Tag: videos

The gorgeous faces and stunning cinematography of ‘Until Dawn’

The PlayStation 4’s latest exclusive Until Dawn is absolutely stunning visually. In particular? Its faces. By using 3D performance capture techniques that include strapping an HD camera rig attached to their heads to grab practically every minute detail and expression, the actors (including Hayden Panettiere and Peter Stormare) bring life to the characters in a pretty realistic fashion. What’s really cool is that oftentimes once you let the DualShock 4 sit idle for a moment, the camera will zoom in on the face of whichever of the randy teens you’re controlling. If motion controls are enabled, you can tilt the gamepad this way and that and the possibly-doomed cabeza will follow suit accordingly. It’s pretty neat! Slideshow-314565 Sadly, Until Dawn is severely lacking a proper photo mode though. I never thought I’d praise a game’s cinematography, but I was consistently wowed by how every scene was composed and framed during my playthrough. Those sometimes-annoying camera angles, combined with just how good the game looks, scream for the ability to futz with exposure, saturation and depth of field adjustments for even more stunning, shareable shots. Seriously. Take a gander at the gallery below and try telling me that something like The Last of Us: Remastered ‘s or Infamous: Second Son ‘s digital dark-rooms couldn’t make the screenshots look even cooler and more desktop-image worthy. Slideshow-314571 Filed under: Gaming , Home Entertainment , HD , Sony Comments Tags: 3dMotionCapture, cinematography, faces, gallery, gaming, HaydenPanettiere, hd, hdpostcross, PerformanceCapture, PeterStormare, photogrpahy, PlayStation, playstation4, ps4, sony, supermassivegames, untildawn

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The gorgeous faces and stunning cinematography of ‘Until Dawn’

PSA: Apple will replace your iPhone 6 Plus’ wonky camera

Did you buy an iPhone 6 Plus sometime between last September and this January? Do you notice that your shots taken with its back camera come out all blurry? Yeah, it’s not just you . Turns out, a limited number of these phones shipped with a manufacturing defect. However, Apple is aware of the issue and has already begun issuing replacements for the iSight camera. If you think that you have one of these borked units, go to this website and type in your phone’s serial number. If your unit is part of that bad batch, Apple will replace the camera (not the entire phone) at no charge. Also, if you’re rocking one of the 4.7-inch iPhone 6’s , don’t worry; none of those units suffered from the defect. [Image Credit: Getty Images] Filed under: Cellphones , Cameras , Wireless , Mobile , Apple Comments Via: 9to5Mac Source: Apple Support Tags: apple, iphone, iphone6, iphone6plus, isight, mobilepostcross, PSA

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PSA: Apple will replace your iPhone 6 Plus’ wonky camera

Chatroulette users stumble into a live-action zombie shooter

Chatroulette often brings surprises, but usually not good ones. However, several users were recently greeted with an amazing real life, live-streaming Doom-style first person shooter ( FPS ) game complete with undead characters and a creepy graveyard setting. To play, they talked the hero character through the scenes, giving commands like “Run! Run, fat boy, run!”, “Go for the head shot!” or “Check what’s in that pot!” The “game” was replete with sound effects, blood and guns, including a “rhino turret” and rocket launcher. The reaction of the players was beyond hilarious, with many adapting surprisingly quickly to the scenario (“Hit him again to make sure he’s dead!”). The UK production team from Realm Pictures released a companion making-of video, and it’s hard to believe they only spent £900 (about $1, 450) on the whole thing. There were video and sound effects experts who did their stuff on-the-fly, along with makeup people, a gun touch-up painter (they used nerf guns), and a cosplayer. The main actor wore a motorcycle helmet with a GoPro camera, light and Teradek HDMI transmitter. 30 intrepid extras from a nearby town played the zombies. The producers added plenty of on-the-nose FPS touches like overly-dramatic gun-cocking, comic health avatars and useless hand gestures. The show’s director, who also played the hero witih a Batman-style voice, tried to lead players into making the correct decisions. Many didn’t catch on, resulting in a gruesome death, but those with some experience in the genre eventually got to the final scenario, an encounter with the “Boss.” You’ll definitely want to see how that plays out below. Filed under: Gaming Comments Via: Reddit Source: Realm Pictures (YouTube) Tags: Chatroulette, FirstPersonShooter, FPS, live-action, livestream, omegle, RealmPictures, video

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Chatroulette users stumble into a live-action zombie shooter

‘Final Fantasy VII’ lands on iOS with built-in cheat codes

If you can’t find your old PSOne discs, don’t want the PC version and don’t have a PS4 , there’s now one more way to play Final Fantasy VII : on your iPhone . Today Square Enix launched the classic jRPG for devices running iOS 8.0 and up. At its core, this release is a simple port of the PC version of the game, but developers have made a few minor tweaks to the title palatable on the small screen. Leveling up won’t be an issue on the mobile version of the game, for instance: the iOS version has a “max stats” command that instantly raises your character’s levels. Your all-powerful party won’t have to deal with time-sucking random battles, either — they can be turned off. Finally, Square Enix has decided not to give the game a customized touch-friendly menu as it has with some of its other mobile Final Fantasy ports, opting to overlay the screen with a virtual joypad instead. Final Fantasy VII for iOS launches today, but it’s on a slow rollout: at the time of this writing, it only seems to be available in New Zealand, for $19.99 NZD (which converts to about $13 in greenbacks). Check out the New Zealand product page here or hit up Square Enix’s official YouTube channel to watch the trailer. Filed under: Gaming , Mobile Comments Source: YouTube , iTunes (1) , (2) Tags: finalfantasy, finalfantasyvii, gaming, ios, iPhone, mobilepostcross, Square-Enix, squareenix, videogames

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‘Final Fantasy VII’ lands on iOS with built-in cheat codes

UK research finds vaping is 95 percent safer than smoking

Vaping just took a huge step forward in its quest for public acceptance. A report published today by Public Health England (PHE), an agency sponsored by the UK’s Department for Health, has concluded that e-cigarettes are 95 percent less harmful than traditional smokes. In addition, it’s recognised their potential to help people quit smoking altogether, and says it looks forward to the day when the NHS can prescribe medicinally regulated devices. “E-cigarettes could be a game changer in public health, in particular by reducing the enormous health inequalities caused by smoking, ” Professor Ann McNeill from King’s College London, and one of the review’s independent authors said. The problem, the research found, is that close to half of the UK population (44.8 percent) isn’t aware that vaping is less harmful than tobacco. In fact, a growing number of people think e-cigarettes are just as dangerous, if not more so than the regular kind — 22.1 percent hold this view in 2015, up from 8.1 percent in 2013. PHE hasn’t suggested that vaping is a healthy pursuit — it’s likely not risk free — but it believes public perception could be stopping smokers from trying e-cigarettes and, eventually, dropping the habit entirely. “Local stop smoking services should look to support e-cigarette users in their journey to quitting completely, ” Professor Kevin Fenton, Director of Health and Wellbeing at PHE said. Legislation due in October will ban under-18s from buying e-cigarettes in the UK, in part because their long-term health effects are still unknown. Today’s report isn’t an all-clear for lifelong vaping, but it could help the technology slowly shake its troubled image . [Image Credit: Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images] Filed under: Misc Comments Source: Public Health England Tags: departmentforhealth, ecigarette, ECigarettes, publichealthengland, vape, vapers, vaping

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UK research finds vaping is 95 percent safer than smoking

Tesla starts testing its autopilot features with Model S drivers

As promised, Tesla’s latest autopilot features are out in the wild. A handful of Model S drivers are now testing the electric car’s upcoming semi-autonomous tech, including highway autosteer (which tackles lanes, passing and vehicle distance) and automatic parallel parking. Ideally, these vehicular pioneers will find the last remaining quirks in both the autopilot’s behavior and its interface — those edge cases that tend to creep up only in the real world. It’s not clear exactly when everyday Model S owners will get their turn, but it’s important to temper expectations. The technology isn’t really a peek at a future dominated by self-driving cars … at least, not yet. You’ll still need to flick the turn signal to pass cars (to indicate intent and absolve Tesla of liability), and the additions won’t help much when you’re stuck in city traffic. Think of this more as a step up from the lane and braking assists that you see on other cars . They’ll eliminate more of the monotony of driving, but there’s no point at which you can completely glaze over. Filed under: Transportation Comments Via: Autoblog Source: IEEE Spectrum , Teslarati Tags: autopilot, car, electriccar, electricvehicle, ev, models, semi-autonomous, tesla, transportation

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Tesla starts testing its autopilot features with Model S drivers

Parallels 11 brings Microsoft’s Cortana to Macs before Siri

The latest version of Parallels, the popular Windows virtualization tool for Mac OS X, almost feels like it’s trolling Apple. One of Parallels 11’s key features, alongside full Windows 10 support, is its ability to put Microsoft’s Cortana right on your OS X desktop. That’s right — you could have a Windows-powered virtual assistant on your Mac long before Siri reaches the desktop. Parallels has already made it possible to run Windows apps directly on your Mac desktop for years with its “Coherence mode, ” but this latest update marks the first time it’s brought over a Windows feature on its own. Slideshow-313636 In a brief demonstration, Parallel’s Cortana feature (which requires a Windows 10 virtual installation, naturally) worked just like it did on Windows 10 proper, with decent voice recognition and no noticeable delays. It can even take advantage of your Mac’s location data, making it practically indistinguishable from a native OS X app. Parallels 11 also packs in the usual performance improvements: It can launch and shut down Windows around 50 percent faster than the last version, and a new “travel mode” can save up to 25 percent of your battery life. But really, the main reason you’d want to upgrade is to put Cortana on your OS X desktop and freak out all your friends. Parallels 11 is available today for $80, though users of the past two versions can upgrade for $50. And if you need more out of your Windows virtual machine, there’s also Parallels 11 for Mac Pro Edition, which will take advantage of that machine’s beefy hardware. It’ll cost you $100 a year, or $50 a year if you’re upgrading from Parallels 9 or 10. Filed under: Software Comments Tags: Cortana, Macs, OSX, Parallels, Parallels11, Windows10

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Parallels 11 brings Microsoft’s Cortana to Macs before Siri

Privacy-focused Blackphone 2 is ready for pre-order

Blackphone 2, the second iteration of Silent Circle’s privacy-focused handset, is now available for pre-order — assuming you don’t mind reserving a device without knowing its price. The original Blackphone was sold at the flagship-level cost of $629, but remember, this one’s more sophisticated than its predecessor, with its front and rear covered in glass. It has a 5.5-inch 1080p display, and inside, it boasts an octa-core processor, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. What makes it different from other phones with similar specs, though, is that it runs an Android-based platform called PrivatOS which includes a suite of secure apps, including ones for encrypted messaging and voice calls. We saw Blackphone 2 at the Mobile World Congress earlier this year, and we have a preview you can read to know a bit more before you pre-order a unit. The device is expected to arrive sometime in September — if you’d rather get the the Blackphone+ tablet, though, you’ll have to wait a bit more, since Silent Circle hasn’t revealed when that one will be available. Filed under: Cellphones , Mobile Comments Via: TechCrunch Source: Silent Circle Tags: blackphone2, mobilepostcross, silentcircle

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Privacy-focused Blackphone 2 is ready for pre-order

The software Stephen Hawking uses to talk to the world is now free

For almost 20 years, Intel has been building technology to help Stephen Hawking communicate with the world — and now the company is making the same software the world renowned physicist uses to write books, give speeches and talk available to everybody . For free. It’s called the Assistive Context-Aware Toolkit (ACAT), and it’s the very same software Intel baked Swiftkey into for Hawkings early last year. Releasing it as open source software was always the plan, giving engineers, developers and researchers a groundwork they can use to create technology that improves the lives of patients with motor neuron disease and other conditions that make using typical computer interfaces impossible. Right now ACAT uses webcam-based face recognition for user control, but Intel says developers can augment it with custom inputs. As is, it still works pretty well: I installed it on a Windows tablet for a quick test run and was able to type simple words by flexing my face muscles in the same manner as Professor Hawking — patiently waiting for the ACAT system to highlight the menu, letter or predictive text word I wanted before moving my cheek. The system can also open documents, browse the web and gives users surprisingly precise cursor control. The base software is available for free on Github , and Intel is hosting a separate site with documentation, videos on features and compatible sensors and a detailed manual to help users get started. If you’re having trouble, you can even contact the project’s lead directly (his email is published on the ACAT website) for help. All in all, the project’s public release is a great step forward to achieving Professor Hawking’s dream of making connected wheelchair and assistive computer technology to every person that needs it. Check out the project’s official Git.Hub page or Intel’s project page at the source link below. [Top image credit: Jason Bye / Alamy] Filed under: Misc , Intel Comments Source: Wired , ACAT , Github Tags: acat, AssistiveTechnology, hawking, intel, stephenhawking

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The software Stephen Hawking uses to talk to the world is now free

NASA’s LADEE confirms the moon’s atmosphere has neon

NASA’s LADEE ran out of fuel and crashed into the lunar surface in 2014, but not before it collected the data needed to answer some decades-old questions about the moon. One of those is confirming that our natural satellite’s atmosphere contains neon — the same gas used to light up signs in Vegas. Astronomers have been speculating about its presence since the Apollo missions, and now LADEE’s Neutral Mass Spectrometer (NMS) instrument has proven that it exists. It’s even relatively abundant, though the moon’s atmosphere is too thin (it’s actually called “exosphere” due to that reason) to turn it into a glowing orb in the sky. NMS has thus proven that the lunar exosphere is composed mostly of helium, argon and neon. Their main source is solar winds, and they fluctuate over time, as well as exhibit peak times throughout the day. LADEE’s data shows, however, that some of the gases in the exosphere come from the moon itself: The decay of radioactive potassium-40 found in lunar rocks gives rise to argon, while thorium and uranium produce helium. As NASA’s Goddard’s Mehdi Benna said: The data collected by the NMS addresses the long-standing questions related to the sources and sinks of exospheric helium and argon that have remained unanswered for four decades. These discoveries highlight the limitations of current exospheric models, and the need for more sophisticated ones in the future. [Image credit: NASA Ames/Dana Berry] Filed under: Science Comments Source: NASA Tags: ladee, moon, nasa

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NASA’s LADEE confirms the moon’s atmosphere has neon