details – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Discord makes video chat and screen sharing available to all

As promised, Discord is rolling out video chat and screen share to its entire user base. Some of you may recall that the Slack-style gaming chat app began testing the highly-requested features in August. During the trial run, they were available to around 5 percent of members. Now, anyone can take advantage of video chat in one-to-one calls, or with up to ten people in a direct messaging group. You also have the option to switch between your webcam video and screen share. And, the update includes picture-in-picture support, allowing you to video chat while checking out other stuff (like servers or DMs). With 45 million users and counting, the latest changes should see Discord swipe more gamers from Skype and TeamSpeak. Back when the test phase was announced , Discord revealed users could experience a drop in quality when video chatting in groups of more than five. But we’re assuming it ironed out those issues ahead of the proper launch. Aside from the video chat rollout, it’s also fixed a bunch of bugs that were affecting things like text, emoji, and the mute option. You can browse the details for yourself here . Source: Discord (Medium)

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Discord makes video chat and screen sharing available to all

Acer’s new Predator gaming laptop may actually be portable

What’s the point of getting a powerful laptop if you can’t drag it to a gaming party? Acer’s latest back-to-school update for its Predator series of laptops , the Triton 700, may actually be portable enough for those trips. It packs the latest NVIDIA graphics chips and an advanced dual-fan cooling system into a chassis that’s just 18.9mm (or 0.75 inches) tall. Acer hasn’t shared many other details about the notebook yet, except to say that it will be ready for the back-to-school season this summer. Folks who don’t need quite as premium a system can consider the new Nitro 5 laptop, which offers NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1050 or 1050Ti graphics and the company’s CoolBoost cooling system. Again, at its New York presentation, the company didn’t dwell very long on each product, so other details about the laptop are scant, and we’ll update this post as we get more later from our hands-on. For those who prefer to invest in their at-home battle stations, Acer also unveiled a 27-inch 4K gaming monitor called the Predator X27. It boasts a 144Hz refresh rate, 4ms response time and uses Quantom Dot technology for better image quality while saving energy. The X27, like many of its rivals, supports NVIDIA’s G-Sync HDR technology for smoother streams with higher definition and contrast. We’ll be taking a closer look at Acer’s gaming lineup for 2017 later, so check back here for more information. Edgar Alvarez contributed to this report.

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Acer’s new Predator gaming laptop may actually be portable

In the Details: Making a Smart Ring That Women Would Actually Want to Wear

Last April, we wrote about Logbar’s Ring , a smart-jewelry concept that aims to provide gesture control of a host of smartphone apps (and that raised more than $880, 000 dollars on Kickstarter). But Logbar is hardly the only company competing for this wearables niche. In June, Ringly announced a pre-sale for its own smartphone-connected ring, and hit its sales goal of $60, 000 in just eight hours. Clearly, some people really want a smart ring. Where Ring promises magic wand–style controls, Ringly is more about discreet notifications. The company’s CEO, Christina Mercando, came up with the idea for the device after missing a series of important calls, messages and appointments. “I started asking around and noticing other women having similar problems, ” she says, “so I set out to create a solution that I was also proud to wear.” Through colleagues at her previous employer, the collective-intelligence startup Hunch, Mercando was introduced to Logan Munro, an MIT-educated engineer who became Ringly’s co-founder. Together, they worked on creating a device that was, first and foremost, aesthetically pleasing. “The entire idea around Ringly was to create technology that was small and discreet and incorporate it into beautiful jewelry and accessories, ” Mercando says. “We wanted people to fall in love with the design first and then get excited about what it can do.” (more…)