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Showing posts from February 23, 2018

Moleskine’s latest smart pen saves your writing to download later

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Moleskine has valiantly tried to bridge the divide between analog writing and digital files for years. The company released its Smart Writing Set in 2016 as a $200 holistic solution of pen, proprietary smart paper and app that instantly sent whatever you wrote or drew over to your paired device -- which worked as long as your smartphone or tablet was nearby. But its newest writing implement, the $180 Pen+ Ellipse , liberates you from the latter need, saving all your scratchings in an offline mode until it connects to your device again. This could actually be handy for writing in busy situations -- trains, outdoors, in low-light -- where pulling out your device to sync up is cumbersome. Unlike the pen that comes with the Smart Writing Set, the Pen+ Ellipse also has a little clip on the cap to slide on to your favorite notebook -- though, of course, you'll be using a $30 one from Moleskine's Smart Writing Set line, since those are the only ones with the aforementioned Ncode

Amazon secures movie rights for Alafair Burke’s thriller ‘The Wife’

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Amazon Studios is ramping up its efforts in the streaming space lately in a push to focus on bigger movies and television shows. The company hired NBC's Jennifer Salke as its new head executive to take the place of the disgraced Roy Price , and has picked up some high-profile content, like Ian M. Banks' well-regarded Culture novels for a television series. Now Amazon won the rights to Alafair Burke's novel The Wife , which is heavily influenced by the current #MeToo zeitgeist. According to Deadline , Amazon was one of five bidders for the novel, which is Burke's 13th novel. She's also set to write the movie script in a deal that reportedly reached seven figures. Burke is a graduate of Stanford Law, former prosecutor, a professor of criminal law and the daughter of crime novelist James Lee Burke. The Wife came out last month, and revolves around a woman named Angela Powell who finds out that her high-profile celebrity husband has been accused of sexual assault

Facebook removes VR shooting demo from conservative conference

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This week at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference Facebook chose to maintain a booth for attendees that includes an Oculus virtual reality demo. Now This writer Sean Morrow noticed that it included a demo of a shooting game, Bullet Train , where players teleport around a train station killing waves of masked enemies. The timing of the demo came into question as it's so close to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting last week. After the photos surfaced, Facebook VR VP Hugo Barra said that it's part of a standard package, but "In light of the recent events in Florida and out of respect for the victims and their families, we have removed them from this demo." Bullet Train lead programmer Nick Whiting told Engadget in 2015 that in this game, the player is "badass...you can't die. You can grab bullets out of the air and throw them back. You can throw guns at people, and then teleport back and shoot the guy next to them." Whi

Twitch’s live game show ‘Stream On’ premieres March 8th

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Last December, Twitch announced that it would be making a live-streaming reality show, Stream On . In it, Twitch creators who need a boost to make streaming a full-time gig compete against one another in a series of challenges, Survivor -style, for a grand prize of $60,000, delivered across 12 months. Now the details are out, with the live game show set to debut with 14 competitors on March 8th at 3:00 pm PST. With Stream On , you'll get to see up-and-coming Twitch Partners judged on their ability to perform various essential skills for streaming, like motivating viewers with a call to action. You'll also be able to take part via a custom interactive overlay, which will let you vote on who to eliminate after each round. The 14 participants include competitive gamers, of course, but also chefs, musicians and other creative artists, including 88bitmusic, Banzaibaby, CiraCorellia. CookingforN00b, FerociouslySteph, GlanFM, Koibu, MajinTaj, Suchikuchi, thaButtress, TheOnlyRyann,

Nintendo now allows Switch user reviews on game pages

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You no longer have to head to a reseller's site or post a social media diatribe to let others know what you think about a Switch game. Nintendo has updated its website to enable customer reviews on Switch games' product pages -- so long as you sign into your Nintendo Account, you can tell would-be buyers whether or not a title is worth their time. They're not just the usual star ratings and comments, either. Similar to Steam , you can tag your review with qualities that describe a title (such as "kid appropriate" or "challenging") to help people find titles with similar traits. You can even summarize your overall experience with games, whether you're a "core gamer" (read: you play games often) or a parent gauging your child's reaction. The reviews aren't consistently available yet, but they're listed for at least some first- and third-party releases. We've spotted them on Super Mario Odyssey , Legend of Zelda: Breath of

Meanwhile in space: Jupiter looks great and Mars is a dust heap

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Space Here's the most gorgeous space news you need to catch up on. Feast your eyes on these spacey delicacies. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2CF2xXL"

CamSoda’s RubGrub is a pizza-ordering button for your vibrator

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CamSoda , an adult entertainment platform, announced a new product this week that aims to satisfy you in a number of ways. The RubGrub is a 3D-printed button attachment made to fit on a Lovense Nora vibrator. And the idea is that when you're done using the Nora, all you'll have to do is tap the button and the RubGrub will order you a large pizza. It's essentially an Amazon Dash Button meant to fulfill your post-coital cravings. However, it orders you a Domino's pizza, so I hope the time spent with the Nora was more satisfying than your dinner will be. All you have to do is connect your RubGrub to your phone via Bluetooth and plug in your payment and delivery information. Domino's is the only option as of now, but CamSoda says that it plans to add Mexican and Chinese food chain options in the future. You can snag the RubGrub alone for $20 or buy it with a Nora for $120. While RubGrub was developed in collaboration with Lovense , Domino's appears to have had

Microsoft and Xiaomi will pair up on AI-powered speakers and hardware

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In July, Chinese tech giant Xiaomi jumped into the smart speaker race with its answer to Amazon's Alexa and Google Home, the $45 Mi AI -- though it probably won't find its way to American shores, given how had a time it's had penetrating the US and European markets. Today, the company made a different move with artificial intelligence, signing a deal with Microsoft to partner up on projects involving AI, cloud computing and hardware to help the device company expand into other markets. As part of the Memorandum of Understanding, Xiaomi will harness Microsoft's Azure cloud platform to expand services for its users, including data storage and bandwidth. The American tech company will consult the Chinese tech giant on joint marketing and channel support to get Xiaomi's laptops into new international markets. And, of course, partnering will give Microsoft access to Xiaomi's users across the world. And that Mi Speaker? Both companies will see how well it work

A normal person's guide to buying an old film camera

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Gadgets You don't have be an expert (or a hipster) to enjoy analog photography Film photography is fun because it's unpredictable and slow. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2F2Q3ys"

YouTube finally notices Infowars is peddling dangerous conspiracies

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Earlier this week, YouTube took down a video from one of Infowars' channels. It was one of many videos out there claiming that students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are not in fact students and school shooting survivors, but are instead paid "crisis actors." The video, which was titled "David Hogg Can't Remember His lines In TV Interview," was removed by YouTube from the Alex Jones Channel on Wednesday and the platform said it violated its policies against harassment. CNN now reports that this qualifies as one strike against the Infowars channel and if it gets two more within a three-month period, the channel will be terminated. YouTube's policies on harassment and cyberbullying say, "In cases where harassment crosses the line into a malicious attack, it can be reported and the content will be removed." And a YouTube spokesperson told CNN , "Last summer we updated the application of our harassment policy to include hoax vid

Apple's AirPower wireless charging mat could launch in March

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Apple may be close to launching another one of the numerous products it teased last year. Sources talking to both MacOtakara and the Apple Post have claimed that the company's AirPower wireless charging mat should ship sometime in late March, about half a year after its September premiere. This would reportedly include the wireless charging case for AirPods , too. You might have to buy the case directly from Apple if you're upgrading an existing pair of earbuds, but multiple stores would sell a version of the AirPods with the wireless charging case included. It's not clear why Apple needed the extra time to ready the AirPower mat, but it might have something to do with the Apple Watch . Although at least a few Qi chargers will top up an Apple Watch, the wristwear wasn't really designed for it -- according to MacOtakara , the AirPower Mat has to use a "special wave" to detect the watch. Combine that with the mat's signature (though not completely un

Dropbox's IPO filing reveals 500M users but a $1 billion deficit

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In a move reminiscent of Snap's IPO journey , Bloomberg sources claimed last month that Dropbox had quietly filed to become a public company. Suspicious hires last year had tipped their hand, and we waited to see what would happen for a company valued over $10 billion a few years ago. Today, Dropbox's IPO filing surfaced , and while we still don't know what day its stock will hit the market, their documentation pulls back a bit of the veil on the company's situation as it gears up to go public. BREAKING: Dropbox files for IPO. https://t.co/jn8limUSe7 — CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) February 23, 2018 Per the filing itself , Dropbox has over 500 million registered users but only 11 million of those are paying subscribers. Some might sign up multiple times for multiple accounts, so the number of unique users is certainly lower. Ultimately, the company admits in the document, "a majority of our registered users may never convert to a paid subscription to our platform.&

Android users may get an official dark mode in a future update

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Keen Android users who’ve been following a somewhat obscure Google Issue Tracker thread from November of last year are celebrating a new development: the thread, in which a user asked about a dark mode to improve battery life on Android phones with OLED screens, has been closed. The issue was marked “fixed,” and the Google employee who initially responded in the thread saying he would bring the feedback to the Android engineering team said that the “engineering team has added this feature,” noting how “it will be available in a future Android release.” The change, which users responded to quite enthusiastically, was spotted by DroidLife , which reported the news earlier today. It’s not clear when this dark mode will debut, or whether it... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2sMB9rb"

Dropbox files to go public 10 years after launch

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A decade after it was founded, Dropbox has filed to go public. The beloved, easy-to-use (if somewhat stagnant) file syncing service had documents unsealed at the SEC today revealing plans for an initial public offering, where Dropbox is looking to raise up to $500 million. The company will trade on Nasdaq under the symbol “DBX.” Some details we’re learning about Dropbox thanks to its first public filing: the company’s revenue has been increasing for the past three years, growing from $603 million in 2015 to $1.1 billion last year. And while the company lost money overall all of those years, it’s been losing less and less, falling from a loss of $326 million in 2015 to $111.7 million last year. Dropbox has done very well over the past two... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2GEx4Yh"

1Password now lets you see if your password has been leaked

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If you have a 1Password membership, you can now check to see if your passwords have been compromised by data breaches and leaked on the internet. It's just a proof of concept feature for now, but 1Password says that in future releases, it will be added to Watchtower within 1Password apps. The feature is an integration of Troy Hunt's Pwned Passwords service that includes over 500 million leaked passwords. To use the proof of concept feature now, sign into your account on 1Password.com and click Open Vault. Click on an item in the vault, then Shift-Control-Option-C or Shift+Ctrl+Alt+C depending on your operating system. That unlocks the proof of concept and allows you to click the "Check Password" button next to your password. You can see in the video below what happens next. If your password matches one in Pwned Passwords, 1Password will let you know. If it doesn't, 1Password will tell that you're all good. We want to note that if your password matches on

The Olympic sport most likely to kill you

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Science It's probably not skeleton. Winter sports are notoriously tough on the joints, from skis and snowboards that can tweak legs to the tendon-shredding, cartilage-endangering feats of figure skaters. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2HITAjI"

HTC confirms layoffs as it combines VR and smartphone divisions

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It's been an interesting few months for HTC. Google bought the team responsible for Pixel phones last year for $1.1 billion. The president of HTC's smartphone operations just resigned , claiming a "personal career plan" for the move. Now, the remaining US workforce is facing layoffs. As first reported by Digital Trends this week, HTC has confirmed that it will combine its smartphone and VR divisions, resulting in employee reductions. Digital Trends ' sources report that between a few dozen to around 100 employees have been let go. The company told Engadget that it was still very committed to the smartphone business. "We have recently brought our smartphone and VR businesses under common leadership in each region," a company spokes person said. "Today we announced a restructure in North America for the HTC Smartphone business that will centralize the reporting structure within the region. In doing so, there have been some employee reductions to

The best smart speakers for music fans

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If you're a music fan, the first wave of smart speakers was probably a disappointment. While Alexa and Google Assistant have definitively proven they have a place in the home, the first Echo and Google Home devices were unimpressive when it came to actually playing music. They did the job in a pinch, and being able to command Spotify with your voice is a killer feature, but many longed for better-quality audio. Fortunately, that call has been answered. In the past six months, Sonos, Google and Apple have all released music-first speakers with voice assistants built in. There's no doubt that the Google Home Max, Alexa-powered Sonos One and Apple HomePod all sound far better than just about any other voice-powered speakers out there. If you value audio quality above all else (and have about $400 to spend), what's the right smart speaker for you? Let's break it down. How we tested For the purposes of this story, we compared a single HomePod ($350), two Sonos One speak

Colorado police turned to Snapchat to solve a drug murder

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Newly unsealed documents show that Snapchat played an unexpected role in the investigation of an apparent drug murder in Colorado in 2016. Devon Smeltz disappeared in August 2016, shortly after a late-night disturbance was captured on surveillance video near his home in Fort Collins. Eight days after the incident, Smeltz’s body was discovered in a rural county one hour east of the city, launching an investigation by Fort Collins police. The prime suspects in the disappearance were a group of five associates from Cincinnati. Shortly after Smeltz’s disappearance, the group was stopped by Illinois highway police driving a white Mercedes sedan registered to Smeltz. A subsequent search of the car turned up a loaded firearm, traces of blood,... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2HCYH53"

YouTube reportedly plans to spend 'hundreds of millions' on Red originals

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While Facebook and Netflix are (reportedly) spending billions on new programming, YouTube is said to be holding its investments at current levels. Google's video wing is only spending "a few hundred million" on original shows for Red this year according to Bloomberg 's sources . Other details are scant, but unlike the competition, YouTube also has a live TV service that's expanding in reach . Google could just be taking a "wait and see" approach to its investments this year. There's also the chance that the reticence to invest stems from recent black eyes. Its biggest stars have been in the headlines pretty frequently lately and not for flattering reasons. YouTube put a hold on Logan Paul's projects for Red in January after shooting video in Japan's "suicide forest," as one example. And last year the company did similar to PewDiePie over the top-grossing star's videos featuring anti-Semitic messages. Even if it isn'

No, postcards won’t solve our Russian interference problem

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We just learned all the ways Russian propaganda agents fooled American social media companies, thanks to the recent indictments of Russian nationals by Team Mueller. After years of these companies forcing us to adhere to their contrived "community safety" policies and made-up rules to police our identities (which they swore was for our own good), their failures are rather spectacular. Russia's low-rent spies -- I mean, trolls -- leveraged every hypocrisy (like "real names" policies), weakness (tolerance of hate groups, impersonation, and false information), and flaunting of laws (political advertising disclosures) inherent in America's biggest social media companies to do the unimaginable: divide and conquer US democracy. If you missed it, the Internet Research Agency indictment outlined an operation that ran hundreds (if not tens of thousands ) of fake accounts, impersonated the GOP and civil rights groups, stole identities from actual US citizens

Microsoft and Xiaomi are partnering to make AI-powered speakers, smartphones, and more

'Ghostbusters World' AR game is coming to Android and iOS this year

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Using AR to promote movies isn't entirely new. We've already seen official movie tie-in augmented reality apps for Spider-Man: Homecoming and the Jon Hamm vehicle, Marjorie . Now, though, Sony Pictures is taking things a bit farther with Ghostbusters World , a mobile AR game based on the popular film, television and comic book franchise. The title is currently in development with 4:33 Creative Lab and should launch sometime this year on iOS and Android. Sony's announcement comes just as Google released more information on its own official augmented reality toolkit for Android developers, called ARCore 1.0. Similar to Apple's own ARkit , Google's version provides a framework to allow app makers bring virtual objects into the real world via compatible phones. Ghostbusters World will apparently get you out and about, battling and capturing hundreds of ghosts, Pokemon Go -style. The ghosts will come from all the different Ghostbusters media, including films, TV s