gaming – Page 13 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Amazon’s high-end Kindle Oasis is sleek, sharp and pricey

Jeff Bezos probably wasn’t pleased to see his surprise spoiled this week, but e-book fans still have reason to get pumped. Amazon just pulled back the curtain on its new premium reader, the Kindle Oasis, and it’s the slimmest and sleekest model the company has ever cooked up. Of course, with a price tag starting at $289.99 (£269.99), it’s also one of the most expensive. To hear Amazon tell the tale, all the decisions were made with one goal in mind: to let the hardware itself almost disappear from view and readers lose themselves in their stories. “We’re not going to be happy until we’ve got this magic sheet of paper that contains all the books in the world, ” quipped Chris Green, VP of industrial design at Amazon’s Lab126. “Edge-to-edge, all content, no device. And when we get there, I might be out of a job.” Realizing that ideal is going to take a while, but the Oasis is a fascinating step in that direction. To get the Oasis as light and sturdy as it is, Amazon took a plastic chassis and electroplated with a special metal alloy. I’m told it’s a pricey process, which no doubt reflects in the Oasis’s steep asking price, but the end result weighs in at a paltry 4.6 ounces. The company also used a startlingly thin Paperwhite display and fitted even more LEDs along one side for brighter, more consistent lighting. Amazon let me toss a few books onto their demo Oasis, and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World looked fantastically crisp on it. That said, don’t expect the Oasis to be any sharper than current models: it runs at the same 300PPI resolution as the Kindle Voyage and new Paperwhite . So, the screen is still pretty great. The Oasis’s design, on the other hand, is… pretty divisive. Most of it is incredibly thin — think 3.4mm — with a flared edge meant to nestle into your palm. The asymmetric look takes a little getting used to, certainly, but let’s not forget that Amazon is no stranger to asymmetry. Remember how kooky the original Kindle looked ? Anyway, after using it for about a half hour, I’m down with Amazon’s deign decision. I’ve always gripped (or tried to grip) my e-readers with one hand, and the Oasis’s odd look is perfect for it. Its hump has a nice angle to it that’s easy to hang onto, and the larger bezel — where two physical page-turn buttons also live — is spacious enough to accommodate by fat thumb without letting meat spill over onto the screen. The Oasis is also the first Kindle with an accelerometer, so lefties can turn the thing over and use it just fine. Alas, it’s still not waterproof. Amazon wouldn’t comment on future plans when I asked, but one of the Kindle’s designers seemed very well versed on what it takes to waterproof a gadget — make of that what you will. That slimness comes with a price — the Oasis by itself has a battery that’ll last about two weeks on a single charge, down from the nearly six weeks the Voyage gets. To help, Amazon crafted a leather-backed case that houses an additional battery that adds about seven weeks to the Oasis’s modest battery life. Don’t worry: it’s free and comes in the Oasis’s box. Slap the cover onto the Oasis and it automatically starts charging, and if you charge the Kindle while the case is connected, both charge at the same time. Throw a new hibernation mode into the mix and the combined Kindle-and-case can sit untouched for even longer without needing a charge — perfect for when the pull of paper books is too hard to resist. You’ll be able to pre-order an Oasis of your very own starting today, with your choice of black, merlot or walnut leather cover. What remains to be seen is whether anyone but full-tilt e-reading fanatics should invest in an Oasis — stay tuned for a full verdict in the weeks to come.

See the article here:
Amazon’s high-end Kindle Oasis is sleek, sharp and pricey

Ticketmaster will start selling tickets on Facebook this month

You can already buy things on Facebook, and later this month, you’ll be able to snag concert tickets without leaving the site, too. Ticketmaster VP Dan Armstrong told BuzzFeed in an interview that the ticket retailer would begin selling admission to live music and other events through the social network’s site and mobile app before April’s end. While Ticketmaster isn’t the first to coordinate purchases from Facebook, making tickets to events available on the social channel seems like a good move for both companies. Facebook users already RSVP to events on the regular, so there’s certainly a convenience in having the tickets easily accessible there. You know, so you can catch up when one of your pals RSVPs to a show you either didn’t know about or forgot was coming to town. It also keeps you on Facebook longer rather than having to head elsewhere to complete the transaction. As you might expect, Ticketmaster is hoping the integration will lead to more ticket sales. Details are scarce on exactly how the process will work, but BuzzFeed does mention that Facebook stands to collect “a standard affiliate fee” from each purchase. We’ll have to wait and see if that will affect those pesky service charges, but you will still have to claim any tickets you buy from the Ticketmaster site after the initial transaction. To start, the option will be limited to a select few general admission events, so it could be a while before you can use the feature to grab all of your concert tickets. And when it’s time to head home afterwards, just fire up Facebook Messenger to hail a ride . Source: BuzzFeed

Original post:
Ticketmaster will start selling tickets on Facebook this month

Hitachi’s answer to Pepper the robot is swifter and sturdier

Look out, Pepper : you have some fresh competition. Hitachi has unveiled EMIEW3, its first humanoid assistant robot built for full-fledged commercial service. Like its SoftBank-made counterpart, it’s designed to help you find your way around stores and public facilities. It’s particularly focused on tourists, as it can switch languages on the fly. However, its edge may simply be its ability to cope with real-world situations. It’s much faster than Pepper (3.7MPH versus 1.2MPH), so it’s more likely to keep up with humans; it can also get back up if it falls down, and listen to you in noisy street environments. The machine also reflects a lot of lessons learned from its predecessor and beyond. For instance, it knows to slow down near corners so that it won’t smack into someone. It identifies people asking for help, too, and will approach on its own. Its biggest drawback is simply that it’s not as personable as Pepper (you’re just looking at a pair of expressionless eyes), and doesn’t have a built-in display to show information. It’s going to be a while before you see EMIEW3 in service, as Hitachi doesn’t expect it to be ready until 2018. However, Hitachi has grand ambitions for its third-generation hardware. It’s hoping to offer the new robot beyond Japan, so you might just witness this little helper guiding you through offices and stores in your corner of the world. Via: Nikkei , I4U Source: Hitachi

More:
Hitachi’s answer to Pepper the robot is swifter and sturdier

Facebook Live gets a discovery section and instant reactions

Facebook Live is set to make a splashy launch of new sharing- and discovery-centric features with appearances by Mark Zuckerberg and product chief Chris Cox. The social network is looking to tap its billion-plus user advantage and built-in social and group features to gain an edge on rivals like Periscope . As such, it has revealed new features like live streaming within groups and events, real-time reactions, invitations to watch video with friends and a live map showing video in 60 countries. The biggest and most logical feature is the ability to broadcast live within groups and events . If you’re putting on a concert, race or charitable event, for example, it makes infinite sense to be able to stream key moments to members. You’ve already got a captive audience, so friends and family who are subscribed but can’t make it in person can still experience the fun at a distance. If you feel the need to express yourself without commenting, Facebook also revealed live reactions for videos. As shown above, you can drop in one of the new emoticons (love, haha, wow, sad or angry) with each popping up on the screen in real time. In addition, if you’re only able to catch a Facebook Live replay, you’ll see comments and reactions pop up during the video as if it were live. On the discovery side, Facebook unveiled “Live Video Destinations” on mobile. That’s a dedicated section where you can find popular streams and live video from friends or folks and topics you’re interested in. It lets you search live and recorded videos and stream your own instantly with a “go live” button. Desktop users, meanwhile, get “Facebook Live Map, ” a button that helps you find live video in 60 countries around the world. If you want watch with a friend, every stream now gets an “invite” button, as well. Facebook may have jumped late into live video well after rivals like YouTube, Periscope and Meerkat, but it’s certainly a high priority now. The company pushes live video to the top of your feeds and notifies you about new streams, though you can now turn those off , thankfully. With product head Chris Cox and Zuck himself involved in the latest Facebook Live feature push, expect live streams to become an even larger part of your feeds. The features will roll out over the next few weeks.

Roku’s new $50 stick fits a quad-core CPU in a smaller frame

Roku’s last Streaming Stick was plenty of things: Compact, inexpensive and perfect for bringing on vacation. But you wouldn’t call it fast, per se. That’s something Roku aimed to fix with the latest version of the Streaming Stick, which packs in a quad-core CPU to deliver eight times the processing power of its predecessor. Even more impressive, this new Stick is almost as small as a USB flash drive and it’s still $50. While the company won’t speak about any RAM or storage improvements, reps say they’ve tweaked the device’s antennas for better reception. It doesn’t support 802.11ac WiFi yet, but you can at least get 5Ghz 802.11n. The new Stick sports Roku OS 7.1, which offers a few improvements when it comes to following movies and TV shows. There’s also a slightly redesigned remote, which is a bit smaller than Roku’s last few remotes. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a headphone jack or voice control support. On the bright side, the new Roku mobile app offers both of those features. The ability to stream audio from whatever you’re watching right from your phone, in particular, looks particularly handy for all Roku users. In a brief demonstration with the Roku Stick sitting in an enclosed A/V cabinet, it was noticeably snappier than the previous model. Simple things like navigating around menus quickly, or scrolling through Netflix titles, was almost as smooth as the more powerful Roku 4 . As a frustrated owner of the last Stick, this one looks like an improvement in just about every way. The new Roku Stick is up for preorder today, and it will hit stores later this month.

Follow this link:
Roku’s new $50 stick fits a quad-core CPU in a smaller frame

Inside Meow Wolf, the amusement park for people who want a weirder Disneyland

A view from the enchanted forest, showing all the stairs and crawl spaces that you can explore. (credit: Meow Wolf) SANTA FE, NM—The Meow Wolf art complex looks like a strip mall from another dimension. Located in downtown Santa Fe, its massive main building—a former bowling alley—is covered in zig-zagging lines of explosive color. The parking lot is dominated by towering metal sculptures of a spider and a robot. Its landlord is George RR Martin, author of the Game of Thrones series, and its tenants are a high-tech artist collective called Meow Wolf, known previously for building a full-scale spaceship that visitors could explore . On March 17, after nearly two years of construction, the Meow Wolf art complex opened its riotously painted doors and invited the public in to its first permanent exhibit, called The House of Eternal Return . Think of it as a walk-in science fiction novel built with milling machines, thermoplastic, and Arduinos. Or maybe it’s a cross between Disneyland and a massive, multiplayer, IRL game . Built by 135 artists and makers, the result is a 20,000-square-foot dreamworld where your goal is to figure out why an old Victorian house in Mendocino, California, has become ground zero for a rupture in space-time that’s allowing other dimensions to leak into ours. I took a tour of the Meow Wolf art complex in the final few days before it opened, when dozens of artists and fabricators were working around the clock to finish building what I can only describe as something I never imagined could exist. My tour guides were artist Lauren Oliver, whose magnificent space owl can be found in the dreamscape of Eternal Return, and technology project lead Corvas Brinkerhoff. They fitted me with a hard hat and took me into a building that was once a bowling alley. Now it’s another world. Read 27 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Huge data leak reveals the hidden wealth of the rich and famous

In one of the biggest data leaks ever (even larger than the NSA wires leak in 2013 ), Panama-based legal firm Mossack Fonseca has seen 2.6 terabytes of its private data leaked to journalists. Shared with German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung , it was then spread to a wider network of journalists globally — 370 reporters from 100 media organizations have looked into the leak for a year. The research has already unearthed that 12 national leaders, including monarchs, presidents and prime ministers, have been using offshore tax havens, including a $2 billion paper trail that leads to Russia’s Vladimir Putin . Meanwhile, FIFA’s attempts to clean itself up faces fresh criticism after the leak appears to connect executives being investigated to members of the ethics committee itself. The sheer volume of data means that files are still being pored over, although you can attempt to follow along with this Reddit thread . It sheds light on the huge, lucrative, complex world of offshore finance and special tax laws. Mossack Fonseca is the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, meaning that the leak has plenty of new information and insight globally, from Russia’s rich to property developers in Hong Kong , Lionel Messi and politicians across the world . There’s a big focus on the UK too: more than half of the companies are either registered there or in British-administered tax havens. The company denies any accusations of wrongdoing. Source: The Guardian , Reddit

Homebrew self-driving tech gets millions in backing

George “Geohot” Hotz’s attempt to put cheap, self-driving tech into any existing car raised eyebrows (and Tesla’s ire) when it was revealed late last year. Now, one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capital funds is throwing its wallet behind Hotz’s grand idea. Andreessen Horowitz has written a check for $3.1 million to help Hotz hire engineers and turn his jury-rigged system into a working product. He’s joining some illustrious company, since the fund has previously handed cash to outfits like Oculus VR, Zynga, Instagram, Groupon, Jawbone and something called Twitter. Those with long memories will know Hotz from his days as Geohot, the hacker that cracked the iPhone and PlayStation 3 . The engineer has founded a company, Comma, on the principle that cheap sensors and machine learning makes it possible to make a system for a few thousand bucks. It’s a claim that Tesla was quick to trash, saying that while it’s easy to build a system for a “known stretch of road, ” a real self-driving car is a much harder proposition. Still, if the folks at Horowitz are opening their bank accounts, even slightly, then they must feel differently. Source: Chris Dixon

Read the original:
Homebrew self-driving tech gets millions in backing

FCC expands Lifeline to help low-income Americans afford internet

Today the FCC voted 3-2 to approve expanding its Lifeline program that has subsidized phone and prepaid wireless access for low-income Americans since the 80s, so that now it covers internet access too. The $9.25 household subsidy is paid directly to service providers, and now it can be applied to standalone internet access, or bundled voice/data service. There are requirements for the services provided, like a minimum 150GB monthly usage cap, as well as minimums for mobile broadband usage and cellphone voice minutes. The point here is to shrink the “digital divide” between households that can and cannot afford internet access, as necessary elements for education, job-hunting, health care and more increasingly move online. The vote was not without political drama however, as it was held up for several hours before eventually the commissioners voted along party lines. Deliberative process did work. At 10:30 we had bipartisan agreement. Chairman Wheeler delayed meeting to work to blow it up! — Matthew Berry (@matthewberryfcc) March 31, 2016 A proposed compromise to get a unanimous vote including Republican commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O’Reilly would’ve put a hard $2 billion per year cap on spending (funding for the program comes from a fee placed on consumer’s phone bills). That did not come to fruition, as Pai’s chief of staff Matthew Berry told reporters that the chairman Tom Wheeler pressured fellow commissioner Mignon Clyburn to back off of the compromise deal — which both Wheeler and Clyburn denied. The plan adopted has a soft cap of $2.25 billion per year, which could be adjusted as necessary. According to the LA Times , the program spent $1.5 billion last year, after peaking at $2.2 billion in 2012. Source: FCC

More:
FCC expands Lifeline to help low-income Americans afford internet

Windows 10’s Anniversary Update arrives this summer

Just because Microsoft is less focused on monolithic Windows releases doesn’t mean it’s forgetting to deliver big upgrades. The company has used Build 2016 to announce an Anniversary Update for Windows 10 that brings some hefty improvements. For one, it brings Windows Hello’s biometric authentication to all kinds of apps, including the Edge browser — you can sign into a website with your fingerprint. Pen support also gets its due with a sticky note app, a sketchpad and virtual drawing tools like a ruler and a stencil. The upgrade brings more advanced gestures and pen input, too, such as erasing words by striking them out. The Anniversary Update arrives this summer, so it shouldn’t be too long before you can give its features a try. Get all the news from today’s Microsoft Build keynote right here , and follow along with our liveblog ! Free for everyone running #Windows10 : the Anniversary Update arrives this summer. #Build2016 pic.twitter.com/pTbtutRNvy — Windows (@Windows) March 30, 2016

Visit site:
Windows 10’s Anniversary Update arrives this summer