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Showing posts with the label 2018 at 03:20AM Jon Fingas

Play giant-sized 'Pong' by shuffling your feet

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You may have seen attempts at real-world Pong before, but rarely have they been so... athletic. Moment Factory has created GRiD , a Pong variant that uses a LiDAR sensor (the same tech as in self-driving cars ) to create an enormous, 40-by-60 foot playing field where the paddle only moves when you and a partner shuffle your feet together. You could get quite the workout if the teams are evenly matched, and that's before the game adds wrinkles like surprise acceleration or an extra ball. The aim was to bring back the social dimension of games you might remember from the glory days of arcades, when you'd play with strangers that exist as more than an online nickname. GRiD takes it a step further by placing the game in the real world. Moment Factory describes this as the first "prototype" in a series of arcade-related projects. You probably won't see it made widely available, at least not until there's some refinement. All the same, this illustrates just...

Apple may be close to launching its HomePod speaker

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Apple's HomePod has been sitting in limbo for the better part of a year , but a few new clues suggest that it's on the cusp of launching -- and hint at what it can do. To begin with, the HomePod recently received FCC approval. The filing itself doesn't reveal anything shocking about the device (surprise, it's a wireless speaker), but it clears a key hurdle and suggests the hardware, at least, is ready to go. And crucially, a recent iOS release both supports the possibility of an upcoming release and hints at what the HomePod can do. iHelp BR 's Filipe Esposito has noticed that the latest iOS 11.2.5 beta includes icons for a variety of scene icons, some of which explicitly reference Siri being turned off on at least one speaker. In other words, you could prevent Siri from accidentally interrupting your study session. Esposito also believes that lines of code might reference support for multiple voices, although that's less than certain. It would make sense...