Digitize your doodles with an e-reader you can draw on
No matter how useful a tablet can be, for many, nothing can beat the versatility of paper. Well, paper-loving reader, it might be time to re-think those analog allegiances as reMarkable has just unveiled an impressive new e-paper tablet.
Simply called “reMarkable,” the device aims to combine the flexibility of a paper notepad with the electronic convenience of a tablet. While companies like Sony have attempted to create similar pieces of tech, the slow refresh rates of e-paper displays has rendered them frustrating at best. This is a problem reMarkable claims to remedy thanks to what it calls a “Canvas” display. This 10.3-inch Kindle-esque screen not only looks like paper, but also delivers a very low latency of 55ms, meaning that you can write or draw on it with the included pen without noticeable delay.
Spec-wise, the reMarkable features 8GB of onboard storage, is powered by a 1GHz ARM A9 CPU and runs Codex — a custom Linux OS optimized for e-paper. Weighing in at 350 grams, it’s considerably heavier than your traditional paper notepad, but not much more than an iPad mini. Featuring no glass parts and battery life of around a couple of days, reMarkable seems to have struck a decent balance between portability and endurance.
Still, it’s fair to say that this paper-tablet does considerably more than your traditional pad and pen. In addition to providing a realistic pen-on-paper response, the reMarkable will also instantly sync your notes or doodles to the company’s cloud service, making them easy to share across all your devices.
As well as sharing created files, you’ll also be able to import documents, textbooks and the like onto the tablet, allowing you to add notes or sketches painlessly to existing files. While only PDF and ePub files are currently supported, reMarkable states that more compatible formats will be announced at a later date. The final big feature is one reMarkable hopes will make the tablet an indispensable school or office tool. It allows users to take notes on one device while they appear in real time on a second device.
The reMarkable certainly sounds good on paper… or should we say tablet? Yet this technology comes at a cost, with pre-orders starting now at a discounted price of $379. Purchasing now guarantees buyers the limited first edition, which includes the pen, the folio case and, shipping. The regular cost after pre-order is almost doubled: $529 for reMarkable, $79 for the pen and $79 for the folio case.
While an impressive piece of tech, the hefty price tag may prove too steep an entry-point for what is essentially a single-use device. We’ll find out whether the market agrees when the reMarkable ships in summer 2017.
Source: reMarkable
Yahoo Answers Now is a standalone app for iOS
Yahoo Answers has been the butt of many jokes for a long time now. But if you enjoy browsing through all the amusing questions people submit and tend to reply to some yourself, you’ll love the latest update out of the company’s HQ: Yahoo Answers now has a standalone iOS app. According to TechCrunch, it was previously known as Yahoo Hive, which has been lying low on the App Store since the summer. Its launch is likely an attempt to challenge newer, shinier Answer rivals like Quora. It’s also the latest in the list of mobile apps Yahoo released this year.
Yahoo launched quite a few standalone applications these past few months, including the Newsroom, a travel search engine called Radar and a dedicated Esports app for Android. This one is only available for iOS devices, though, so you’ll have to stick to Answers’ website if you’re using another platform. Marissa Mayer was hoping that Yahoo’s mobile efforts could help solve its many problems. Since that didn’t quite work out, Verizon is now buying up the company for $4.38 billion. That said, Yahoo’s woes still aren’t over: the carrier is reportedly seeking a $1 billion discount after it came to light that Yahoo suffered a huge email breach that affected 500 million users.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: iTunes
PlayStation’s Communities app helps you find teammates faster
PlayStation’s official mobile app has been live since 2013, letting players glance at their friends list, keep up with console news and buy new games on the fly. Then Sony released another companion app last December dedicated to messaging within the PlayStation Network. Today, iOS and Android users get a third: Communities, which will let players join groups with similar interests and game preferences.
Per its description, Communities will operate like themed forums to chat about games and jump into them with other players. Having trouble with a Destiny raid? Team up quickly with similarly-troubled peers and jump in to the game straight from the mobile app. It will also suggest communities for you to join based on what games you’ve played, as well as pointing out which groups are trending, if you care about joining the coolest crew on the PSN streets.
Could this feature have been rolled into the primary PlayStation app? Yes. Yes it could have. You need only look at how poorly the standalone Messages one was received to see how superfluous Communities might become, but at least it won’t get lost in the main mobile app’s crowded UI. But shoving players into digital rooms is a smart way to get them jumping into games together, as Titanfall 2’s clan-style Networks have proved. Whether enough of them go through the trouble of downloading another PlayStation app is another story.
Source: PlayStation blog
Siri gets its first major movie promotional stunt
While Amazon has been furiously releasing updates to keep Alexa abreast of current events (and holiday shopping deals), Apple has been content to keep most of their Siri updates limited to major OS releases. That’ll change with the iTunes release of The Secret Life of Pets, which marks the first time Apple’s virtual assistant has been used to promote a movie release or partnered with a major movie studio.
As 9to5Mac notes, the promotional stunt for The Secret Life of Pets gives Siri 15 somewhat humorous canned responses to the question “What do my pets do when I’m not at home?” When Engadget tried the gimmick, Siri responded with: “I don’t know, but the dog just asked me for a walking route to the nearest park.” And: “I don’t know, but the cat just asked me about the five day forecast for the living room sunny spot.”
Those answers might be cute, but they’re also not quite as smart as say: having Siri pull up your Nest cam highlights or launching your treat cam app. Either way, Apple felt the feature was worth a brief, product-placement heavy Facebook Video commercial:
Via: 9to5Mac
Source: iTunes on Facebook
Sky Mobile to offer flexible contracts with rollover data
It’s been a long time since Sky revealed plans to become a mobile virtual network operator with the help of O2. The company opened up registrations for Sky Mobile last month, not that those registering really knew what they were expressing their interest in. Today, though, Sky has pulled the curtain aside on its upcoming mobile offering, which will finally go live in mid-December. It would be unadvisable to enter such a saturated market without a unique selling point to pitch, which in Sky Mobile’s case, is rollover data and fully flexible contracts.
Just as BT favoured simplicity when it reentered mobile last year, Sky is starting out with just three SIM-only plans.
| Price per month | £10 | £15 | £20 |
| 4G data allowance | 1GB | 3GB | 5GB |
You’ll notice we’ve only highlighted data allowances in the table above, because that’s all you get. Calls and texts are either billed on a pay-as-you-use basis — each minute or message costing 10 pence — or you can throw down an additional £10 per month for the unlimited package.
A Sky Mobile contract comes with a 12-month term, but you’re not agreeing to any fixed pricing structure. Each month, you can change your data plan, and add or remove the unlimited calls and texts package. You can do this mid-month, too. Say you’re on the £10, 1GB tariff, and are running out of data. You can upgrade to the £15, 3GB tariff, pay the fiver difference, and immediately get those two extra gigs. The next month, you can drop back down to the 1GB plan again and just pay £10.
This flexibility and competitive pricing, at least where data is concerned, isn’t even Sky Mobile’s killer feature — data rollover is. Any unused data, from any month, goes into your “piggybank,” which you can draw from to top up your allowance at any time. Now, any rolled-over data does expire after three years, but the piggybank works on a “first-in, first-out” basis, so you withdraw the data that will expire soonest, first. A family can link up to five SIMs with a single piggybank, too, so what the parents don’t use, the kids can eat through later. All plans and piggybanks are said to be easily managed via a mobile app or online.
The whole point of being a quad-play provider, which Sky will soon be, is so you can cross-pollinate your other services with alluring customer incentives. Thankfully, how this works in Sky Mobile’s case is relatively simple to explain. Existing Sky+ TV customers that pick up a mobile contract get the £10 unlimited calls and texts package for free, and they also get Sky Go Extra for free.
To jog your memory, Sky Go Extra is a mobile app that lets you download content for offline viewing and stream live TV on the move. Sky Mobile subscribers will get one new feature, though, called “Sync.” Sync effectively lets you see what’s sitting on your Sky+ box at home, helping you decide what you might want to catch up on when you’re not sat in front of the living room TV. Sky is selling this as the best features of Sky Go Extra, with the added discovery features of your Sky+ box.
And that’s it for now. There are currently no incentives for Sky broadband customers, and no word on how that might play out if/when Sky get around to it. Either way, we’re told the plan is to keep everything as simple as possible, especially when Sky Mobile expands into handsets from the likes of Apple and Samsung sometime next year.
The launch schedule is probably the most complicated thing about the whole proposition. Contracts will initially be available to anyone who registered their interest ahead of time — more than 46,000 people, apparently — and existing Sky TV customers. Only Sky+ customers for now, though, since they’re the only ones that can take advantage of this new Sync feature.
Sky Q customers, and anyone else, will have to wait until the “full market launch,” which will start early next year.
Source: Sky
Russian government turns to the ghost of Nokia’s mobile OS
Finnish software house Jolla has announced that its smartphone OS, Sailfish, has been accepted for use by Russia’s government. It means that the platform — which rose from the ashes of Nokia and Intel’s doomed MeeGo — can now be used for official government business. The company also let slip that it’s in discussions to do a similar deal with leaders in South Africa and China, as well as other BRICS countries. As for why, it’s probably not because Vladimir Putin was as outraged as the rest of us when Nokia axed the N9.
Instead, the move is another step along the geopolitical cold war that’s beginning to spread out across the technology world. Russia — as well as regimes like China — feel that the west has too much influence in the digital sphere. A few years back, both nations began pushing for homegrown alternatives to Windows, Android and iOS. That way, leaders could burnish local industry, reduce western cultural dominance and mitigate the risk that the CIA and NSA were watching them.
Microsoft, Apple and Google are also the target of much political ire outside of the US — although these days that’s changing, too. Not to mention that Russian spies breached American Windows systems several times over to steal various state secrets. After all, if your “enemy” is using compromised technology that you can exploit, you certainly don’t want to be tied in to the same platform. That’s why both Russia and China have essentially banned purchases of Windows computers as well as iOS and Android devices.
The groundwork for the deal was laid a while back, and Sailfish has already been licensed by a local company called Open Mobile Platform. OMP is pushing to create a developer community in Russia that can help make the software more secure. In an interview with TechCrunch, Jolla co-founder Sami Pienimäki believes that we’ll (well, Vladimir Putin) see Sailfish OS devices arrive for sale as early as 2017.
Source: Jolla (.PDF)
Engadget giveaway: Win an HD DVR package courtesy of Plex!
So you’ve cut the cord, but want to catch a few shows on major networks without adding a new paid TV subscription. If you splurge on a digital tuner (or cable card) and antenna, you’re free to enjoy uncompressed HD broadcasts from most of the majors like ABC, NBC, CBS and more — at no charge. Add to that Plex’s recent DVR feature, which lets you record shows when they air and save them to your Plex server. It’s the perfect pairing, allowing you access to both your own media and Plex DVR content anywhere you want using the app. To help celebrate the launch of this new feature, Plex has given us two complete setups for pulling in free HD TV, recording shows and streaming them. That includes an HDHomeRun Connect dual digital tuner, an HD antenna and a free lifetime Plex Pass, for unmitigated access to all of Plex’s best features. Just head on down to the Rafflecopter widget below for up to three chances at winning this economical HD TV package!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
- Entries are handled through the Rafflecopter widget above. Comments are no longer accepted as valid methods of entry. You may enter without any obligation to social media accounts, though we may offer them as opportunities for extra entries. Your email address is required so we can get in touch with you if you win, but it will not be given to third parties.
- Contest is open to all residents of the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), 18 or older! Sorry, we don’t make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so direct your anger at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
- Winners will be chosen randomly. Two (2) winners will each receive one (1) HD HomeRun Connect tuner, one (1) Mohu Leaf 50 antenna and one (1) Lifetime Plex Pass.
- If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of being contacted. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen. Make sure that the account you use to enter the contest includes your real name and a contact email. We do not track any of this information for marketing or third-party purposes.
- This unit is purely for promotional giveaway. Engadget and AOL are not held liable to honor warranties, exchanges or customer service.
- The full list of rules, in all its legalese glory, can be found here.
- Entries can be submitted until Nov. 30th at 11:59PM ET. Good luck!
LeEco’s phones and TVs are coming to Amazon and Best Buy
LeEco is perhaps best known away from China for its electric cars (and the cash crunch they caused), but it’s now making a big US push with its bread-and-butter electronics products. After launching its LeMall.com site earlier this month, it’ll let US consumers buy its phones and TVs at retailers like Amazon, Best Buy and Target, starting on December 1st. To entice buyers, it’s offering free trials for AT&T’s DirecTV Now streaming service, launching tomorrow.
If you buy the Le S3 or Le Pro3 smartphones or 43-inch X43 Pro 4K TV, you’ll get three months of DirecTV Now. The more upmarket Super4 X55 or Super4 X65 4K sets will land you a six-month trial, or 12-months with the purchase of a $5,000 85-inch uMax85 TV.
DirecTV just launched yesterday as a competitor to Sling TV and Playstation Vue at the promotional price of $35 a month, expected to rise to $60. The service won’t count against the company’s data caps, which is great for AT&T internet subscribers, but sucks for its competitors and net neutrality in general.
LeEco is a successful e-commerce company in China, and its founder, Jia Yueting, is the country’s 30th richest individual. However, LeEco recently spent enormous sums launching its own LeSee electric car and backing two other companies (Faraday Future and Lucid Motors), and Jia recently admitted that the company is running out of cash.
As for the products themselves, we found that the company’s Le Pro3 smartphone had nice hardware but was hobbled by its heavily skinned UI. There aren’t a lot of reviews out there for the 4K TV models, though the company also owns Vizio, a Chinese TV manufacturer well-known in the US. You’ll be able to buy LeEco-branded TVs and smartphones at “over 100 retailers” starting December 1st or via LeMall.com, which just extended its sales times to 24/7.
Source: LeEco
Samsung Pay won’t reach the UK until sometime next year
2016 has been a good year for mobile payments, thanks to the arrival of Android Pay and the majority of big banks adopting Apple Pay. Samsung was also meant to join the party, but the company has confirmed that Galaxy smartphone and Gear smartwatch owners will now have to wait until next year to use its payment service. The Telegraph reports that the launch has been “tied up amid negotiations with banks,” a story that some British banking customers are already all too familiar with.
Samsung first touted a 2016 launch for its payment service at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January. It then reiterated that desire at the unveiling of the ill-fated Galaxy Note 7 in August. The company already allows customers in the USA, Canada, Korea, Spain, China, Australia, Singapore, Puerto Rico and Brazil to use Samsung Pay.
While Samsung Pay, like Apple and Google’s mobile services, supports NFC for contactless payments, it does have one advantage over its rivals. It supports Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST), a technology that emits a signal that can mimic the magnetic strip on the back of a debit or credit card. That means Samsung Pay can be used on terminals that don’t already allow contactless payments.
Source: The Telegraph
SwiftKey for Android’s clipboard is a godsend for lazy typers
So, you don’t like typing out your address or any other information you usually send other people again and again — SwiftKey gets it. In fact, its latest update for Android devices adds a couple of new features you’ll enjoy. First is the keyboard’s brand new Clipboard, which you can use to save phrases you often use and anything else you want. You can simply copy and paste items you saved onto a messaging or email app whenever you need to.
In case it’s an address or any other pertinent info you’d like to keep in your Clipboard indefinitely, you can take advantage of another new feature: Shortcuts. You can assign a shortcut to any info you clip and type it in lieu of that information when texting or emailing someone. For instance, if you mark your address as “home” or “office,” you only need to type either shortcut to bring up the complete address on the prediction bar, which you can then insert into whatever you’re composing.
Besides these two related features, the updated SwiftKey for Android also comes with Incognito mode. It keeps the app from learning words and phrases you don’t want anyone else to know you’ve been typing on your phone — you only need to swipe right on the hamburger menu and enable it through the SwiftKey Hub. Since the keyboard is now powered by a neural network and serves better predictions that before, incognito sounds like a great addition to keep its vocabulary safe for work and kids.
Source: SwiftKey
AIVAnet 