category this year. The first, The Student Game Award, highlights creations by high school and college-level developers. Its inaugural star-studded jury is made of EA Motive’s Kim Swift (Portal), Bethesda’s Todd Howard, Respawn’s Vince Zampella (Titanfall), Supercell’s Ilkka Paananen (Clash of Clans) and…Hideo Kojima. (Naturally.) The other new category is Best Ongoing Game, which essentially recognizes gaming’s turn to embrace evolving games-as-a-service. Its nominees are a mix of new and old, from Destiny 2 and PUBG to Overwatch to the two four-year-old games GTA Online and Warframe.

The awards will be at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on December 7th, which will feature the debut performance of The Games Award Orchestra. Those tuning in from home can watch on a variety of free streams (listed here) starting at 8:30 ET / 5:30 PT.