Looking forward to playing FarCry 4 with your friends? Sony says if you buy it for the PlayStation 4, you’ll only need one copy between you. Developing… Filed under: Gaming , Sony Comments

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PS4 owners will be able to play ‘FarCry 4’ with friends who don’t own the game

With revamped policies in the iOS 8 App Store, Candy Crush and other apps that reward you for social sharing could soon be booted. Apps that provide users incentives for sharing on social networks aren’t the only ones to violate Apple’s latest terms and conditions for developers; those that provide in-game credit for watching videos are also under fire, along with apps that promote other apps. Several developers have received rejections that reflect Apple’s new rules, with one individual reporting that a previously approved app was turned down even though he had only added a new skin. According to an Apple rep, his game violated guidelines around in-game credits for watching videos and promoting apps other than one’s own. Other developers have received rejection notices for using social sharing as an incentive. Considering how common these app monetization strategies are, Apple’s policies will have a huge effect on developers. Platforms like Tapjoy, which lets you download an app instead of making an in-game payment, will clearly be affected as well. And while the strengthening of Apple’s ban hammer will help clear the App Store of the apps made just to earn cash, plenty of legit titles could be squashed as well. It’s unclear whether Apple will reinforce its ban retroactively, and — if so — how many big-name titles would be pulled. At WWDC last week, Apple announced several improvements to the App Store in iOS 8, including video previews, developer bundles and a new “Explore” tab for browsing categories and sub-categories of apps. Search is also enhanced, with the ability to see what’s trending. Apple clearly wants these tools to power app discovery rather than developers’ cross-promotion and social sharing incentives. Still, the company isn’t forbidding devs from promoting their apps in other ways. As an app reviewer told one developer who received a rejection notice: “You can advertise your own games via the standard ad networks. However, when you have a ‘More Games’ or ‘Other Games’ you should only market your own games.” Filed under: Internet , Software , Apple Comments Via: MacRumors Source: TechCrunch

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Apple starts banning apps that reward video views and social sharing

What will Panasonic make of this, then? The Japanese manufacturer’s enormous 152-inch 4K set has been superseded by a rival giant — the “Titan Zeus” — which is more than four times the size and triple the price. At a cost of £1 million sterling ($1.6 million), the Zeus also promises a full 4K resolution, but this time stretched out across a 370-inch (8m by 5m) panel that is said to be suitable for both indoor and outdoor domestic use. We can’t really comment on the design or image quality, however, because there are no photos or video showing the mythologically-confused TV in action. The company tells us this is because its first and only private customer for the Zeus has asked for their installation to be kept confidential. Then again, similar sets from Titan have been widely used at public events (such as the Xbox gathering shown above). Thanks to Titan’s partnership with a company called Curb Media, you’ll also be able to see a second Zeus on show at the Cannes film festival this year, where it’ll be displaying World Cup action at the size of an actual football goal. Filed under: Home Entertainment , HD Comments Via: Pocket-lint

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370-inch TV costs more than the mansion you’d need to house it

With plenty of third-party sellers populating its online store, Amazon is well accustomed to playing the middleman for processing transactions. Now the e-tailer’s taking that middleman role one step further; it will now manage monthly subscription payments for companies such as wireless service provider Ting. It’s just the latest move in Amazon’s ongoing effort to overtake PayPal . Amazon users will be able to use their stored credit-card information to make monthly payments at participating sites. For anyone who’s used PayPal, the process will be very familiar; you’ll see a payment button that will pull in your billing info from Amazon to process a transaction. Beyond Ting, it isn’t clear which companies will take advantage of the service, but we’d expect to see digital music services, additional wireless providers and gaming sites. Naturally, Amazon will get a fee for each transaction. For partners, the benefit comes in the form of Amazon’s name, which will theoretically make you feel safer when shopping at little-known web merchants. For many customers, though, privacy concerns remain. VP of seller services Tom Taylor told Reuters that Amazon will only collect the dollar amount of customers’ transactions, rather than information about which items were purchased. In any case, it all depends on customer trust – and a long list of partner merchants – for Amazon to make a dent in PayPal’s business. Filed under: Internet , Amazon Comments Source: Reuters

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Amazon takes on PayPal with subscription-based payments

You may not pay much notice to product trackers like barcodes and RFID tags, but they’re absolutely vital in some fields; they cut back on bootlegging and help police determine the origins of bombs. Worcester Polytechnic Institute may have just delivered a major breakthrough, then, by developing nanoparticle barcodes . The minuscule tracers identify an object by producing a unique thermal signature (those colored lines you see in the photo) when they reach their melting point. As they don’t participate in any chemical reaction, you can integrate them into any item and get a positive ID whenever you like, even if you’re dealing with exploded TNT. The substance would most likely be used to stop counterfeiters, thieves and other shady dealers by making it impossible to erase evidence without destroying any ill-gotten goods. However, the technology might be particularly handy for fighting terrorism. Investigators could easily pinpoint the suppliers of not just explosives, but the chemicals used to make explosives — they could identify the manufacturer (and even the individual store) for the fertilizer in a homemade bomb. The scientists’ stealthy barcodes are a long way from reaching store shelves, if they do at all, but there could be a day when it’s possible to trace virtually any high-value product. [Image credit: Ming Su/Worcester Polytechnic Institute] Filed under: Science Comments Via: BBC , Geek.com Source: Scientific Reports

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Nano barcodes can trace bombs even after they’ve exploded

Following the impressive Razer Blade we reviewed last month, Gigabyte also wants a piece of the portable gaming laptop action with its new Aorus X3 line, a sub-14-inch Windows 8.1 device that claims to be the world’s “most powerful and lightest” in its class. In terms of weight, it starts from 4.12 pounds (1.87kg) which is more attractive than the new Blade’s 4.47 pounds (2.03kg). The smaller X3 has an impressive 13.3-inch QHD (2, 560 x 1, 440) LCD, whereas the larger 13.9-inch X3 Plus lets you choose between a QHD panel and a sweeter QHD+ (3, 200 x 1, 800) version. Both variants of the gaming beast come with Intel’s Core i7-4710HQ (2.5-3.5GHz), 8GB of DDR3L-1600 RAM (with a spare slot for another 8GB) and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M with 6GB of GDDR5 memory. You can have a pair of 256GB or 512GB SSDs configured in RAID 0, meaning you get super fast access to a maximum of 1TB space. Together with the macro keys plus Gigabit LAN connection or 802.11ac WiFi, online gamers should have no problem entertaining themselves with these machines — at least until the 74Wh battery has been drained while gaming on the go. As you can imagine, these gaming laptops don’t come cheap: Both the X3 and the X3 Plus will go from $2, 099 when they launch in Q3 this year, with one-year global warranty plus one-year local warranty included. Filed under: Gaming , Laptops Comments

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Here’s the world’s ‘most powerful and lightest’ 13-inch gaming laptop

Gone are the days when we thought governments could only access our phone calls through official, naive-sounding procedures like “warrants.” Nevertheless, it’s only now, after the whole Snowden / NSA blow-up, that companies like Vodafone are trying to be more transparent. In a 40, 000-word “disclosure report, ” the multinational carrier says that “a small number” out of the 29 countries in which it operates demand to have “direct access to a phone operator’s network, ” thus “bypassing” any control the operator might otherwise have had over the privacy of its customers. Needless to say, Vodafone doesn’t call out any of the culprit nations by name, since doing so would breach the same laws that it agreed to uphold in order to business with them in the first place. This isn’t the first time Vodafone has faced controversy due its dealings with various governments. During the Egyptian revolution of 2011, for example, it sent text messages to all its Egyptian subscribers, supporting the dictatorship of President Mubarak and describing protestors as “criminals.” Even today, Egypt is one of six countries that refuses to let Vodafone publish any information about government wiretaps, alongside India, Qatar, Romania, South Africa and Turkey. (Note: We can’t necessarily infer that these are same countries that insist on having direct eavesdropping access.) To be fair, Vodafone wasn’t the only operator to send dodgy text messages in Egypt, and the company’s new disclosure report emphasizes that it’s simply obeying national laws that other carriers are also forced to stick to. In other words, many phone companies may have sold to their souls, it’s just that Vodafone is now brave enough to give us a glimpse at the receipt. Filed under: Cellphones , Internet , Mobile Comments Via: Reuters Source: The Guardian

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Vodafone admits some governments have free rein to eavesdrop on calls

Amazon’s June 18th event is still mostly shrouded in mystery, but general consensus is that the e-commerce giant is releasing a phone of its own with an interactive 3D interface. Now, TechCrunch claims to have identified the technology behind that feature, and it’s supposedly Omron’s Okao Vision face-sensing system. The Amazon team reportedly customized the Japanese company’s creation so that it can be used to show 3D effects on an ordinary LCD screen without special glasses. Instead of relying on accessories, the software depends on four front cameras embedded on the device’s corners to track the user’s face, as well as on the phone’s accelerometer and gyroscope. For instance, if you tilt your face to one side, the interface shows you a hidden panel you wouldn’t see if you look at the screen from another angle. Besides being able to track faces, Okao Vision (or “Face Vision” in Japanese) can also recognize facial features and determine the user’s gender and ethnicity, though we’ve yet to find out whether Amazon has also integrated those features. We’ve reached out to both Omron and Amazon for confirmation, but in case we never hear back, you can always just start counting down the days until the 18th. Filed under: Cellphones , Mobile , Amazon Comments Source: TechCrunch

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TechCrunch: Amazon’s first phone uses ‘Okao Vision’ for 3D effects

With the sale of Oculus Rift to Facebook for $2 billion , virtual reality has officially become very interesting for developers. One of the companies trying to ride that wave is Control VR , which is ready to launch its gesture control gloves on Kickstarter. Though VR gloves have been around for a long time , so far they’ve been prototypes, DIY projects or very pricey devices used for surgery, robotics and other specialized fields. Control VR is aiming wider, however, with an early backer price of $350. It believes it can hit that number using DARPA-designed microsensors which detect small inertial changes in order to finely track your arms, hands and fingers. That’ll let you control virtual objects like game characters and 3D animations, or even physical devices like robots or military hardware. The development kit will come with 20 free demo apps, and support Windows, Android and Mac operating systems. In addition, the team will supply an open-source SDK to create software for the Oculus Rift , Google Glass and even the Parrot AR drone . As with Oculus, Control VR is targeting consumers as much as it’s targeting businesses. Potential uses include 3D motion capture (including the difficult-to-animate fingers), music composition, design, a control interface for Google Glass and Oculus Rift, a controller for games and apps like Google Earth, and even a drone control interface. While all of this sounds pretty ambitious, the company believes there’s no similar tech that’s close to the same state of readiness. As such, they’re seeking $250, 000 (the same sum originally sought by Oculus) on Kickstarter (update: now live ). A $350 pledge will get you on the early backer’s list and net you a one-arm system with a 7-sensor glove, a one-sensor chest piece, an arm sensor, 20 app demos and the SDK. $600 will get you a two-arm system. If you’re among the first 500 backers of either package, Control VR says you’ll receive it sometime in December of this year, while later backers will receive theirs in January 2015. You can now pledge at the Kickstarter page right here . Update: Control VR’s Kickstarter page is now up after a delay, complete with a new video embedded above. The price for a two-arm kit is $600, not $699 as originally stated. Filed under: Wearables Comments Source: Kickstarter

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These VR gloves will let you control Oculus and more for $350 (updated)