Jack White is the latest musician to ban phones at shows

We hope you weren’t planning to document your next Jack White gig as it happens. White is following the lead of Alicia Keys, Dave Chappelle and other performers by banning the use of phones during his next US tour, which starts in April. When you get to the venue, you’ll have to put your phone and other camera-equipped devices in a Yondr pouch that stays locked until the end of the show. You can unlock your phone if there’s a call you need to make, but you’ll have to go to a designated zone in the concourse or lobby first.

If you do want photos to share, you’re asked to repost them from either Jack White’s website or his live show’s Instagram account.

Like many artists, White is making the move because he’s tired of audience members who spend their entire time recording the show or talking about it with friends. This should create a “100% human experience,” his team said. He has previously stated that he lets the fans tell him what to do, and that’s difficult when they’re too busy live-tweeting each song.

Policies like this remain polarizing. There’s no question that some concert goers miss the point of a show by recording it all. At the same time, an outright ban prevents you from capturing any personal memories from the actual performance. Sorry, Jack, but sharing a generic set of photos and videos isn’t the same as showing what it was like from your point of view. Also, this risks erasing moments in music history, like a one-off cover song or a rare slip-up. As good as it is for fellow fans to actually enjoy the music, there is something lost by locking phones away and producing a single, sanitized version of what happened.

Via: Pitchfork

Source: NME, Yondr

Sky’s £15 Now TV streaming stick comes with a voice remote

Sky’s Now TV hardware hasn’t had a refresh in over a year now, the most recent box being a curious clash of aerial and ethernet. The new Now TV box being announced today isn’t a box at all, however. Sky call it the Now TV Smart Stick, and as always, we’re looking at a rebranded Roku device that serves as a vehicle for Now TV’s subscription-free sports, entertainment, movies and children’s TV packages. This isn’t the 4K streaming stick Roku launched for £80 last October, but a custom-built model similar to one only available in the US. If you’re familiar with Now TV hardware or even just the apps, then you pretty much know what you’re dealing with already. The Smart Stick does have a few tricks up its sleeve, though.

Launching at the end of February for just £15, the Smart Stick is the first Now TV box with voice search and control. Utter the name of an actor, director, genre or specific show into the WiFi remote and you’ll be presented with relevant results from Sky’s catalogue; or tell it to open BBC iPlayer to jump directly into that app. The remote can also control your TV, so no need to go hunting just to change the volume or switch off for the night. The card-like UI of Now TV is starting to look flat and dated compared to other streaming services, but at least you can get around it swiftly with a new set of shortcut buttons (on the US Roku stick, these quicklaunch Netflix and other services).

There’s a button to head straight to the MyTV section and get at your saved watchlist, and one that sends you to the live TV EPG. This has been tweaked so you no longer have to select a pass to see the associated live channels — anything you have access to now populates a single list. There’s another button for Sky’s rental and purchase store, and one that’s just for kids, taking you to a more colourful, simpler homescreen hosting all their favourite shows.

You can also pause live TV for up to 30 minutes on the Smart Stick. This is available on the Smart Box, but it’s a first for Now TV’s streaming-only devices. A new “hotel connect” feature also means you can take your stick with you and easily connect it to private networks with complicated log-on processes. The software the new Smart Stick launches with may also come to older boxes in the future, I’m told.

You can buy the stick on its own for £15, but if you know you’re going to tuck in to Now TV immediately, there are bundles that offer discounts on the monthly content ‘passes.’ A total of £20 will get you a stick and either one month of movies, a two-month entertainment pass or three months of kids’ TV. If you want a month of sports thrown in instead, there’s a £30 bundle for that.

As it always has done, Now TV streams at a maximum resolution of 720p. The Smart Stick itself is capable of outputting at full HD, and you’ll get that from other apps like ITV Hub and All 4. Sky is finally upping the quality of Now TV to 1080p later this year, though it won’t come as standard. Another future feature that might help you decide whether you wanna buy into Now TV has nothing to do with hardware, but the Now TV app. Starting this spring, from May onwards, you’ll be able to download shows and movies in the Now TV mobile app to watch offline. Children’s TV shows will be downloadable first, but movies and all other TV will be just as amenable by the end of summer.

NASA tests light, foldable plane wings for supersonic flights

Planes that can fold their wings to different angles while in the air have the potential to fly faster than their peers, and NASA has recently made headway into their development. The space agency has conducted a series of test flights proving that it can control the wings it designed to move into any position and that they have aerodynamic benefits. While the technology has existed for a long time, it typically requires the use of heavy hydraulic systems. NASA’s version doesn’t need that kind of machinery: it relies on the properties of a temperature-activated material called shape memory alloy instead. Upon being heated, the alloy activates a twisting motion in the tubes serving as the wings’ actuator, moving the wings’ outer portion up to 70 degrees upwards or downwards.

The foldable wings will give typical planes like commercial airliners a way to adapt to different flight conditions. They can give pilots more control over their aircraft and could even lead to more fuel efficient flights. Planes designed to fly at supersonic speeds (faster than the speed of sound), however, will get more out of this technology.

As Matt Moholt, the principal director of the Spanwise Adaptive Wing project, said:

“There’s a lot of benefit in folding the wing tips downward to sort of ‘ride the wave’ in supersonic flight, including reduced drag. This may result in more efficient supersonic flight. Through this effort, we may be able to enable this element to the next generation of supersonic flight, to not only reduce drag but also increase performance, as you transition from subsonic to supersonic speeds. This is made possible using shape memory alloy.”

The team now plans to continue developing the technology until the foldable wings can move both up and down during a single flight. At the moment, they can only fold in a single direction in the air, and team members have to rearrange the hardware every time they want to test if the wings can move in the opposite direction. They’ll be busy making that happen within the year, since they’re aiming to conduct the next batch of test flights by summer of 2018.

Source: NASA

Loco is a blatant HQ Trivia ripoff from India

Loco is a game show app that’s ‘inspired’ by HQ Trivia.

HQ Trivia has rocketed up the charts in recent months, with the live trivia game counting hundreds of thousands of players every day. The game’s main draw comes from the fact that you can win real money, provided you answer all the questions correctly.

It looks like someone from India noticed just how popular HQ Trivia is, because there’s now an app called Loco aimed at the Indian market that does the exact same thing.

If you’re not familiar with HQ Trivia, here’s a primer on how it works. The game is reminiscent of Jeopardy!-style shows, but instead of passively watching the program on your TV, you can play from your phone. The host doles out 12 multiple choice questions in real time; get them all right and you’ll be able to split the daily pool prize of $2,000 with the rest of the winners. HQ usually has a larger pool on weekends and holidays — last weekend saw a $15,000 prize for 15 questions — but the format itself is the same.

As for Loco, the app is essentially a clone of HQ Trivia. Everything from the sign-up process (you’ll have to register with your phone number) to the format of the show and even the quirkiness of the host is a blatant copy of HQ Trivia. The UI elements also are near-identical, with minor changes in the color scheme. Heck, the host also does shout-outs before a game begins.

Loco also lets you win real cash, with the money directly debited to your Paytm account. The game has 10 questions, and the prize pool of ₹10,000 ($150) is split evenly amongst the winners. And yes, you can invite your friends to Loco to get extra lives.

The only element of HQ Trivia that Loco hasn’t thoroughly ripped off is the chat feature, but I’m sure it’ll be introduced once they figure out how to do it. Of course, there is one aspect of Loco that will appeal to Indian users: as it is produced locally, you get a lot of cricket and Bollywood-themed questions.

If you’re wondering, you can play HQ Trivia if you’re located in India. All you need to do is sign up with your phone number and tune in when the game goes live. Sure, the timings aren’t ideal — HQ Trivia is live at 1:30 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. IST — but if you can work around that, it’s an altogether better experience. And while you may not get many Bollywood questions, you do stand to win a larger prize.

Nintendo will pull the plug on ‘Miitomo’ in May

Before Super Mario Run and Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, there was Miitomo. A sort of social network in disguise, it was Nintendo’s first push into mobile gaming on iOS and Android, but now the company has announced it will shut down May 9th. It rocketed to the top of app stores upon release in 2016 and gained more than 10 million users, but just as quickly fell off since it lacked basic features that would keep players coming back. Eventually, things like chat and increased customization arrived, but it was too little too late.

A note on the website informs users that the sale of premium coins has ended, however, it will offer daily login bonuses from now until it shuts down as part of a “Final Thank You Festival.” Once the lights go out at 3 AM ET on May 9th, users won’t be able to see or use any of its features.

They’ll need to save Miifotos locally to their device before the shutdown, and backup any Sidekick Mii characters they’d like to save as a QR code usable on 3DS or Wii U. To save your Mii, you’ll need to link a Nintendo Account, but all you’ll get is its look — the personality will not carry over. At least we still have Pokémon Go.

Source: Miitomo.com

Hulu locks out users with login problems two nights in a row

On Tuesday night many Hulu users were unable to stream video or live TV because they couldn’t log in, which was bad enough. Unfortunately, Hulu suffered another outage tonight, going down again for a few hours during prime time ET viewing. Within the last hour, its support Twitter account reported that a “fix is in place” to address the login problem, but it may come a little late for users heading to bed. We’ve contacted the service to find out what’s happening and will update this post if there’s more information.

UPDATE: Our developers have made us aware that a fix has been put in place to address the login issue we reported. We encourage users to attempt login once again. Please know that the work will continue to prevent this from happening in the future.

— Hulu Support (@hulu_support) January 25, 2018

Source: Hulu Support (Twitter)

Here’s how to make a watermark to help protect your photos

Love them or hate them, applying watermarks to your photographs is one of the best methods to prevent people from sharing your photographs online without due credit. A watermark may not be the ideal solution, and some people — including us — might argue they’re not beneficial as a whole, but personal preferences aside, they are here to stay.

As such, we’re here to show you how to make a watermark and apply it to your images. Below are a few of the different methods, ranging from simple to sophisticated, to make sure your photos are at least somewhat protected from taking on a life of their own without people knowing they’re yours.

The fast and easy way

The easiest way to add some form of copyright to your image is to use the text tool in any photo-editing program (heck, even Microsoft Paint will do the job) and tag your name on it. You can do it discreetly by writing it in a corner, in small font size, or you can plaster it over the entire photo. Draw a box around it, color it, use a funky font — it’s entirely up to you. This method might not be attractive, but it’s the fastest and easiest way to add a watermark. If you’re sending out a set of proofs for a client to select which images they want printed, something like this might be sufficient. For a cleaner approach, read on.

You can overlay some text over an image to create a watermark using Microsoft Paint, but it won’t be pretty.

Using online tools

Another easy way to watermark a photo is to use an online tool like PicMarkr. Upload up to five photos, or pull them from Flickr or Facebook, then pick from three watermarking options (text, image, or tiled). Whereas a text watermark is similar to the one previously outlined, an image watermark places another image (such as a logo) on top of the original (you need to resize it beforehand). The issue with using PicMarkr to create an image watermark is that it doesn’t let you choose the opacity of the secondary image, so you can’t blend with the original photo. The third option, a tiled watermark, simply layers a text or image all over the picture.

As for online watermarking tools, Watermark.ws offers a lot of options and flexibility.

This method is fast and easy, but it’s not necessarily pretty. Another online watermarking tool, PicMark (yes, it’s a very similar name), takes a cleaner approach by creating a frame around an image. Sadly, while leaving your photo untouched looks nice, someone can still easily cut your image out of the frame. And, you can’t choose the size of the watermarked image.

Watermark.ws, on the other hand, offers more flexibility in that it lets you drag a text or image watermark anywhere on the photo. The software also lets you adjust the font, color, and image opacity, letting you make it as obvious or as unobtrusive as you like. Of the three mentioned, Watermark.ws can give you the most professional-looking results.

Watermarkphotos.net is yet another option for watermarking your photos from within your browser. What sets this site apart is that all of the work is done locally, meaning none of your content is transferred to their servers to be watermarked, which adds an extra layer of privacy.

Going with desktop software

There is watermarking software you can download, which essentially does the same things as the aforementioned online tools. However, because you don’t need an internet connection, you will find the process faster and you keep your photos on your local drive. There is plenty of software, both free and paid, that does the same thing, although each comes with a different set of extras. Check out Alamoon Watermark, which also lets you crop and resize a photo, tweak the image quality, and use a variety of image formats. Alternatives include TSR Watermark and uMark, the latter of which is a premium app that lets you apply graphics and perform batch watermarking. Thankfully, uMark also has a free version with limited functionality.

uMark is a useful downloadable watermark creation software, but you’ll have to pay for extra features (image via uMark).

Before you download new software, however, you may already have something installed on your computer that can create watermarks. IrfanView, a popular image viewer for Windows, has a built-in watermarking feature. Photoshop Elements offers an easy way to create watermarks, too. Regardless, quickly check the image-editing software you are currently using to see if a watermarking feature is available.

Glucose-tracking smart contact lens is comfortable enough to wear

The concept of a smart contact lens has been around for a while. To date, though, they haven’t been all that comfortable: they tend to have electronics built into hard substrates that make for a lens which can distort your vision, break down and otherwise cause discomfort. A team of Korean scientists might just come to the rescue. They’ve developed a smart lens that could help diabetics track blood glucose levels while remaining stretchable enough to be comfortable and transparent enough to preserve vision.

The lens achieves its flexibility thanks to a design that puts its electronics into isolated pockets linked by stretchable conductors. there’s also an elastic material in between that spreads the strain to prevent the electronics from breaking when you pinch the lens. And when the refractive indicies all line up, you should get a lens that’s as transparent as possible and largely stays out of your way.

The sensor in question is straightforward: an LED light stays on as long as glucose levels are normal, and shuts off when something’s wrong. Power comes through a metal nanofiber antenna that draws from a nearby power source coil. That’s about the only major drawback — the low conductivity of the antenna means that you can’t just tuck the coil wherever it’s convenient.

This isn’t a purely theoretical exercise, as co-author Jang-Ung Park explained to IEEE Spectrum that he expects a commercial version of the contact lens in 5 years. And the technology isn’t just reserved for glucose monitoring, either. The soft electronics could also be used to deliver medicine, saving you the trouble of taking pills.

Via: IEEE Spectrum

Source: Science Advances

Darren Aronofsky-backed VR series ‘Spheres’ lands a 7-figure deal

If you want evidence that VR is maturing as an entertainment medium, you just got it. CityLights just bought the rights to Spheres, the three-part VR black hole series written by Eliza McNitt and produced by Darren Aronofsky’s Protozoa Pictures, for a “seven-figure” amount at the Sundance Film Festival. That might not sound like much by Hollywood standards, but it’s the first-ever seven-figure VR purchase at the event. It was slated to reach the Oculus Rift in 2018 (Oculus and Intel backed the project) and should get wider distribution as a result.

The project’s pedigree helps, and not just because Aronofsky’s outfit is involved. While McNitt is best-known for producing conventional shorts and documentaries, she’ll have Jessica Chastain as narrator and Stranger Things artists Survive providing the series’ all-important soundtrack.

You aren’t about to see VR titles fetching the prices normally associated with blockbuster movies and TV shows. Not when VR headsets are rare both at home and public venues, at least. However, the Spheres deal could set the tone for Sundance and other VR-friendly festivals in the future. You might soon see more star-studded VR titles as companies feel they can make a serious profit, even if the viewership doesn’t hold a candle to what they’ll get from movie theaters.

Source: Oculus (Twitter)

Apple Shares New Photos of First Store in South Korea, Opening January 27

Apple’s first store in South Korea is set to open on Saturday, January 27, and ahead of the store’s official launch date, Apple has shared photos showing off the new location.

Apple Garosugil is located in the upscale Garosugil shopping area in the heart of the well-known Gangnam District in Seoul. The store, which is south of the Han River, features a 25-foot glass facade with in-store trees that are designed to blur the lines between the store itself and the tree-lined street where it’s located.

“We’re thrilled to open a new home for our customers in the vibrant city of Seoul and we look forward to continuing to grow in Korea,” said Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior vice president of Retail. “Our stores are gathering places for the community where everyone is welcome to connect, learn and create.”

Like all Apple Stores, Apple Garosugil will offer dozens of free daily workshops to tech participants photography, music, art, design, coding, and more. Each session is led by a Creative Pro and hosted in “the Forum,” an area of the Apple Store with a dynamic 6K video wall, which is a layout offered in many of the company’s retail stores around the world.

Apple says the store will include its full line of products along with a curated collection of accessories located in the “Avenues,” aka dedicated display areas where customers can interact with products.

Garosugil is likely to be Apple’s 500th retail store, so long as no additional stores open between now and Saturday. Apple currently has 499 retail stores around the world, not counting Apple Watch boutiques and factoring in the September closure of the Simi Valley store.

Apple first announced plans to open its first store in South Korea a year ago, and the location has been under development since then. Apple Garosugil will open up at 10:00 a.m. local time, and Apple is already accepting Genius Bar appointments and Today at Apple signups.

Related Roundup: Apple Stores
Discuss this article in our forums