Nintendo talks mobile gaming, VR and its future at E3

Nintendo talks mobile gaming, VR and its future at E3

Nintendo has never been afraid to go against the grain of prevailing industry trends. In fact, the refusal to follow the pack has become a defining aspect of the gaming giant’s business strategy during the ascendance of chief console competitors Sony and Microsoft. So it comes as no surprise, really, that it did something markedly different at this year’s E3 show. But just how different came as a bit of a surprise to many who follow the industry closely.

Even as rumblings about a new console turned to actual news, the company made it clear in the days and weeks leading up to E3 that this show would not be about hardware for Nintendo. Instead, it would focus, as it so often has, on games — or rather, one game: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. More than three years after the next installment in one of the company’s most beloved franchises was first announced, Nintendo was finally ready to show it off in a big way.

In a show dominated by VR, Nintendo constructed a wholly impressive shrine to the open world adventure, a high-walled to-scale model of Hyrule, complete with changing weather patterns triggered by Nintendo employees via switches on the ground. NX, the company’s forthcoming mystery console, hardly received mention as the company altogether eschewed a keynote presentation, instead devoting its daylong Treehouse Live stream to the new title.

“We announced about a month ago that it would be a Zelda only game for us. And we also announced that Treehouse Live would be the primary way that we communicated with the public,” Charlie Scibetta, the company’s Senior Director, Corporate Communications told TechCrunch, standing against a balcony in the company’s booth overlooking the temporary Hyrule. “There’s always speculation at a show like E3, but for us, we stayed true to what we intended to do.”

The exec added that while this year’s E3 presence marks a notable shift from past presentations, it doesn’t represent a new precedent moving forward. “Every year we look at it fresh and don’t think about what we did the year before,” Scibetta said. “It’s about what we want to talk about this year and how we want to get the word out. For future years, it could be an execution like we did this time, we could go back to a presentation, we could do more Treehouse Live, we could go to a digital event, we could do something new.“

This year’s E3 felt transitional in many respects. For most that means a huge push toward virtual realities. Inside the company’s sky-high walls, however, immersion has a distinctly Nintendo tone, as a huge Bokoblin points a bow and arrow atop a rickety watch tower. Nintendo certainly hasn’t been afraid to experiment with different form factors, even dipping its toes in the waters of VR in the mid-1990s with the extremely short-lived and red-hued Virtual Boy. It’s easy to see how the company might be wary leaping full force back into the virtual waters.

“We’ve had ups and downs and ebbs and flows when it comes to what works,” Scibetta said when asked whether the failed mobile console has made the company reluctant to embrace the current VR trend. “Certainly motion control worked on the Wii. We have the gamepad going right now on the Wii U, that’s a great way to interact with two different screens. We have 3D with our handhelds. We have Amiibo, that’s a great way to interact with games. We try different technologies, but it comes down to what’s right for the game. We wouldn’t do it because it’s a gimmick, we do it because it enhances gameplay and brings something to the consumer that they weren’t getting otherwise. “

That’s not to say that Nintendo has failed entirely to embrace prevailing trends. After what might be regarded as either reluctant hesitation or measured forethought, the company finally dipped its toes into the mobile space with the social app Miimoto earlier this year, with more titles based on popular franchises like Pokemon and Animal Crossing coming soon.

Scibetta explained that the company doesn’t regret not getting into the space sooner. “What we’re trying to do with mobile is introduce a whole new generation of people to our IP,” the exec said. “They can have a great time playing on their smart device, and if they like what they get there, they can also come over to our more dedicated systems like Nintendo 3DS or Wii U. There are so many phones and tablets out there that we didn’t want to pass up on that opportunity anymore. We didn’t do it up until the point that we did because we wanted to make sure we picked the right IP. And one of the things Nintendo always wanted to do was make sure the control scheme worked for the software.”

source: techcrunch

Dallas Could Be Next City to Get Google Fiber

Dallas Could Be Next City to Get Google Fiber

The company has begun preliminary discussions with officials to check out the feasibility of Google Fiber high-speed Internet in Dallas.

Dallas could become the third city in Texas to receive Google's Fiber high-speed Internet service.
The company has begun preliminary talks with officials to scope out the work involved in bringing the gigabit service to the city.
As part of the process, Google will work with officials to get details on the city's topography and existing municipal-owned utility poles and electricity, gas and water lines to figure how and where to place the fiber lines needed for the service.
Google's formal 18-page checklist of items for Fiber includes getting details on state laws and city ordinances pertaining to the reuse of existing infrastructure where possible to build out the network. Google will also require city officials to provide details on the permits and the processes that it will require to go through to build out and deploy Fiber in Dallas.

"Building a fiber-optic network through a dense and complex urban environment like Dallas is challenging," Jill Szuchmacher, Google's director of expansion for Fiber, wrote in a blog post this week. "These discussions will help us deploy our network efficiently and responsibly."

Google launched Fiber about six years ago as a high-speed, relatively low-cost alternative to the available Internet services from the major incumbent carriers. More recently it has begun bundling a TV service option as well, and earlier this year, the company announced a $10 per month Google Fiber phone service that customers can sign up for when subscribing to Fiber.
The company offers two plans for residential customers—one at $70 per month featuring up to 1,000M-bps download and upload times and unlimited data, and the other at $130 per month for high-speed Internet and TV service.
Google has so far rolled out the service in six major metro areas, starting with Provo, Utah, and Kansas City, and adding Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., Nashville and Austin, Texas. Google is in the process of actively deploying Fiber in another four cities—San Antonio, Huntsville, Ala., San Francisco and Raleigh-Durham, N.C. It is currently considering another 12 metro areas, including Dallas, as potential sites for rolling out the service.
Google previously claimed that Fiber's gigabit speed service will benefit not just consumers but small businesses, as well. Some analysts have predicted that the company's entry into the telecom space could have broad ramifications for the major players and force them to introduce similar high-speed services at similar price pints.
So far, though, those predictions have not quite played out the way some had predicted. Earlier this year, an analyst from MoffettNathanson Research said his review of data from the U.S. Copyright Office showed that a mere 53,390 customers had signed up for the Google Fiber TV option across all the cities where it was available as of Dec. 31, 2015.

While the number of customers for the stand-alone Fiber broadband service is likely higher, the relatively low number of subscribers to the TV service raises questions about just how popular Fiber really is, the analyst had noted in widely reported comments at the time.


source: eweek

Analysis From Apple’s Developer Conference

Analysis From Apple’s Developer Conference: A Series of Upgrades

At its annual conference for software developers on Monday, Apple was trying to demonstrate that it was still a purveyor of high-quality software and services. Credit Tony Avelar/Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — When Steven P. Jobs ran Apple, the company’s devices were distinguished by their polished software and famous iTunes store. Today, critics and even loyal fans are taking shots at Apple’s buggy software and Apple Music, its new streaming music service.

With its hardware sales now slowing, Apple is under pressure to fix its software and online services, which have become increasingly important to consumers. So at its annual conference for software developers on Monday, the iPhone maker tried to demonstrate that it was still a purveyor of high-quality software and services.

Brian X. Chen, Farhad Manjoo and Vindu Goel attended Apple’s conference keynote in San Francisco and analyzed what matters about the announcements that Apple made.

Apple announced:

■ Improvements in the Apple Watch operating system.

■ Changes in the operating system for Apple TV, called tvOS.

Tim Cook, after leading the conference in a moment of silence for the victims of the attack in Orlando. Credit Stephen Lam/Reuters

■ A rebranding of its Mac operating system.

■ An expansion of Apple Pay.

■ Opening up Siri to developers.

■ Improvements in photos and maps.

■ Subscriptions through Apple News.

■ Opening up its messaging service to developers

■ A new interface for Apple Music.

Here were the main points:

Xbox site outs new slim “Xbox One S”

Xbox site outs new slim “Xbox One S” ahead of Monday reveal

A leaked promotional image for the Xbox One S confirms news that Ars had gathered ahead of this year's E3 conference.

Ars can confirm support for 4K video, lack of power brick; price, date not yet known.

Rumors and insider tips have pointed to an Xbox One "slim" model being revealed at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, and the news was so good, someone at Microsoft couldn't wait to spill the beans.

Images found by multiple NeoGAF forum members confirm the news of the new "Xbox One S"—and the ability for gamers to pre-order it soon enough. Multiple Xbox sources had recently confirmed to Ars that some sort of "slim" system would be announced at this year's E3 and that a major part of its bulk reduction (which has been measured by Microsoft as "40 percent") will come from the removal of its AC adapter's "power brick," which will make this the first Xbox-branded console to nix that bulky portion.

The leaked announcement image also confirms news that the Xbox One S will support 4K output, though Microsoft sources have informed Ars that 4K support will mostly manifest in the system's menus and in any streaming app that announces support for 4K output in the future—meaning, this will not include the kind of hardware upgrades needed to automatically boost current software to 4K resolution. The announcement image also trumpets support for high dynamic range (HDR) imagery, a vertical stand, and a "streamlined" controller, though we have yet to learn what exactly will be streamlined or changed in that controller.

Oh, and it's going to be white. Quite white, from the look of things.

The leaked image did not include a price point or launch date estimate. We have reached out to Microsoft asking about the accuracy of the leaked store listing, and we will update this report with any response.


source: www.arstechnica.com

Google is now equipped to map the entire world

With Tango, Google is now equipped to map the entire world -- inside and out

The ambitious new technology, which Lenovo just launched on a consumer phone for the first time, could make for a "better blue dot" on Google Maps.

Open up Google Maps on your phone and, depending on where you are, you'll see some streets, some buildings and a blue dot. That blue dot is you, in "YOU ARE HERE" form. When you move, it moves. The dot is helpful when you're walking around outside, but if you're indoors -- in an airport, a mall, or even a conference venue, like I am today -- you might as well be in no-man's land.

Google wants to change that with something called Tango.

The initiative, previously called Project Tango, is Google's ambitious plan to map the indoor world. Google Maps is already wildly popular, with more than 1 billion users. But where Maps is a cartographer's dream on steroids, Tango isn't concerned with streets and rivers and national parks. Tango is for everything underneath rooftops: hallways, offices, ballrooms and -- perhaps more importantly for Google's advertising ambitions -- the stuff inside those rooms, like furniture and products on shelves.

On Thursday, the Chinese device maker Lenovo unveiled the first consumer smartphone infused with Google's Tango technology. The $500 phone, called the Phab 2 Pro, will have a 6.4-inch screen and be available by September. (The phone itself is hulking, and Jeff Meredith, the head of Lenovo's mobile business group, said phones with both smaller and bigger screens are coming.)

But back to the maps -- and that blue dot.

When you're indoors, "all it tells you is, 'You're in the airport!' Which is not super helpful," Johnny Lee, head of Tango, said in an interview Thursday at the Masonic, the San Francisco venue where Google and Lenovo unveiled the Tango phone. It doesn't come in handy when you want to tell someone to meet you at Baggage Claim 4.

For Google, the stakes are huge: If Tango takes off, the company has the potential to have the most complete picture of the physical world -- both outdoors and indoors -- that anyone has ever had. It already owns a satellite company called Skybox that can take detailed pictures of Earth from space.

"Being able to search the physical world, kind of like you'd search the web, is really interesting," said Lee. "One day, it's something we could hopefully do."

With a Tango phone, you'd be able to peer inside buildings. The technology lets you map out a room, with the phone's sensors and four cameras capturing all of the parameters and measurements of the room itself and everything inside it.

The idea is that venue owners would use Tango's technology to map out their building's interiors and release that data to Google so people with Tango phones could use that information when they're in the building. Lee won't reveal how many venue partners Google already has, but says he hopes there will be a "few" live later this year. One partner is the home improvement chain Lowe's. Lee says Google has also done a pilot test with the San Jose International airport. (Google has another project for mapping the interiors of buildings using a special laser-scanning backpack called the Cartographer, but Lee says that's a separate project.)

As with any Google service, there are privacy implications. Lee said you can think of Tango-related data as you'd think of YouTube videos. When you shoot a video on your phone, you can keep it on the device or you can upload it to YouTube and share it widely. With Tango, when you map a room, it creates a computer file with the exact specifications of that room, and the file stays on the device. Or you can share it, as Google hopes venue owners will do.

Dinosaurs and sofas

Lenovo has a roundabout history with Google. The Chinese company owns Motorola Mobility, which it bought from Google in 2014. Google originally bought Motorola for $12.5 billion in 2012, before selling it off to the Chinese phone maker two years later for $3 billion. Google didn't come away empty-handed though; it kept a cache of important patents. It also retained Motorola's experimental hardware division, which became Google's Advanced Technology and Projects group, or ATAP. That division created Project Tango.

The technology isn't only for traditional maps. Google wants you to use it for everything from shopping to education to gaming. (Tango is actually a part of Google's virtual reality division.) On Thursday, the company showed off a handful of demo apps, including one for creating elaborate, digital dominoes setups, and one from the American Museum of Natural History, which will show you a digital image of a Tyrannosaurus Rex on your phone, at scale if the room you're in is big enough. The common thread among all these experiences is that Tango has all that information about the size of the room. Because of that, it can show you 3D images on your phone's screen as if they were there in real life, something in tech-speak called "augmented reality."

Shopping could be one of the most lucrative uses for Tango. One of the biggest boons of the technology is helping to guide consumers around stores, said Richard Maltsbarger, chief development officer at Lowe's. The retailer has an app that will help you pick out furniture and see if it will fit in your house.

"We have 200 million square feet of retail," Maltsbarger said. "So we're looking for the day where we actually know where every item is in that 200 million square feet." That's for both customers and employees, he says.

Lee adds that, in the future, Tango could lead people "to a store, to an aisle, to a shelf, to a product."

Google may already be laying the groundwork for cashing in on Tango. Last month, it announced a new advertising unit called promoted pins, which would let retailers highlight specific product deals at nearby stores when consumers are using Google Maps. At the time, Sridar Ramaswamy, Google's senior vice president of ads and commerce, said it was too early to talk about linking Tango to Maps advertisements. On Thursday, Lee said, "there's nothing we can commit to right now" with Google Maps.

But the possibility is there. And that blue dot might as well be an X on a treasure map.


source: Cnet

Moto Z Force Combines Power And Durability In One Sleek

Proof Moto Z Force Combines Power And Durability In One Sleek Design: What You Need To Know.

The Moto Z Force was recently unveiled and the flagship will feature a shatter-proof display, modular expansions and impressive specifications. Here's what this powerhouse has to offer.  ( Motorola ) 

Moto Z Force, the indestructible modular smartphone, has finally arrived, and Lenovo loaded quite a few goodies into its 2016 flagship killer.
Design
The Moto Z Force packs a bit more bulk than its smaller sibling, but the shiny metal chassis elegantly sports the protruding camera module.
The general dimensions of the device are 6.13 x 2.98 x 0.27 inches, which keep the screen-to-body ratio at a decent 70.76 percent. In comparison, the iPhone 6s has a thickness of 0.28 inches, making the Moto Z Force a slim flagship rival.
Below the screen we get a square-shaped fingerprint sensor, which first came loaded in the Moto G4 Plus.
It should be noted that the Moto Z Force uses zero capacitive navigation buttons, as it relies on the Android home, virtual back and recent apps buttons.

To the upper right side of the handset sit three buttons: the power and volume buttons.
It looks like the axing of the headphone jack permeated Lenovo's design team as well, and the device lacks the popular 3.5-millimeter jack. This implies that all compatible headphones should sport a USB Type-C connector, or a normal jack and an adapter for the novel technology.
Keep in mind that the handset introduces backplate modules.
Dubbed Moto Mods, the pads snap to the Moto Z Force via a metallic bar and a 16-pin connector, which sits neatly at the bottom half of the device's back. Those of you concerned with aesthetics can get one of the variously colored Moto Style Shells to cover the pads. Additionally, with a Moto Style Shell, the bulk caused by adding the Mods will be less noticeable.
The modules presented at the smartphone's release include a JBL Sound Boost, an InstaShare projector and a Power Jack module, along with Style Shells that sit over the modules for a posh look.

Display

The Moto Z Force is equipped with an AMOLED screen measuring 5.5 inches, capable of rendering QHD resolutions of 1,440 x 2,560p. This puts the ppi density at 534, toe-to-toe with premium flagships from the competition.
We have to commend the introduction of a shatter-proof panel on the Moto Z Force's screen.
The technology was first embedded into the DROID Turbo 2, which was the first device to see ShatterShield technology — a type of display protection that can withstand the clumsiest, or even the meanest and most aggressive drops.
The Moto Z Force takes the ShatterShield lesson and perfects it with the second generation of the protective layer. Although you might want to avoid putting it directly to the test, previous attempts to wreck it showed little damage. This means that your phone is safe from scratches and cracks, even when you accidentally drop it onto concrete.

Specs

The Moto Z Force relies on the powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 for processing power, which gets backed by 4 GB of LPDDR4 RAM. Internal memory varies between 32 GB and 64 GB, but a microSD card slot is there for memory intensive libraries.
The main camera looks impressive, as well. The main sensor is a 21-megapixel working with 1.12um pixels and a wide aperture lens of f/1.8, making it apt for great low-light results. Mobile photographers will find a combination of phase-detection autofocus with laser-assisted autofocus with the new smartphone.
Not only that, but Lenovo touted that zero shutter lag will also be one of the handset's features.
The power source of the device is a mighty 3,500 mAh battery, which Lenovo claims can deliver 40 hours of mixed usage. Fast-charge capability will get the phone from 0 to 50 percent in only 20 minutes.
Pricing And Availability
Lenovo did not officially say how much the device will cost, but it did point out when the handset will hit the shelves.
During the summer, both the Moto Z and the Moto Z Force will go live in the United States. Both devices will be launched under Verizon's brand, as Moto Z DROID and Moto Z Force DROID. The unlocked version of the smartphones will reach the U.S. during the fall, about the same time when the gadgets will enter the European markets.

source: Tectimes

Why I have finally taken off the Apple Watch for the last time

Why I have finally taken off the Apple Watch for the last time.

Gone for good: my wrist without an Apple Watch. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian

Towards the end of May, I took off the Apple Watch I’d been wearing for nine months. I’ll never put it on again.

I’d been wearing the £479 38mm Apple Watch with a sapphire screen, stainless steel shell and white sport band – something I genuinely appreciated as an article of jewellery – since we bought it at the launch in April last year.

I’d taken it off before of course, not only every night to charge, but when my colleague Samuel Gibbs reviewed it and then reviewed its updated operating system. But this time, while another colleague used it, I realised there was no point in wearing it.

Taking off the Apple Watch. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian

I’m no style guru (I’m now wearing a bashed-up Casio B640W), but I liked the look of the thing. It’s nicer in the flesh than in pictures, and there’s a certain dorky charm to having a computer on your wrist. But that’s faint praise for something that costs almost half a grand.

Before the Apple Watch came out, the key fear on the part of would-be early adopters was over the battery life. We pored over statements like Tim Cook’s: “We think you’re going to end up charging it daily. Overnight, that’s what we think.” How could anyone use a watch that needed charging every night?!

It turns out it’s really easy. You just take it off every night, and charge it. You don’t use your watch at night, because you’re asleep.

We all adjusted to this shifted expectation when smartphones were introduced, and while many would wish for a phone with a bit more battery life, few would trade their current device for a Nokia 3310, even through that got weeks out of a battery. And heck, unlike my iPhone, the Watch never once ran out of battery in a single day.

But that’s not necessarily a good thing. The reason why the Watch’s battery lasted so long is largely because I never really used it.

I wore the watch for nine months. In the week since I stopped wearing it, I have missed precisely one thing: the Dark Sky “complication” in the top left-hand corner of the watch face.

The (very) dear departed Apple Watch, with the much-loved Dark Sky complication in the top left. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian

Dark Sky, a weather app, was one of the first apps I installed on the Apple Watch. But it, like every other watch app, was hampered by the fact that it takes an insanely long time to open: correctly hitting the right icon is a fiddly business requiring your full concentration, and it’s not really any better than just taking out your phone.

But when Watch OS 2 launched, in October, Apple gave third parties the ability to add “complications” – small data feeds – to the face of the main watch. That meant Dark Sky could now put the temperature on the watch face, visible at a glance, and replace it with a small umbrella icon if rain was predicted within the next 15 minutes.

It’s a small thing, but it was something I habitually checked every morning, as I was getting dressed, to help me decide what to wear (see above re: Not a Style Guru).

Tellingly, after a week of wearing an old-school digital watch, it is the only thing I find myself trying to do. Every single other use case – checking notifications, setting timers, or recording physical activity – has seamlessly, painlessly, slipped back to the state it was before the Apple Watch arrived in my life.

My replacement for the Apple Watch. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian

It would be boring to go through every feature point by point to explain why it’s useless. But a few fundamental flaws of the watch suffice to explain 95% of the issues: the watch is too slow to act as a speedy alternative to your phone; the user interface is too fiddly to use on the move; the notification model is too limited to do anything other than encourage you to pull out your phone repeatedly; and Siri sucks.

That last is bigger than it seems. The future of the watch can’t be the same iterative improvements that Apple has pulled off with the iPhone, iPod and iPad. The interface is just too ill-thought-through to work, even if the device itself is sped up significantly. But the most obvious alternative is to massively increase the amount of voice control the watch offers, and Apple simply doesn’t have the technical chops to do so. While Google and Amazon have been creating voice assistants that people seem to actually use and wax lyrical about, Apple … hasn’t. There’s no easy solution there.

But the saving grace for Apple is that the broader problem isn’t the company’s fault. It’s that smartwatches are a solution in search of a problem. A technology created, not to serve consumer demand, but to serve the need of device manufacturers to fill the revenue hole created by declining smartphone growth. You don’t need one, and neither do I. It just took me nine months of wearing it to realise.

source: theguardian