NVIDIA brings desktop-class graphics to laptops
With the GeForce GTX 1080, NVIDIA pushed the boundaries of what a $600 graphics card can do. That flagship card was joined by the GTX 1070 and GTX 1060, two lower-power cards based on the same 16nm Pascal architecture at a much more affordable price. Now, it’s bringing mobile versions of those cards that match their desktop counterparts in almost every area — including being VR ready.
That’s not hyperbole. The top-of-the-line 1080M has 2,560 CUDA cores and 8GB of 10Gbps GDDR5x memory. The desktop chip has the same. The only difference is clock speed: it’s set at 1,556MHz, while the desktop version is 1,607MHz. The two do share the same boost clock (1,733MHz) though, and both have access to all the new technology introduced for the Pascal architecture. That means simultaneous multi-projection, VRWorks, Ansel and the rest.
If you want an idea what those specs translate to in real-world performance, how’s this: when paired with an i7-6700HQ (a quad-core 2.6GHz chip with 3.5GHz turbo), Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, 126; Overwatch, 147; Doom, 145; Metro Last Light, 130; Rise of the Tomb Raider, 125. Those are the 1080M’s FPS figures when playing at 1080p with “ultra” settings at 120Hz. NVIDIA is really pushing 120Hz gaming, and many of the first crop of Pascal laptops will have 120Hz G-Sync displays.
4K gaming, too, is more than possible. At 4K with “high” settings the same setup can push 89FPS on Overwatch, 70FPS with Doom, and 62FPS with Metro Last Light (according to NVIDIA). Only Mirror’s Edge Catalyst and Rise of the Tomb Raider fall short of 60FPS, both clocking in at a very playable 52FPS. At the chip’s UK unveil, NVIDIA showed the new Gears of War playing in 4K in real-time, and there were absolutely no visible frame drops. With figures like that, it goes without saying that VR will be no problem for the 1080M. The desktop GTX 980 is the benchmark for both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, and the 1080M blows it away. If you’re looking for more performance, the 1080M supports overclocking of course — NVIDIA suggests as high as 300MHz — and you can expect laptops sporting two in an SLI configuration soon.
The major drawback for the 1080M is power. We don’t know its exact TDP yet, but given the near-identical desktop version runs at 180W, you’d imagine it’s got to be at least 150W. NVIDIA has tech that counters that heavy power load when you’re not plugged in, of course. Chief among these is BatteryBoost, which allows you to set a framerate (i.e. 30FPS), and downclocks the GPU appropriately to save power — if your card is capable of pushing 147FPS plugged in, that’s going to be a fair amount of power saved. Whatever the battery savings possible, though, it won’t change the fact that the 1080M is only going to slide into big laptops.
That’s fine for those already used to carrying around behemoths on the go, but plenty of gamers prefer something more portable. Enter the 1070M. NVIDIA says this chip will fit into any chassis that currently handles the 980M, which covers a lot of laptops.
Just like the 1080M, the 1070M matches its desktop sibling in many ways. You’ve actually got slightly more in the way of CUDA cores — 2,048 vs. the desktop’s 1,920, but again they’re clocked slower (1,442MHz vs. 1,506MHz). Memory is the same — 8GB 8Gbps GDDR5 — and it too benefits from both the Pascal architecture itself and the new software features that come with it.
| CUDA cores | 2,560 | 2,560 | 1,920 | 2,048 |
| Base clock | 1,607MHz | 1,556MHz | 1,506MHz | 1,442MHz |
| Boost clock | 1,733MHz | 1,733MHz | 1,683MHz | 1,645MHz |
| Memory | 8GB GDDR5X | 8GB GDDR5X | 8GB GDDR5 | 8GB GDDR5 |
| Memory speed | 10Gbps | 10Gbps | 8Gbps | 8Gbps |
| Memory Bandwidth | 320GB/sec | 320GB/sec | 256GB/sec | 256GB/sec |
When faced off against the desktop 1070, the 1070M holds its own. In nearly every test we saw, it got within a couple of percentiles of the desktop card. We’re talking 77FPS in The Witcher 3 (1080p maxed settings, no HairWorks) vs. 79.7FPS on the 1070; 76.2FPS in The Division (1080p ultra) vs. 76.6FPS; and 64.4FPS in Crysis 3 (1080p very high) vs. 66.4FPS. The one outlier was Grand Theft Auto V, which dropped down to 65.3FPS vs. 73.7FPS on the desktop 1070. 4K gaming is a stretch on the desktop 1070, and that carries over here, but this card is more-than VR ready. NVIDIA says that it’ll support factory overclocking on the 1070M soon, so you may see laptops offering a little more grunt “in a couple of months.”
Rounding off the lineup is the 1060M, the mobile version of NVIDIA’s $249 “budget” VR-ready card. It’s something of the exception to the rule here. Yes, it offers 1,280 CUDA cores and 6GB 8Gbps GDDR5 memory, which is equal to the desktop 1060. But at the lower end of the range the fact that they’re clocked lower (1,404MHz vs. 1,506MHz) hurts performance quite a bit more. In side-by-side comparisons, NVIDIA’s benchmarks suggest you’ll get within ten percent or so of the desktop card. That’s not to say that the 1060M is a slouch. For traditional gaming, you’re not going to hit 60FPS at 1080P in every game without thinking about settings, but if you can play it on a desktop GTX 980, it’s probably a safe bet that the 1060M can handle it. That’s insanely impressive when you consider that the 1060M will fit into the same chassis as the 970M — think “ultra portable” gaming laptops.
| CUDA cores | 1,280 | 1,280 | 2,048 |
| Base clock | 1,404MHz | 1,506MHz | 1,126MHz |
| Boost clock | 1,670MHz | 1,708MHz | 1,216MHz |
| Memory | 6GB GDDR5* | 6GB GDDR5 | 4GB GDDR5 |
| Memory speed | 8Gbps | 8Gbps | 7Gbps |
| Memory Bandwidth | 192GB/sec | 192GB/sec | 224GB/sec |
*Up to
In reality, the 10-percent gap between the 1060 and the 1060M probably makes it slightly slower than the GTX 980, but the difference is almost negligible. I wasn’t able to push the 1060M too hard on the “VR ready” promise — you can read about the demo and why the 1060M matters in a separate article — but the demo I had was solid. And really, being able to plug an Oculus into something as slim as a Razer Blade was unthinkable a few months ago, so it’s probably best not to complain.
Acer, Alienware, Asus, Clevo, EVGA, HP, Gigabyte, Lenovo, MSI, Origin, Razer, Sager and XMG are just some of the OEMs signed up to make laptops with the new Pascal chips. Many will announce updated and all-new models today, while some might hold off a while. But expect lots of super-powerful, VR-ready gaming laptops very soon.
Google will ‘increasingly focus’ Hangouts on business customers
It’s been more than three years since Google formally launched Hangouts. It was an effort to take the popular Google Talk IM app into the mobile age, but it came late to the party. Lots of competitors like Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger and iMessage were firmly entrenched in mobile chat by the time Hangouts came to life. Despite finally getting a chat and video-calling platform out for every platform, Google announced at its I/O developer conference earlier this year that it was trying again. A new video chat app, Duo, is now available, and a radical new text-based messaging app called Allo is coming soon. Ever since they were announced in May, Google users have wondered: What’s to become of Hangouts?
Google’s VP of communication products, Nick Fox, was willing to talk about that when he gave me an early demo of Duo last week. As Google said earlier this year, Hangouts isn’t going away — but the company will now focus Hangouts on its business users. Going forward, Allo and Duo will be the company’s main consumer chat plays.
“Because Hangouts is built on a Google account, because it’s deeply integrated with Google apps, the Apps suite [things like Drive, Docs, etc.], Gmail, Calendar and so on, it’s seen much more success in the enterprise,” Fox told me. “It will increasingly focus on that kind of group collaboration enterprise productivity space.”
Duo’s focus is extreme simplicity, and anyone who’s used Hangouts for any length of time will admit it’s not the simplest of services. For example, you can do video calls with multiple participants in Hangouts, while Duo allows only one-to-one video calling. That need to make things easier is likely why Google wanted a clean break with the rollout of Allo and Duo — they aren’t tied to your Google account or any of its previous communication services.
Fox also said Google recognized that it didn’t make sense to have one app do everything, something we’ve seen from companies like Facebook, which controversially broke messaging out of its main app. “We’ve historically tried to do a lot in a single app, but the reality is that are pretty different types of communication,” Fox says. “We see them differently, and we think we’ll be able to build the best experiences by building focused experiences that do what they’re intended to do really, really well.”
That doesn’t mean there won’t be consumer confusion going forward, however. Hangouts will continue to exist, and many consumers will certainly still use “Gchat” when looking at their email in a browser. But when they go mobile, Allo and Duo are entirely separate experiences with no desktop equivalent. Google may be focusing Hangouts on the enterprise crowd going forward, but there isn’t a clear path to moving consumers from Hangouts to Allo and Duo.
Of course, for lots of users, that likely won’t matter. Google is right to make mobile its focus because that’s clearly where consumers are. If Duo and Allo are successful, Hangouts will simply fade into memory, used by people who need its more-robust feature set. It’s not what Google had in mind when the product launched three years ago, but sometimes a reboot is necessary.
Duo, Google’s supersimple video chat app, arrives today
Back in May at its I/O developer conference, Google introduced a pair of new communication apps: Allo for text-based communication and Duo for video calling. Allo is the more interesting of the two, with its deep usage of the intelligent Google Assistant bot — but Duo is the one we’ll get to try first. Google hopes it’ll stand out among a bevy of other communications apps thanks to a laser focus on providing a high-quality mobile experience. It’s available today for both the iPhone and Android phones.
“The genesis of Duo was we really saw a gap when it came to video calling,” Nick Fox, Google VP of communications products, said. “We heard lots of [user] frustration, which led to lack of use — but we also heard a lot of desire and interest as well.” That frustration came in the form of wondering who among your contacts you could have video calls with, wondering whether it would work over the wireless connection you had available and wondering if you needed to be calling people with the same type of phone or OS as yours.
To battle that, Google made Duo cross-platform and dead simple to use. You can only call one person at a time, and there’s barely any UI or features to speak of. But from a technology standpoint, it’s meant to work for anyone with a smartphone. “It shouldn’t just work on high-end devices,” said Fox. “It should work on high-end devices and on $50 Android phones in India.”
Google designed it to work across a variety of network connections as well. The app is built to provide HD video when on good networks and to gracefully and seamless adjust quality if things get worse. You can even drop down to a 2G connection and have video pause but have the audio continue. “We’re always prioritizing audio to make sure that you don’t drop communications entirely,” Fox said.
All of this is meant to work in the background, leaving the user with a clutter-free UI and basically no buttons or settings to mess with. Once you sign into the Duo app with your phone number (no Google login needed here), you’ll see what your front-facing camera sees. Below that are a handful of circles representing your most recent calls in the lower third of the screen. You can drag that icon list up and scroll through through your full list of contacts; if people in your phonebook don’t have the app, you can tap their number to send an SMS and invite them to Duo.
For those who do have Duo, tapping their number initiates a video call. Once you’re on the call, you just see the person you’re talking to, with your video feed in a small circle, not unlike Apple’s FaceTime. Tapping the screen reveals the only UI elements: a hang-up button, mute button and a way to flip between the front and back cameras.
Duo is even simpler than FaceTime, and far simpler than Google’s own Hangouts app, which the company says will now be more focused on business and enterprise users. In that focus on simplicity, Fox and his team left out a number of features you might find in other video-calling apps. Chief among them is that Duo can’t do group calls; it’s meant only for one-to-one calling. Google also decided against making desktop apps for Duo or Allo.
“We forced ourselves to think exclusively about the phone and design for the phone,” Fox says. “The desktop experience is something we may build over time. But if you look around the world at the billions of people that are connected to the internet, the vast majority have one device, and that device is a phone. So it was critical for us to really nail that use case.”
That’s part of the reason Google is tying Duo to a phone number rather than your Google account: Your phone already has your contacts built in, while many people might not curate or manage their Google contacts list. This way, you can see exactly who in your usual phone book is using Duo (and if they’re not, you can send them an SMS invite).
Perhaps the most clever feature Google included is Knock Knock. If you’re using an Android phone and someone calls, you’ll see a preview of their video feed on the lock screen. The person calling can wave or gesture or make a silly face to try and draw you into the conversation, and Fox says that makes the person on the receiving end a lot more likely to answer with a smile rather than a look of confusion as they wonder if they video is working properly. For the sake of privacy, you’ll only see a video feed from people in your contacts list, and you can turn the feature off entirely if you prefer.
It’s all part of Google’s goal to make the app not just simple but “human” as well. “It’s something that you don’t generally hear from Google when we talk about our apps,” Fox admits, “but video calling is a very human experience, so it’s very important that you feel that in the app as well.”
All of this adds up to a product that is refreshingly uncluttered and has a clear sense of purpose. It doesn’t fundamentally change the video-calling experience, but it is frictionless and very easy to use on a moment’s notice. Under the hood, the app does live up to its promise of updating the call based on changing network conditions — you can even flip between WiFi and cellular networks without dropping a call. There’s not a whole lot to say about the experience, and that’s probably for the best. You can make calls to people in your contacts list easily, not worry too much about dropping them, and then get on with your life.
That ease of use is what Google hopes will pull users into the app. It does indeed feel simpler than most other options out there. But given the huge variety of communication apps available and Google’s strange historical difficulty with the space, it’s not hard to imagine Duo being a niche app. That won’t be for lack of effort — Duo actually does make video chat easier than making a phone call.
Instagram Stories’ camera controls catch up to Snapchat
Instagram isn’t shy about wanting to go toe-to-toe with Snapchat through Stories, and that now includes camera features, too. Updates for both the Android and iOS versions of Instagram let you swipe up and down to zoom while you’re recording a video, much as you would in that other social app. The iOS version, at least, also lets you double-tap to switch cameras in mid-clip like its Snapchat counterpart. No, it’s not exactly a subtle tweak — but it makes sense if Instagram is going to poach Snapchatters that may take their camera controls for granted.
Source: App Store, Google Play
WikiLeaks released a cache of malware in its latest email dump
In its rush to let information be free, WikiLeaks has released over 80 different malware variants while publishing its latest collection of emails from Turkey’s ruling AKP political party. In a Github post, security expert Vesselin Bontchev has laid out many of the instances of malicious links, most of which came from “run-of-the-mill” spam and phishing emails found in the dump. While WikiLeaks has claimed the emails shed light on corruption within the Turkish government, New York Times reporter Zeynep Tufekci has pointed out that the materials have little to do with Turkish politics and mostly appear to be mailing lists and spam.
This claim is false. These emails have little to do with “Turkey’s political structure.” Mostly mailing lists+spam. pic.twitter.com/F7905JUg6z
— Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) August 15, 2016
In July, WikiLeaks also came under fire for publishing “private, sensitive information of what appears to be every female voter in 79 out of 81 provinces in Turkey,” including some home addresses and phone numbers, immediately after a bloody coup attempted to overthrow the AKP. As Tufekci noted at the time, WikiLeaks has been reckless with data as well as personal information. At one point, the WikiLeaks Twitter account claimed over 1,400 emails in the earlier leak were related to Fethullah Gülen — a cleric the Turkish government has blamed for the coup. In truth, “gülen” also means “smiling” in Turkish and many of those 1,400 emails containing the word “gülen” were actually advertisements for Mediterranean vacation destinations. In other words: it would appear someone had searched the dump for instances of the word, without actually checking their context.
When he launched the WikiLeaks project nearly 10 years ago, founder Julian Assange pledged to bring about a safe era of “ethical leaking.” The group’s recent approach, however, stands in stark contrast to their peers at The Intercept, which has pledged to allow media outlets and other third-parties to vet the Snowden archive before unleashing it on the public.
Via: Gizmodo
Source: Github
Google to move Hangouts On Air to YouTube Live
Several years ago when Google+ launched, one of its key features was Hangouts, a video chat program that allowed several people to chat online at once. Hangouts grew so popular that it eventually spun off a public-facing option called Hangouts On Air, where would-be stars could interact with their adoring fans. Indeed, actual public figures like Tyra Banks, Brad Pitt and even the President have taken to Hangouts On Air in the past to answer queries. But come September 12th however, that option will be no longer, at least on Google+. Instead, users will be prompted to use YouTube Live, Google’s other live video product, to broadcast in real-time.
According to a Google support document, you can set up the new Hangouts On Air by creating either a “Quick event” or a “Custom event” using YouTube Live’s Creator Studio tool. You can either go live immediately or schedule a YouTube Live broadcast for later. As with the version on Google+, you can have the Hangout be public, unlisted or private to just a select group of invited guests. Unfortunately, Hangout On Air apps like Q&A, Showcase and Applause aren’t currently available on YouTube Live, though they might be in the future.
The move to YouTube is yet another sign that the company is moving away from Google+. Last year, it moved Google Photos to its own product and even completely redesigned Google+ to be more of a community site than a social network. It also retired the G+ account as a requirement to register for services like Google Play Games and YouTube.
Via: VentureBeat
Source: Google
What’s on your HDTV: Olympics, ‘Bound,’ ‘Fear the Walking Dead’
This week we’re kicking back and enjoying the second week of Rio 2016, complete with track and field action, at last. Other notable options for our TVs this week include Bound and Inversus on PS4, while AMC brings back Fear the Walking Dead Sunday night, and Netflix premieres a couple of documentaries with Fearless and I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead. On Blu-ray, one of my favorite movies is finally available on Blu-ray in the US: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. Look after the break to check out each day’s highlights, including trailers and let us know what you think (or what we missed).
Blu-ray & Games & Streaming
- The Angry Birds Movie (4K, 3D)
- The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
- Gotham (S2)
- Once Upon a Time (S5)
- God’s Not Dead 2
- Session 9
- American Ninja
- Elvis
- Patch Adams
- The Vampire Diaries (S7)
- Hell on Wheels (S5)
- Bound (PS4)
- Inversus (PC, PS4)
- Return Zero VR (PC)
- F1 2016 (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
Monday
- 2016 Summer Olympics, NBC, 8PM
- So You Think You Can Dance, Fox, 8PM
- WWE Raw, USA, 8PM
- The Fosters, Freeform, 8PM
- Chris Harris on Cars, BBC America, 9PM
- Guilt, Freeform, 9PM
- Rizzoli & Isles, TNT, 9PM
- The Making of the Mob, AMC, 10PM
- Are You the One? (season finale), MTV, 10PM
- Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, TBS, 10:30PM
Tuesday
- Difficult People, Hulu, 3AM
- Casual, Hulu, 3AM
- 2016 Summer Olympics, NBC, 8PM
- WWE Smackdown, USA, 8PM
- Pretty Little Liars, Freeform, 8PM
- Zoo, CBS, 9PM
- Dead of Summer, Freeform, 9PM
- Music Moguls (season finale), BET, 9PM
- Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the LA Rams, HBO, 10PM
- Scream (season finale), MTV, 10PM
Wednesday
- Chelsea, Netflix 3AM
- Penn & Teller: Fool Us, CW, 8PM
- 2016 Summer Olympics, NBC, 8PM
- Unsung: Monifah (summer premiere), TV One, 8PM
- Big Brother, CBS, 8PM
- Suits, USA, 9PM
- American Gothic, CBS, 9PM
- Dating Naked, VH1, 9PM
- My Last Days (series premiere), CW, 9PM
- The Night Shift, NBC, 9PM
- Catfish, MTV, 10PM
- Mr. Robot, USA, 10PM
- Tyrant, FX, 10PM
- Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons, HBO, 10PM
- Another Period (season finale), Comedy Central, 10PM
- American Gothic, CBS, 10PM
- Unlocking the Truth (series premiere), MTV, 11PM
Thursday
- 2016 Summer Olympics, 8PM
- Big Brother, CBS, 9PM
- My Last Days, CW, 9PM
- Ripper Street, BBC America, 10PM
- Lip Sync Battle, Spike TV, 10PM
- Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, FX, 10PM
- Queen of the South, USA, 10PM
Friday
- I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, Netflix, 3AM
- Fearless, Netflix, 3AM
- Bottersnikes and Gumbles, Netflix, 3AM
- 2016 Summer Olympics, NBC, 8PM
- Big Brother, CBS, 8PM
- My Last Days (season finale), CW, 9PM
- Killjoys, Syfy, 9PM
- Dark Matter, Syfy, 10PM
- Ridiculousness, MTV, 10PM
- Superstore, NBC, 10:30PM
- The Eric Andre Show, Cartoon Network, 12AM
Saturday
- 2016 Summer Olympics, NBC, 8PM
- Boy in the Attic, Lifetime, 8PM
- Rush Hour (series finale), CBS, 8PM
- Boston EMS, ABC, 10PM
Sunday
- 2016 Summer Olympics, NBC, 8PM
- Celebrity Family Feud, ABC, 8PM
- Big Brother, CBS, 8PM
- $100,000 Pyramid, ABC, 9PM
- Fear the Walking Dead (summer premiere), AMC, 9P<
- Inspector Lewis (series finale), PBS, 9PM
- The Night of, HBO, 9PM
- Ray Donovan, Showtime, 9PM
- Power, Starz, 9PM
- Survivor’s Remorse, Starz, 10PM
- Braindead, CBS, 10PM
- Ballers, HBO, 10PM
- Roadies, Showtime, 10PM
- The Jim Gaffigan Show (season finale), TV Land, 10PM
- The Tunnel (season finale), PBS, 10PM
- Murder in the First, TNT, 10PM
- Talking Dead, AMC, 10:30PM
- Geeking Out, AMC, 11:59PM
- Vice Principals, HBO, 10:30PM
- Tunnel, PBS, 10:30PM
- Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, HBO, 11PM
(All times listed are ET)
Battlefield 1 public beta: EA announces when you can play
Electronic Arts has announced Battlefield 1 will have a public beta, meaning you’ll get to play and test the game before it launches this autumn.
The public beta will kick off 31 August for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC players. All you need to do to play the beta is become a Battlefield Insider, which is free to join before 21 August, and then you’ll be granted access to the beta when it launches. In the first-person shooter’s beta, you’ll experience historical combat and play popular game modes like Rush and Conquest.
Battlefield 1 follows Battlefield 4 but is confusingly titled Battlefield 1. It will release for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC on 21 October and is set during World War I, allowing you to fight in the air and on the ground in countries like France, Italy, and elsewhere. If you recall, the Battlefield franchise began as a World War II fighting game when it was launched in 2002, so EA is basically taking things back with Battlefield 1.
In a blog post, EA described why it chose World War I as the setting for the game: “With Battlefield 1 we set out to create some of the largest create, most dynamic battles in FPS history while continuing to tap into what fans love most about the franchise. One of the things that makes World War I such an amazing era is just how advanced it really was […] Tanks, planes, machine guns, artillery – a lot of the tech you’ve used in other Battlefield games was perfected during this era, letting the classic Battlefield DNA shine through.”
Battlefield 1 has a single-player mode as well as online multiplayer, and it will let you join 64-player battles. Watch the game’s latest trailer below to see all sorts of World War I horror featured throughout, including global-scale conflict, tanks, trucks, and plenty of zeppelins.
Samsung Galaxy Note 7 pre-orders open: £699 SIM free and more
The time has come to get your pre-order in for the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, the phone tipped to be one of the hottest that 2016 has on offer.
With the UK missing out on the Note 5, there are plenty of people eagerly awaiting the arrival of Samsung’s latest. While the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge is tempting, the lure of USB Type-C, an HDR display at 5.7-inches and the flexibility of the S Pen, takes the Note 7 to a new dimension.
Pre-orders for the Galaxy Note 7 have now opened, so you can get in line to secure one of the hottest phones of the year.
- Samsung Galaxy Note 7 vs Galaxy Note 3: What’s the difference?
- Samsung Galaxy Note 7: Release date, specs and everything you need to know
- Samsung Galaxy Note 7 vs Note 5 vs Note 4: What’s the difference?
- Best Galaxy Note 7 cases: Protect your new Samsung device
- 5 reasons why the new Samsung Gear VR (2016) is the best mobile headset by far
Carphone Warehouse has confirmed that the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 will be available for £699 SIM free, but you’ll get a free Gear VR headset with that. This is the new Gear VR, designed for this new handset and powered by Oculus. If you pre-order from Carphone Warehouse, you’ll get your handset 3 days early. Click here for all the details on the Carphone Warehouse offer.
Carphone Warehouse has confirmed that they will be demoing the Note 7 in store for those who want to know more and that it will be hitting shelves on 2 September.
We’ll update you with any other Samsung Galaxy Note 7 deals that appear during pre-order.
Snapchat buys a search and discovery app for $100 million
Snapchat has grown up quite a bit in the past year, from adding original content from the likes of NBC to introducing Memories, an option for a more permanent archive of photos. Now it could be venturing into search as well. The Information has reported that the company is in the middle of acquiring Vurb, a search and recommendation app, for more than $100 million.
Vurb works with a slew of third parties like Fandango and Uber to ramp up the traditional search and discovery experience. So, for example, searching for a nearby restaurant will bring up a Yelp review along with a link to Uber so you can order a car to get there. It can even tie in recommendations based on the time of day, the weather and your location.
It’s unclear on what Snapchat plans to do with the acquisition, but a Snapchat take on search and discovery could potentially be pretty powerful. The Information theorizes that Vurb could let users link in media and maps in their Snaps or recommend Stories and media to each other. One of the biggest complaints against Snapchat is that discovery — finding people to follow — is pretty difficult, so Vurb could be a way to improve that.
Source: The Information
