Replacement Note 7 starts smoking on Southwest flight (updated)
A Southwest flight was evacuated in Lousiville, Kentucky when a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 overheated and began smoking on board. Lousiville Metro Arson investigators confirmed to WAVE News 3 that a Samsung device was the cause of the incident. All passengers and crew members exited the plane safely via the main cabin door and no injuries were reported. To make matters worse, the device was a replacement following the company’s global recall of the handset over the last few weeks.
The Verge spoke to Brian Green, the owner of the Note 7, who confirmed that the phone was a replacement unit that he received at an AT&T store on September 21st. There’s a black square icon on the back of the box and Green said the device had a green battery indicator, both of which are signs Samsung said would let customers know a handset was safe to use. Green told The Verge he had powered down the device at the request of the crew and put it in his pocket when it began smoking. One of Green’s colleagues said the phone had burned through the plane’s carpet when they went back on the place to grab carry-on items.
The recent global recall of the Note 7 was bad enough for Samsung, but if there are still safety risks with the replacement devices, the whole ordeal could get a lot worse. The company has released battery-limiting updates outside of the US to prevent the phones from exploding.
Update: A Samsung spokesperson sent the following statement to Engadget:
“Until we are able to retrieve the device, we cannot confirm that this incident involves the new Note 7. We are working with the authorities and Southwest now to recover the device and confirm the cause. Once we have examined the device we will have more information to share.”
Source: WAVE News 3
Nike’s self-lacing Mags are hot, won’t catch fire
For Nike, yesterday was the culmination of a passion project which began in 2007. It was then that iconic designer Tinker Hatfield, who is behind the most popular Air Jordan models, took on the task of creating an innovative shoe based on the one worn by Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) in Back to the Future Part II. Now, as demoed by Fox himself last year, the Nike Mag is finally more than a film prop, thanks to a self-lacing technology the sportswear giant calls “Adaptive Fit.”
This is the same pair Nike is giving people a chance to win through an online raffle. Tickets are $10 each and all proceedings are going to The Michal J. Fox Foundation, an organization that’s trying to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease. But, I know what you’re wondering: “Are they the real deal?” Well, I had the chance to try on a pair last night at a private Nike event in New York City and I’m happy to report they didn’t disappoint. While brief, the experience made me feel like Nike’s other self-lacing shoes, HyperAdapt 1.0, can’t come soon enough.
After being escorted into a glowing room, a Nike employee wearing white gloves brought me a Mag size 11 and very carefully placed them on the floor for me to wear. I’m actually a size 10.5, but since the company only made it in men’s 7, 9, 11 and 13, it recommends selecting the next size up. The first thing I did was admire how much more stunning they are in person (though I say that anytime I try to find an excuse to buy a sneaker), especially compared to the version from 2011. Everything on this silhouette, from the midsole to the upper, feels premium.
Once I slipped my right foot in the shoe and as soon as my heel touched the insole, the Mag’s power-lacing mechanism kicked in. At that moment you really do feel like Marty McFly — if only we had actual working hoverboards (no, not those).
A video posted by Edgar Alvarez (@edgaralvarezb) on Oct 4, 2016 at 7:19pm PDT
There are three buttons on the inside, colored red, yellow and green, which let you adjust the tightness of the laces. They’re also used to light up the LEDs across the midsole, the area that displays how much battery is left on your shoe. Surprisingly, the Nike Mag is quite comfortable. Based on its extreme high-top design, I was expecting it to be heavy and clunky, but thankfully that wasn’t the case. In fact, without looking, I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between the Mag and Air Jordan 1 I arrived with. That was the biggest surprise as I walked around in them.
The bad news is there’s a slim to none chance I’ll ever own the Mags. Nike is only making 89 pairs available to the public, so if you don’t win the raffle expect to see them on eBay for somewhere in the $20-$30k range. For context, the 2011 Mag, which lacked Nike’s Adaptive Fit tech, go for anywhere from $8,000 to $12,000. But, I suppose that’s the price you have to pay if you want to look like you’re from the future.
And don’t forget, you only have until October 11th to enter the contest.
Sony releases 80-title lineup of PSVR games and apps
When we got our hands on the PlayStation VR, we confirmed two things: One, that the headset and PS4 hardware won’t match the performance of a higher-end PC and Oculus Rift or HTC Vive; And two, that’s balanced by all the content Sony has lined up. While incomplete lists of the system’s upcoming games and apps have been compiled before, Sony has released the full lineup of nearly 80 titles available at or soon after it launches on October 13th.
The list is split almost evenly between availability on opening day and Q4 2016, with the former including big releases we knew were coming like Batman: Arkham VR, EVE: Valkyrie, RIGS, and Sony’s vignette sampler PlayStation VR Worlds. Games coming out by the holiday season include Moto Racer 4, Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin, and the free Star Wars Battlefront Rogue One: X-wing VR Mission. A few have been pushed back to the first quarter of next year, like Golem and the Myst-esque XING: The Land Beyond. There’s even a few non-games, like the Ethan Hawke interactive narrative Invasion!, but those are only a handful of the entire list.
While 80-odd titles is impressive, they vary in length and depth. Some, like Rise of the Tomb Raider: Blood Ties, are short VR experiences using a known franchise as a backdrop. A few, like World War Toons and XING, can be played with but don’t require PSVR. It’s still a hefty amount of content for gamers to devour. Unsure which to buy? Many of the list’s heavy-hitters are featured in the demo disc bundled with the PSVR headset.
Source: Sony
Personal assistants are ushering in the age of AI at home
Google Home is the latest embodiment of a virtual assistant. The voice-activated speaker can help you make a dinner reservation, remind you to catch your flight, fire up your favorite playlist and even translate words for you on the fly. While the voice interface is expected to make quotidian tasks easier, it also gives the company unprecedented access to human patterns and preferences that are crucial to the next phase of artificial intelligence.
Comparing an AI agent to a personal assistant, as most companies have been doing of late, makes for a powerful metaphor. It is one that is indicative of the human capabilities that most major technology companies want their disembodied helpers to adopt. Over the last couple of years, with improvements in speech-recognition technology, Siri, Cortana and Google Now have slowly learned to move beyond the basics of weather updates to take on more complex responsibilities like managing your calendar or answering your queries. But products that invade our personal spaces — like Amazon’s Echo and Google Home — point to a larger shift in human-device interaction that is currently underway.
Onstage demos of Google Home, which has the company’s assistant built into it, suggest a conversational capability that requires an advanced understanding of human intent and context. The device relies almost entirely on the company’s speech-recognition technology that has been in the making for almost a decade, since the early days of GOOG 411. But over the years, the basic telephone-based directory search has grown into the much more complex Google Now.
Amazon’s Echo ecosystem relies on virtual assistant Alexa to respond to voice commands.
The drastic jump in the Android assistant’s capabilities has come from neural net training and deep learning techniques that have allowed scientists to boost speech-recognition technology to a point where it is now starting to learn the nuances of human behavior through the medium of voice.
Using the voice to communicate with an outside entity makes for an intimate and innately human experience. “Speech is the most dominant way that humanity has been communicating with each other,” David Nahamoo, speech CTO at IBM Research, said over the phone. “When we communicate with the outside, we speak. But from outside to inside, we absorb information a lot better visually. It’s because of our heritage and the evolution that we have gone through. From the standpoint of efficiency, speech is quickest way to get a point across.”
“Voice changes the way people interact with their systems.” – Françoise Beaufays, Google
Devices like Echo and Google Home, for instance, are built on speech recognition that can help you stay heads-up and hands-free while you multitask around the house. So instead of spending time swiping and typing, you can tell the personal assistant what you need or what you’re looking for. It’s that kind of ease and productivity that companies dangle in front of the users to have them adopt chatbots and personal assistants in their daily communications, but talking to devices also opens the door to a new kind of relationship.
“I think voice changes the way people interact with their systems,” says Françoise Beaufays, a research scientist who works on speech recognition at Google. “For a long time when people were typing in their browsers for information, they would write something cryptic like ‘Eiffel Tower height,’ for example.” The string of seemingly random words would instantly pull up search results on google.com with pictures, details and dimensionrs of the iconic French structure. But when speech recognition started to take shape with smartphone assistants, Beaufays says there was a clear change in communication.
“As people started feeling comfortable with speech, instead of being cryptic they started saying: ‘Hey, what is the height of the Eiffel Tower?’ or ‘How tall is the Eiffel Tower?’,” she says. “We saw that switch in the way people were addressing their devices in speech first and typing next. Using your voice is bringing in more discursive type of interaction, and even though you know very well it’s a machine you behave a little more human with it.”
A still from the movie Her (2013), directed by Spike Jonze.
While a verbal exchange with a virtual assistant can make it easier to get things done, it also makes it easier for the companies to gain invaluable insight into the human world that’s filled with vocal clues to feelings and preferences. “We’re going from computing to understanding,” says James Barrat, author of Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era. “It’s not just us chatting. These machines are listening to what we like and don’t like, how we speak and what we speak about. It’s greater access to how we think.”
In the world of AI, data is the currency that will set one company apart from the other. Through voice searches, millions of vocal samples become available to the companies that are fine-tuning personal assistants. The stream of information is fed back into the system to improve the accuracy of the algorithms, but it also gives the companies access to the complexities of human intent. In effect, using the voice to communicate with an AI helper only makes it smarter.
A lot can be gleaned from the vocal communication. Words and intonations start to give away user patterns, preferences and even emotions over time. That kind of insight into the mindset of the user is critical to the next wave of personalized AI that is already taking shape at companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook.
Smart talking AIs at home will fire up the ecosystem of the Internet of Things, taking it from novelty machines to necessities. With companies aspiring to make their assistants omnipresent and their machines more interconnectable, they need capable speech recognition to get the job done.
“There’s a parallel thrust,” says Vlad Sejnoha, CTO at Nuance Communications, one of the leaders in voice-recognition technologies. “You’ll interact with your smart fridge or printer in a more natural way but also see a portable personal assistant that lives in a cloud and follows you around to help you navigate a complex world.” Google Home, much like Amazon’s Echo, already comes with partnerships that are useful around the house. You can use the speaker to control your Chromecast, Nest and Philips Hue lights.
In addition to navigating the immediate physical world, an omnipresent assistant could potentially become a gateway to unfamiliar settings or foreign languages too. In the spot aired during the Google event this week, the company demonstrated that Home has the ability to tap Google Translate to respond with accurate translations from English to Spanish. But whether the machine can comprehend foreign accents and translate the reverse, remains to be seen.
“Having an AI that is your agent and helps you exist in the world better, gets you better information and services is hugely exciting.” – Vlad Sejnoha, Nuance Communications
Failing to comprehend different accents has been one of the biggest downfalls of most digital assistants on smartphones today. Scientists building these systems often talk about the lack of data as one of the biggest obstacles to understanding new accents and languages. The copious amounts of information required to make that possible calls for massive investments from the companies. Taking the technology straight to people’s homes opens up a steady stream of data that can be used for tests back in the research labs.
A lot of the building blocks are starting to fall into place for devices like Google Home to become efficient personal assistants. And even though, there’s a need to be more vigilant of the ways human-device interactions are starting to shift; most voice interface developers believe it’s a necessary change that will extend human capabilities.
“Having an AI that is your agent and helps you exist in the world better, gets you better information and services is hugely exciting,” says Sejnoha. “As with anything there are uses that can be negative, we’re all familiar with privacy and mining data. That’s something we have to be thoughtful about, but the benefits far outweigh those scenarios.”
‘Beyond Good and Evil’ sequel enters pre-production
Beyond Good and Evil 2 finally exists as more than just some well-meaning plans. Creator Michel Ancel has posted an Instagram teaser confirming that the sequel to the classic game has entered pre-production. In other words, his team is finally working on it. The images Ancel has offered in the run-up to the news don’t reveal much (you can expect more of the first game’s humanoid animals), but it appears that BG&E2 will take on a more realistic look than its cartoon-like predecessor, and will still be set in System 4. One thing’s for sure: given that Ancel has long had ambitious plans for a follow-up, it’ll be a while before you can sit down and play.
Endangered species – now saved – Game in pre-production – Stay tuned !
A photo posted by Michel Ancel (@michelancel) on Oct 4, 2016 at 2:19pm PDT
Via: Wired
Source: Michel Ancel (Instagram 1), (2), (3)
Kohl’s is the latest retailer to roll out its own mobile payments
If you like to shop at Kohl’s and need an alternative to Apple Pay, Android Pay or Samsung Pay, you’re in luck. The retailer announced today that its own mobile payments platform, Kohl’s Pay, is now available to all customers nationwide. The company revealed last month that its take on payments would complement its existing mobile wallet app that gave customers a way to store payment info, organize rewards and collect promotions in the same spot.
Unlike retail mobile payment platforms from Walmart and CVS, Kohl’s Pay doesn’t allow customers to add their credit and debit cards to the app for use in stores. Instead, you’ll have to sign up for one of the company’s own Kohl’s Charge cards. While that might seem like an odd choice, TechCrunch reports that the retailer has 25 million customers actively using its credit cards with 60 percent of in-store purchases being paid for with Kohl’s Charge. That’s a substantial number of people you could bring to the mobile platform even if they can’t add any payment method they want.
The payments system is available inside the store’s existing mobile apps for Android and iOS. The Kohl’s app also doesn’t support NFC or tap-to-pay like Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay. Instead, it displays a QR code that’s scanned by the cashier at checkout. That code is used to not only handle payment, but to apply any savings a customer has stored in the app, too. When you combine the ability to pay to for items, organize discounts/promotions and track returns, exchanges and regular purchases, Kohl’s is giving its customers a handy shopping companion. And that’s on top of using the app to browse items, save gift cards to the mobile wallet and scan barcodes will looking around in stores.
Kohl’s still supports Apple Pay, including the ability to earn loyalty points when using that payment method on an iPhone or Apple Watch. It was the first retailer to do so and it was also the first store to allow customers to use its own credit cards with Apple’s payment platform.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Kohl’s
Fire on Plane Caused by Replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7
Over the past few weeks, Samsung has been replacing recalled Galaxy Note 7 smartphones that have faulty exploding batteries with new devices, but an incident today suggests the South Korean company’s smartphone woes aren’t over.
A Southwest flight from Louisville to Baltimore was today evacuated just before it pulled out of the gate because a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone started smoking. While no one was injured, there is a serious problem — the Galaxy Note 7 in question was a replacement device that had been deemed “safe” by Samsung.
According to The Verge, the owner of the Galaxy Note 7, Brian Green, had replaced his original Galaxy Note at an AT&T store on September 21. The smartphone had a green battery icon and box the device came in features a black square, both of which are indicators of a replacement Note 7.
Green told The Verge he had powered down the phone as requested by the flight crew and stowed it in his pocket before it started smoking.
He dropped it on the floor of the plane and a “thick grey-green angry smoke” was pouring out of the device. Green’s colleague went back onto the plane to retrieve some personal belongings and said that the phone had burned through the carpet and scorched the subfloor of the plane.
He said the phone was at around 80 percent of battery capacity when the incident occurred and that he only used a wireless charger since receiving the device.
Samsung has already replaced more than one million Galaxy Note 7 devices, and has said the new Note 7 smartphones have batteries “that are not vulnerable to overheating and catching fire.” Despite the recall, reports of overheating devices are circulating on a near-daily basis, and the company could have another disaster on its hands if replacement devices are also experiencing the same issues.
Rumors have suggested Samsung’s Note 7 problems began after the company rushed the device into production after realizing the iPhone 7 would not feature major design changes, seeing it as an opportunity to one up Apple. Suppliers were pushed to meet tighter deadlines for an earlier launch, leading to critical oversights.
Samsung America president and COO Tim Baxter apologized to customers in September. “We did not meet the standard of excellence that you expect and deserve,” he said, adding that Samsung is working to earn back customer trust.
Tag: Samsung
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Users Report Some iPhone 7 and 6s Models Activation Locked With Wrong Apple IDs
An increasing number of iPhone users are experiencing an Activation Lock issue in which the device is linked to an Apple ID email address that does not belong to them, according to crowdsourced information from MacRumors and Twitter.
MacRumors reader Balders, who recently purchased an iPhone 7 Plus, explained in our discussion forums:
Just received my brand new 256GB Jet Black iPhone 7 Plus. Looks immaculate, screen is perfect, machining all fine… Only problem is, it appears someone has already used it as the iPhone is asking for the account used to activate it — o…..@icloud.com. Apple say it needs replacing […] Now got to wait for an expedited replacement iPhone once I’ve returned this one.
With the wrong Apple ID being displayed, users cannot sign in and are therefore unable to proceed with setting up the iPhone. The issue has primarily affected new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models upon being turned on for the first time, and iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus models upon being restored to default settings, although older models appear to be affected to a lesser extent.
MacRumors user TheKricket said his iPhone 6s suddenly became activation locked:
I purchased an iPhone 6s full-price and outright directly from an Apple Store in September 2015. The phone was unlocked (I switched from T-Mobile to Verizon after I purchased it without issue). I recently purchased an iPhone 7 Plus and after that phone was activated on Verizon’s network, the iPhone 6s now indicates that it has an “Activation Lock.” It is also linked to some unknown iCloud account (not the account I activated it with or have been using it with for close to a full year).
The discussion topics above and others have received multiple replies from other MacRumors readers experiencing the same issue, while several Twitter users have also shared similar complaints. It is unclear when the Apple ID mixups first began, but user reports have gained traction since at least September.
Got my brand new iPhone 7 Plus… with an activation lock on it… WTF? Anybody else with the same problem?
— Manuel Aeberli (@the_street_ch) September 30, 2016
Got new iPhone, did reset of old one. Now old iPhone has activation lock with email I don’t own. Not just me: https://t.co/wKlS3wuIhT
— Mark Svendsen (@marksvend) September 17, 2016
Something weird is going on. Possible @apple security issue with iOS 10 & wiping an old iPhone, reboots to Activation Lock & unknown email
— Rick Daino (@Metagamers) September 22, 2016
A number of affected users said Apple was able to remove the Activation Lock on their iPhones upon providing the company with proof of purchase. This process can seemingly be completed at an Apple retail store by scheduling a Genius Bar appointment, or remotely by calling Apple’s support team at 1-800-MY-APPLE.
On rarer occasions, however, the Activation Lock screen linked to a wrong Apple ID email address reappears more than once. In these cases, some users report that Apple fully replaced their iPhones.
It remains unclear what is causing the Activation Lock issues. Apple has not publicly commented on the matter.
Related Roundups: iPhone 6s, iPhone 7
Tags: Activation Lock, Apple ID
Buyer’s Guide: iPhone (Buy Now)
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Apple’s First iOS Developer Academy Opens October 6 at University of Naples
Apple’s first iOS Developer Academy is set to open this week at the University of Naples Federico II’s new San Giovanni a Teduccio campus, located in a coastal suburb east of Naples, Italy.
The campus will see Apple teaching 200 Italian students how to write code to create apps that will run on Apple’s iOS devices during the nine month course. Students will be provided with a current-generation MacBook, iPhone, and iPad, along with tuition, all for free.
More than 4,000 students applied for 200 spots during an open enrollment program. Next year, more spots will be available, as the university plans to accept 400 students.
Leopoldo Angrisani, a professor who has helped get the program up and running, spoke with The Guardian and shared some details on the campus ahead of its opening on October 6. Apple had a hand in the design of the academy, which is housed in one of three modern-looking buildings with glass facades.
The layout of the large, open-plan classroom was designed by Apple. “The didactic model is very new [for us],” Angrisani said. Small groups of students will sit at round tables equipped with special acoustic systems so the teacher can communicate with each table individually about their work. All courses will be taught in English, since it is meant to be open to students from around the world.
“Competition will be a fundamental part of the class,” Angrisani said.
Couches and a lounge area are included in the classroom, giving students a chance to rest, and Apple expects collaboration between students will be a key part of the classroom experience. “Apple thinks that all of these activities, learning and rest and so on, have to stay very close to each other, because this is the best way to ensure that the concepts are absorbed and understood very well,” Angrisani told The Guardian.
During its visit to the campus, The Guardian was shown the classroom where classes will be held, but was not allowed to sit in on a meeting where an Apple official was instructing academy teachers. University officials also said Apple had been “very, very” involved in the work at the academy, down to details like the lighting in the classroom and the color on the walls.
In the past, Apple has said the iOS Developer Academy will be expanded to other countries around the world in the future.
Tags: Italy, iOS Developer Academy
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Eyes in Google’s Daydream View
Stepping into Google’s super powered Google Cardboard.
There are two types of people when it comes to smartphone-based VR — those who are eagerly awaiting what comes next and those who have never tried any of it. Google Cardboard is a great way to see something quick in a 360-degree peek, but it’s not good for long-term use. Samsung’s Gear VR is more capable, but limited only to Samsung phones. At Google I/O this year, Daydream was announced as the thing that happens next in smartphone-based VR by creating a higher quality platform with a new headset and controller system.
Alongside the launch of the Pixel phones, Google also unveiled Daydream View. It’s the first headset designed specifically for phones Google approves as “Daydream Ready” in order to offer a more complete VR experience. After an extended period of time in the headset, it’s clear Google has created something well above the experiences so many have had with Cardboard.
Comfort first, with some style
Daydream View looks a lot like a highly stylized Google Cardboard headset. It’s a set of lenses in a casing with a strap on one side for your head and a strap on the other side to hold your phone in place. There are no buttons, no trackpads, and no ports to dock your phone. Instead of a plastic exterior, Daydream View is covered in several kinds of fabric. Google’s Clay Bavor explained the material was a combination of microfiber cloth and the kind of material you find in workout clothes. The overall goal is to encourage airflow and decrease that gross, sweaty feeling when you’re in some VR headsets for a while. Somewhere in that process, Daydream View came out looking kind of like sweatpants. Really nice sweatpants though, and in three colors —Slate, Snow, and Crimson.
A fair bit of light can leak in from both sides if you’re in a brightly lit room.
The important parts of this fabric-covered headset are the parts that touch you when you wear it. The strap is unique, a single band with a pair of clips so you can quickly tighten or loosen the strap with a press and pull. No other VR headset has a fabric strap this easy to use, and it’s complimented well by the cushiony texture that fits around your eyes. Instead of creating a seal, the cushion across your forehead and down across your nose are extended beyond the profile of your face. This means the headset can accommodate people who need to wear prescription glasses inside a VR headset, but it also means a fair bit of light can leak in from both sides if you’re in a brightly lit room. This may be a worthwhile tradeoff for those who wear glasses and those who aren’t a fan of lenses fogging up, but it also means the color of your phone could cause some reflection issues inside the headset.
Daydream View is light even by smartphone-based VR headset standards. With a Pixel XL onboard it was noticeably lighter than the Samsung Gear VR with a Note 7, and quite a bit more comfortable than any other phone VR kit available today. The design appears simple, but really it’s the result of two years practice by other companies in getting the headset design wrong. Fortunately for everyone, this headset isn’t tied to any one phone so many can enjoy it.
A tiny, capable controller
Opening Daydream View reveals a small controller, something that looks like it would be used to control a Roku TV. The Daydream Controller is special though, and it’s a big part of what makes Daydream special. This controller can track movement across several axis, making it so you can rotate the controller in your hand and have those motions appear in Daydream. You can point the controller like a laser pointer and select things from menu options, which is a great deal more convenient than pointing with your face and waiting for a loading bar to complete in order to make a selection.
Daydream Controller represents your Wizard’s Wand in the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them demo for Daydream, and it’s here that you get an appreciation for just how capable this controller is. The controller can’t tell how far it is from the ground, so the wand is in a fixed position next to your head. As you point with your controller, the wand selects things and brings them to you to examine. Once you locate a spell to try, a quick flick of the wrist sends sparks flying from the tip of the wand. These movements are tracked with remarkable accuracy, feeling almost like you’re using a tiny HTC Vive controller at times.
The lack of full spatial awareness is a challenge, but one Google’s partners seem eager to face. During a tilt game demo, the whole board turned as you rolled the controller around, making accuracy very important. This is the kind of experience where spacial awareness matters a lot less, and the illusion created by your environment is much easier to hold.
Sometimes you just want to kick back and watch something though, and that is what Daydream Controller does best. No reaching up and tapping the side of your head or fumbling around for a gamepad here, your controller allows you to quickly navigate menus and pause when necessary. The volume buttons on the side of the controller help you get the experience you want, and the home button at the bottom lets you quickly return to the main menu if you’re finished with what you are doing. It’s a solid system, and as far as smartphone-based VR goes it’s without equal.
A solid challenger
There’s a lot of promise in a platform like Daydream. Google’s first efforts with the Pixel XL created an experience with little of the “screen door effect” that plagues other VR headsets, and head tracking is a dream. Even the setup process is convenient — you place the phone down on the pad in the casing and an NFC tag launches Daydream and pairs you with the controller. When you close your phone against the lenses, alignment happens immediately with no QR codes to scan to make sure you have the best lens form on the display.
Everyone with a Pixel can enjoy something new and great.
The big question here is how any of this is different from Cardboard, and the answer to that is in the system itself. Head tracking is much smoother, the menu system feels like it could compete with the likes of Oculus Rift, and the content is much more dynamic. This happens because Google can control which phones get Daydream by making sure 60FPS animations are a default and the displays are all tuned in the same way. More accurate sensors for more accurate head tracking means the chances of you getting sick in VR decreases significantly, and the controller completes the experience by offering a dynamic pointer and video game stick. It’s not that a lot of this couldn’t be done with a Pixel XL and Cardboard with a strap, but the overall experience matters here and that only happens when all of these little pieces come together.
With this $79 headset on the way, Google’s next big hurdle is content. The starting selection, which includes HBO and Netflix among several high quality games, is impressive but still on the small side. With developer tools making it fairly easy to port VR projects from one platform to another, it’s likely this won’t be a problem for long and that’s a very good thing. By the time the next Daydream Ready phone is around, there’s likely to be quite a bit more to do. In the mean time, everyone with a Pixel can enjoy something new and great.
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