Fonkraft modular smartphone gets pulled from Indiegogo
There's some bad news if you were hoping to get your hands on a Fonkraft modular smartphone later this year - the innovative hardware project has been pulled from Indiegogo with no official explanation given.
All we have to go on is a tweet from Fonkraft promising an update soon. "Since when are platforms not people deciding what to crowdfund and what not?" it reads - which makes it sound like they were honest in their intentions at least.
Backers have had their money refunded and received an email from Indiegogo's Trust and Safety team: "The campaign (Fonkraft modular smartphone) that you contributed to has been suspended due to not meeting our trust and safety standards," it read.
Mod cons
Before the listing got yanked, it was promoting a 5-inch handset running Android Lollipop, complete with a modular system that would let you swap out the camera lens, RAM, battery and display as required.Various different configurations were available to pre-order, including a budget $99 (around £65, AU$126) model or a premium $200 (around £132, AU$255) edition. The crowdfunding listing has now disappeared but the Fonkraft website is still up.
Of course producing a modular phone is a hard trick to pull off - Google has been working on Project Ara for several years now, with a initial device launch rumoured to be happening later this year.
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YouTube is celebrating its 10th birthday with a greatest hits package
YouTube is turning 10 round about now, depending on when you think its birthday should be - the first video was uploaded on 23 April 2005, for example, but the site didn't open its doors to beta testers until May of that year.
To celebrate reaching a decade of video streaming, YouTube is going to post a greatest hits package over the next 26 days, highlighting "some of the most memorable moments, from the silly to the profound" that have helped define the history of the site.
Keep your eyes on the YouTube Trends Blog where these memorable clips are going to be published starting today. Each day will use a different letter of the alphabet as a guide.
By the numbers
"10 years in, you continue to redefine how the world experiences music, entertainment, and news," enthuses YouTube's official anniversary blog post. "How the world laughs and how the world learns. How we shape political events and how we connect over the things we love."We don't know which video clips YouTube is going to be picking out but we hope some of our favourites are included.
YouTube has come a long way since that first video went live: according to the company's official statistics, 300 hours of content are uploaded to the site every minute, and there are somewhere in the region of a billion users signed up for accounts.
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Week in Gaming: As Silent Hills goes quiet, Banjo-Kazooie's 'spiritual successor' eases my aching heart
Metal Gear and Silent Hill are not series known for the clarity and simplicity of their narrative. More for paranoia, uncertainty and impenetrable fog. So no surprise then that after MGS creator Kojima became attached to a Silent Hill project (called Silent Hills), it's all ended it in mystery and confusion.
Is Kojima in trouble? Will he ever make games again? What about the sausage tweets? Won't somebody think of the sausage tweets!
It certainly seems that Koj is no longer on the team for Metal Gear, and Silent Hills is no more. The sequel, which was to be a collaboration with Guillermo Del Toro and Walking Dead star Norman Reedus, has been pulled. Even more disappointingly, the Playable Teaser (PT) has disappeared from the PlayStation Store.
PT was a nice bit of PR for Silent Hills, as well as a lovely game in its own right – though perhaps "lovely" isn't the word. On completing the horror game, which led players through a loop of increasingly terrifying corridors, players were rewarded with a confirmation of Silent Hills' development. Not any more! Anyone who already owns it can keep it, but that's little consolation. Bad times.
In chirpier news, Playtonic Studios, comprised mostly of ex-Rare developers, has just revealed its first game: Yooka-Laylee. Originally titled "Project Ukelele" – see what they did there? – the game has been hailed by almost everyone as a spiritual successor to Rare's retro masterpiece, Banjo-Kazooie. Adorable, brightly-coloured worlds? Cartoony graphics? Two main characters, one of them sitting on the other? Not sure I can see the resemblance, to be honest. Yooka is a chameleon, and Laylee is a purple bat, but people don't seem too sure on their genders yet, with Playtonic themselves saying "guess."
Speaking of which, Minecraft has added a rather exciting, if overdue, feature this week: default female characters. On the Mojang website, Owen Hill noted that "jolly old Steve doesn't really represent the diversity of our playerbase." Dang right, Owen! I've played a fair bit of Minecraft, and I don't own any blue shirts. The new skins, known collectively as "Alex," feature "thinner arms, redder hair, and a ponytail" as well as other variants with dark skin, different hair or even a Scottish costume. Not so sure about that one.
The change comes after 12-year-old girl and badass Madeline Messer wrote an article about the inexcusable lack of default female characters in games, from mobile to console. Many games make female characters a purchasable extra, and others offer you dudes and nothing more. So it's about time, Minecraft.
One alpha male who isn't fading in the face of this onslaught of diversity is Watch Dogs' Aiden Pearce, The "gruff," "iconic" protagonist is making his way back into our lives, now that the existence of Watch Dogs 2 has apparently been leaked by a Ubisoft employee on his LinkedIn page. It's not a huge surprise that Ubi is making a sequel to its interesting yet flawed game, especially as the developer is only making about 20 games already, which is about 1000 fewer than normal.
Lastly, something to inject a bit of humour into your Saturday. Some people think that GTA has become a bit po-faced and lost the anarchic wit that once made it great. One enterprising modder has fixed that for GTA V on PC by letting you ragdoll at any point – including cutscenes. HILARITY ENSUES.
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5 of the most popular Raspberry Pi distros
Introduction
Originally designed to promote basic computer science education in schools, Raspberry Pi, the credit card-sized single-board computer, has been spreading across the world like wildfire.
The latest iteration, christened Raspberry Pi 2, offers 1GB of RAM and was released in early 2015.
There are a number of Linux kernel-based operating systems designed specifically for the Raspberry Pi. These include fully featured distros such as Raspbian, which offers a fully functional desktop environment and is based on Debian, and even speciality distros like RetroPie, which supports a large number of controllers and is aimed at gaming fans. Plus there are many more besides…
In this article, we're going to look at five of the most popular and distinct Raspberry Pi distros.
Raspbian
Raspbian is one of the oldest and most popular mainstream distros for the Raspberry Pi. Although it's developed independently, the Raspberry Pi Foundation also develops its own recommended version of Raspbian that you can install using the foundation's NOOBS installer.
Raspbian is based on the ARM port of the Debian Wheezy desktop distro and requires a 4GB SD card for installation. The distro uses the lightweight LXDE desktop environment and includes thousands of software packages. The foundation's version of Raspbian also includes the official app store for the Pi called the Pi Store which houses apps optimised for the Raspberry Pi.
Pi MusicBox
The Pi MusicBox distro converts your Raspberry Pi into the ultimate music-oozing jukebox. The distro is based on the Mopidy music streaming server that can fetch music from various streaming services including Spotify, Google Play Music, and SoundCloud as well as a host of online radio stations.
Pi MusicBox can also play music stored on the SD Card or on any USB drives attached to the Pi. You can also configure the distro to fetch music by automatically mounting shared folders on the network. Additionally, the distro can also connect to any DLNA and AirPlay devices and can be controlled via any player that supports MPD.
RetroPie
If you're a fan of classic gaming titles, grab a copy of the RetroPie distro and transfer it onto an SD card. The distro can emulate dozens of classic games consoles and home computers such as the Amiga, Amstrad, Atari 2600, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Game Boy, PlayStation 1 and more.
RetroPie also supports all sorts of gaming controllers, from cheap no-name USB efforts to controllers for the PS3 and Xbox 360. It boots into the Emulation Station software which first helps you set up the controller and then lets you select a game from any of the supported emulators.
The only caveat is that you must get your own ROMs. There are several that can be legally downloaded for free and you can even create your own from old cartridges using adapters like the Retrode.
- For more details on how to use RetroPie, check out: How to turn your Raspberry Pi 2 into a retro games console
OpenELEC
One of the most popular uses of the Pi is as a low-cost and low-power home cinema media centre. The OpenELEC distro uses the recently rechristened Kodi media player to convert the Pi into an HTPC.
The distro uses a 10-foot user interface that's ideal for connecting to large screen displays and projectors. The interface has ergonomic display elements and can be easily controlled via a remote control. You can also control playback from your Android smartphone. Using Kodi you can view multimedia in virtually all formats. Besides playing files off local and network storage devices, the distro can also fetch files from online services such as YouTube, Spotify and more.
OpenMediaVault
Originally designed for the desktop, the OpenMediaVault (OMV) distro has a specially tuned version for the Raspberry Pi 2 that lets you use the little computer as a dedicated Network Attached Storage (NAS) device.
Once it's up and running, you can configure and manage the distro using its browser-based admin interface. You can attach USB disks which the distro will detect and let you add to your network storage. For the best performance make sure you use self-powered removable disks. You can use the disks attached to the OMV NAS individually or assemble them in a RAID array. The distro has ample options to manage other advanced aspects of a NAS.
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How to watch the Mayweather vs Pacquiao fight from the comfort of your own home
You know the rules: Two fighters go in, one fighter comes out. I mean, well, both fighters come out but only one wins. I guess. I don't know, sports are weird.
But if you've got fight fever for the Mayweather vs Pacquiao bout on Saturday, May 2, here's the best ways to watch the brawl without ever leaving the comfort of your living room:
HBO: If you haven't signed up for HBO Now, now might be a good time. It had three of Pacquiao's classic fights available to stream before the big match on Saturday. HBO will be showing the event on its Inside HBO Boxing program - i.e. pay-per-view - starting at 9 pm ET, 6 pm PT. The fight is slated to kick off at 8 pm PT, or 4 am in the UK, though boxing matches typically don't begin at their billed start time.
Showtime: Home Box Office competitor Showtime will have its own showing of the fight available on Saturday night as well. The only catch is it's also a pay-per-view event. No freebies on this one, folks.
ESPN: While it's not as good as watching the fight itself, ESPN will offer a small window into the event through its seminal show, SportsCenter, which will be live at the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas. You'll catch highlights as well as some of the more key moments in the match.
Sky Sports (UK): Fight fans from across the pond can catch the main event starting at 4 a.m. Sunday morning on Sky for £19.95 on pay-per-view.
Protip: Watching the fight at home costs $100, however splitting the cost of the pay-per-view with friends is a good way to avoid taking a financial beating.
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Obama will spend $20 million on police body cameras
In response to an all-time low level of trust between citizens and police, the White House will reportedly announce a $20 million body camera plan. The measure will be the first step in a larger plan to increase transparency in all levels of law enforcement.
According to The Hill, the Justice Department's announcement on Friday will create a new pilot program for equipping police with body cameras and serve as a definitive first step in the $75M plan proposed in December by the president. The plan will expand over three years and cover the procurement of 50,000 body-worn cameras.
Spurred by Baltimore
This announcement follows Baltimore's most violent riots in decades over the death of Freddie Gray in police custody. Charges have been filed against six officers, with Gray's death being ruled a homicide. Gray's passing follows other high-profile stories of alleged police brutality, including those involving Michael Brown and Eric Gardner.In an age where technology plays a pivotal role in our daily lives, bystanders capturing police brutality on their phones have helped fuel the outcry for accountability.
USA Attorney General Loretta Lynch said, "Body-worn cameras hold tremendous promise for enhancing transparency, promoting accountability and advancing public safety for law enforcement officers and the communities they serve."
In addition to providing training for body cameras, the plan will also overhaul the way that local and state police get military-grade equipment. Although police-civilian relations have a long way to go, this plan could go some way toward fixing them.
Via Engadget
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Review: PlayStation Vue
PlayStation Vue review
Sony's had a mixed year of PlayStation software launches. From the outlandishly-priced PlayStation Now to the much-improved PlayStation Music that replaced Music Unlimited in March, it seems like new releases are either falling flat on their face or hitting it out of the park, with only a product or two landing in between.PlayStation Vue, the new live TV streaming service that intends to compete with Sling TV and the (assumed) upcoming Apple TV service, had all the makings of a home run. It has loads of content (over 80 channels if you shell out for the "elite" package), is able to record an unlimited amount of live TV for up to 28 days and uses something 20 million people already own, the PS4.
So what happened?
For better and worse, PlayStation Vue copied some of cable's foibles and faux-pas, and yet succeeds in some ways the big services simply cannot. Vue introduces new headaches, like dealing with download speeds; while alleviating some of the problems that plagued cable, like service fees and inescapable contracts. Vue gets content recommendation on a level that few services seem to understand, while at the same time failing to completely give you everything you want in one affordable package.
Parlez-Vue PlayStation?
Before we dig deep into the pros and cons of Sony's wannabe cable killer, let's spend a minute on what PlayStation Vue is and how it works.PlayStation Vue is a US-only cable service that takes both traditional cable channels and over-the-air content from sources like NBC, CBS and FOX and combines them into a single app for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and iPad.
So far Sony only sells three types of packages that vary in price and amount of channels, starting at $49 a month and goes up to $69 for the all-inclusive pass. It's worth noting that, because the service depends on local cable stations for content from NBC, CBS and FOX, Sony needs to individually negotiate with each station before bringing the service to a new location. So far, Sony has made deals in Philadelphia, New York and Chicago.
Here are the packages in full detail:
Access package – $49 a month – CBS, COZI TV, myTV, NBCm Telemundo, AMC, Animal Planet, BET, Bravo, Cartoon Network, CMT, CNBC, CNN, Comedy Central, Destination America, Discovery, Discovery Family, DiY, E!, Esquire, Food Network, Fox Business, Fox News, Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2, FX, FXX, HGTV, HLN, Investigation Discovery, MSNBC, MTV, MTV2, National Geographic, NBC Sports Network, Nick Jr., Nickelodeon, Nicktoons, OWN, Oxygen, Science, Spike, SyFy, TBS, TLC, TNT, Travel, truTV, TVLand, USA, VH1, WeTV
Core package – $59 a month – Everything from the Access package, plus BTN, BTN Alternative, Golf, IFC, Sundance, TCM and YES
Elite package – $69 a month – Everything from the Core package, plus AHC, BET Gospel, Boomerang, Centric, Chiller, Cloo, CMT Pure Country, CNBC World, Cooking, Discovery Life, Fox College Sports Atlantic, Central, Pacific, FXM, LOGO, MTV Hits, MTV Jams, MTVU, NatGeo Wild, Palladia, Sprout, Teen Nick, Universal, Velocity, VH1 Classic, VH1 Soul
Sony has also told us that it will add a channel for PlayStation originals – like Powers – once it ramps up production in the coming year.
Like Sling TV, PlayStation Vue requires that your device be connected to the internet while watching and speeds of at least 10Mbps to get a full-resolution, uninterrupted picture.
Device support
Right now, PlayStation Vue is only on the PS3 and PS4, with an iPad version en route in the next few months. To download it, though, you need to live in one of the three markets – Philadelphia, New York or Chicago – and have a valid credit card on file with Sony.If you own any of Sony's other devices like the PlayStation Vita or PlayStation TV, however, you're out of luck. Sony has told other outlets that while there's a chance Vue will end up on these platforms eventually, it probably won't happen anytime soon.
Interface
PlayStation Vue's interface is exactly what you'd expect from a Sony-made app. There's menus for live TV, recommended content, your favorite shows, as well as a traditional TV guide. Everything on the menu with the exception of the guide is arranged in tiles on a grid, creating a sense that Sony's placing more about the show than its source.The interface, while not the most intuitive in the world, is serviceable. Trying to browse for shows through the guide takes a bit longer than I would've liked, as Vue only shows four or five channels' worth of content at a time, but eventually you'll get where you want to go.
Performance
PlayStation Vue, like Sling TV, Plex, Netflix and every other streaming service, can only do so much to create a seamless experience. The rest really falls upon your home network.If you have a slow internet connection – let's say, 5Mbps or less – you can probably expect a lot of hiccups, stuttering and low-resolution video. Stepping up to around 10Mbps will net you a solid connection and will almost guarantee a solid connection, but a lower-than-average resolution.
It's not until you get to the 15-20Mbps range through a wired connection to your router that things really start to look good on PlayStation Vue. If you already have that level of internet service coming into your home, great. Just make sure your PS4 is either in range of the router or you have the ability to hardwire your system.
Final verdict
Once you've got your home network up to par, PlayStation Vue is an actually fun – if not always practical – way to watch TV. Using cloud DVR to record shows for up to 28 days means you won't have to fight with your significant other for space on the TiVo while the recommendations will continually push new and exciting content in front of your face.But ultimately, because packages start at $49 for 45 channels you may or may not want to watch, you might end up overpaying for content. Also, keep in mind that at least four or five of those channels are available over-the-air for free with a digital tuner and antenna.
If you already own a PS4 or PS3 and a relatively fast internet package, and plan to use the iPad functionality when it becomes available, then PlayStation Vue could be one solution for you to cut down on the cable bill. If you aren't in that situation or are just trying a cable alternative for the first time, PlayStation Vue is merely a lively alternative to the better, prime time-ready options out there.
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Hands-on review: Updated: Microsoft HoloLens
Microsoft HoloLens at Build 2015
Note: Microsoft didn't allow any technology, including cameras, inside the Build 2015 HoloLens demo room. The images below were taken of a HoloLens inside a glass case located outside the demo room.HoloLens, Microsoft's AR viewer, feels like the future of computing.
The headgear I tried at Build 2015 is still described as "early development hardware," and it definitely felt like it. But the potential and how close HoloLens is to achieving it is remarkable.
The moment I tried on HoloLens, I thought, "This is like having a PC on my face." It's not that fully functional yet, but that's how the headgear and what you see and can do with it make you feel.
There were no Mars missions or Minecraft-inspired games in the HoloLens session I attended. Instead, I became a developer for 90 minutes, crafting an application in Unity and adding layers of HoloLens functionality as I went. Every time a new function was added, like gesture controls and spatial sound, I got to see how it translated into the HoloLens experience. The session was intended to show how easy it is to develop for HoloLens, but it also demonstrated what users will experience once it's available.
How HoloLens fits
HoloLens is essentially made of two rings, a thicker one along the outside that contains all the important innards and a slimmer one on the inside that wraps around your head. The inner ring has a roller in the back to tighten and loosen it, and it slides forward and backward so you can adjust how close HoloLens is to your head. HoloLens isn't supposed to sit on your nose, but I found the rubber nose guard that comes with it inevitably fell on my nose no matter how many times I pried HoloLens forward. Thankfully, it's optional and comes off easily. HoloLens felt a lot better for me with it off.I also had a hard time getting HoloLens to fit just right every time I put it on. I had to regularly re-tighten, re-situate, and realign the headgear. When everything was synced up and it fit nicely, the holograms were in full view and it felt right. But if it was too tight, too high up or too far forward, it hindered the experience. Standing in one spot and not moving too much created the best overall viewing experience. The adjustment issues cropped up especially when I was moving around, which is part of the fun when wearing HoloLens.
If you have short hair or it's pulled back, you might not have a much of a problem as someone with long, loose hair, like myself. It may have been my unskilled adjusting abilities, but I had a slight headache whenever I took HoloLens off, like I had been wearing a baseball cap that was two sizes too small.
The headgear I used was untethered and I didn't need to use my hands for anything other than selecting my hologram to move it. It wasn't wired up for battery life like the first early prototypes shown to press.
Fitting issues aside, when HoloLens fits right, it's comfortable. But like all VR and AR headgear, it's weight is front loaded. You can't help but feel like there's a noticeable amount of weight hanging off your forehead. It wasn't uncomfortably heavy, but it was significant enough. If Microsoft can balance out the design and somehow put more weight on the sides or back, it would likely help alleviate the front-heavy sensation.
There's a soft cushion lining the inner ring that touches that I appreciated. It's a small touch, but one that makes it easier to forget you're wearing the viewer and focus on the holograms in front of you.
I wear glasses, and I used HoloLens with them on. My glasses didn't get pressed into my face or feel tight around my head, which has happened when I've worn VR headsets. I also didn't get nauseous, a frequent occurance when I wear Oculus Rift. It helps that I could still see the world around me while wearing HoloLens, so I didn't get disoriented or feel claustrophobic. It would be nice if the HoloLens see-through screen wasn't so dark, but the room was also dimly lit so it may be the right amount of shading in a brighter room or outdoors. I felt most uneasy walking backward as I couldn't quickly swivel my head to see if something was behind me. The headgear also obstruction your upper peripheral view, so some of your vision is obscured.
HoloLens looks and feels like a premium peripheral. Nothing about it screams "cheap" in materials or design, and that will likely be reflected in the price. HoloLens looks like it belongs in the office and would blend well in any living room. As is, it felt too flimsy to stay clean and unscathed in someplace like a construction zone. I found myself handling it gently, so unless Microsoft does some strengthening, you'll probably want to keep HoloLens out of the reach of children.
Holographic viewing
The hologram that was part of my HoloLens experience consisted of two floating spheres, two yellow slides and some stacked blocks situated on a pad of paper. It was called Project Origami, so the materials were meant to look and sound like folded paper.As I went along adding functions to the hologram (which turned into a holographic game), I added controls (gaze, gesture and voice), spatial sound, spatial mapping, and the ability to pick up, move and place the hologram around the room. Finally, an underworld was added to the hologram so that when the spheres rolled off, there was an explosion and they fell into a gaping hole that appeared in the floor. Inside the hole was an underworld, complete with rolling hills and cranes soaring underneath my feet.
The resolution of the holograms projected onto the real world around me was excellent. They were vibrant, sharp and realistic. When I moved around them, the holographic shapes behaved like real world objects would, so I could see their backsides or not see them at all if they became obstructed by other holograms. When the paper spheres rolled onto the floor, they rolled around just like real balls would, bouncing around objects and looking real enough to pick up. When I peered into the underworld that opened up on the floor, it was like I was looking into, as my Microsoft HoloLens "mentor" put it, a world I didn't even know was there the whole time.
But looking at holograms overlain onto the real world is only part of the HoloLens equation. Controlling the holograms is the other.
The HoloLens gaze controls were responsive and should be easy for any user to get the hang of almost immediately. It's the other kinds of input where HoloLens has slightly more trouble.
While voice controls worked, there was a lag between giving them and the hologram executing them. I had to say, "Let it roll!" to roll my spheres down the slides, and there was a one second or so pause before they took a tumble. It wasn't major, but was enough to make me feel like I should repeat the command.
Gesture control was the hardest to get right, even though it was only a one-finger downward swipe. It took some time to figure out the best distance to hold my hand away from HoloLens and where I needed to place my finger in order for my swipe to register. Once I did though, the control worked better than expected. Instead of reaching out like I was going to touch the hologram, the swipe worked best when I held my hand comfortably in front of me.
With the gesture control, I was able to select the Project Origami diagram, use my gaze to move it around the room, and then use another pinch to get the hologram to stay in a new spot (I moved it from in front of me to a couch to a coffee tablet to a desk.). This wasn't Minority Report-level selecting and swiping, but it was impressive nonetheless.
The HoloLens has spatial sound, which takes the experience to a whole new level. Ambient music played while the hologram was running, and when a sphere rolled, HoloLens added the sound of crumbling paper to go along with it. The sound got louder as I got closer to the hologram and faded as I moved away. It added another dimension to the HoloLens experience that made it that much more immersive.
Of course, as I was viewing the holograms, I was still able to see the real people and objects around me. The holograms weren't disrupted if someone happened to walk through my projection. My favorite part of this HoloLens demo was a wire frame mesh that appeared on real-world objects to show how HoloLens perceives them. The mesh changed as HoloLens registered the objects and I moved my head to look at a new spot. It also went over people around me, though I could still make out their features from behind the digital framework. It was an awesome AR moment: the people around me became part of the hologram themselves.
As cool as it all was, it would have been less distracting if the holographic images disappeared when I started talking to someone. From speaking with Microsoft personnel, it sounded like this would be possible with other applications, but wasn't a feature of this particular Project Origami demonstration. It also felt weird to talk to someone with HoloLens on; I felt a little rude, like I was wearing sunglasses inside.
The biggest issue with HoloLens' holographic viewing is the holograph is limited to what amounts to the size of a large monitor in front of you. You can see the edges of the virtual space where the hologram lives (which are basically the edges of the inner HoloLens frames), and looking outside that space, or moving too close into it, cuts the the hologram off or makes it disappear completely. The wire mesh effect created a more immersive experience and the edges weren't visible then, but viewing the origami hologram on its own felt like I was looking at something that existed on a limited image plane.
The hologram looked best when I was standing about four or five feet away from it and when there was more going on, like the wire frame mesh.
There were glitches in the software, and it didn't work perfectly every time. That being said, the problems weren't horrendous nor did they take away from my enjoyment of HoloLens.
Early verdict
HoloLens isn't perfect, either in software or hardware. But it's getting there, and if Microsoft can fix its issues, HoloLens is going to be an immersive entertainment device that could easily find a place in the work world, too.Despite its issues, using HoloLens was, in a word, delightful. With more robust applications, more reliable functionality and an improved viewing experience, HoloLens may could easily become the AR viewer to own.
HoloLens is the most fascinating hardware I've tried in a long time. While we still don't know how long its battery lasts nor how much it costs, HoloLens seems like it has unlimited potential. Not only that, it feels like it can live up to its potential. And that's exciting.
GDC and first hands on review
Update March 2015: Looks like gaming is definitely a go for the HoloLens. During GDC 2015, Head of Xbox Phil Spencer led a panel discussing the importance of games on the augmented reality device:"We see this as a full Windows 10 device with holographic capability,"
Spencer also mentioned that the HoloLens APIs will be made available with Windows 10 gaming SDK.
Original review by Mary Branscombe continued below ...
The HoloLens that Microsoft will ship will be a Star Trek-style visor that wraps around your head but doesn't isolate you from the world, with the Intel SoC and custom Holographic Processing Unit built in. What I tried out in the labs hidden (rather cheekily) under the Microsoft visitor centre didn't look like that, but the engineers and developers who built it say the experience I had with the developer rig is essentially the same.
The HoloLens developer rig is built into a frame that slips onto your head and gets strapped into the right position; there's a sensor array over your eyes to track where you're looking and sensors on the frame to track how your head moves and the Holographic Processing Unit hangs around your neck on a strap (it's about the size and weight of a car radio). Someone needs to help you fit it and before you do that you have to get the distance between your pupils measured. And when you have it set, there's a power cord coming down from the ceiling rigged to move with you as you walk.
All of that will vanish into the final product, so what I tried is very obviously early hardware - like the custom developer kits Microsoft makes for early Xbox developers. Microsoft didn't let us photograph the developer rig, and you need a special camera to capture the HoloLens view so our images were supplied by Microsoft; they're a rather idealised version of the slightly grainier view I saw.
The HPU, as Microsoft calls it, isn't that much of a misnomer (less so than suggesting that a retina screen has the same resolution as the human retina, say). What you see isn't a holograph or a hologram; it's a projection - but it's being projected onto holographically printed lenses, which lets Microsoft produce very cheaply the extremely complex lenses that turn the projection into the 3D image you see.
The HPU turns the graphics into the right signal to project onto those lenses as well as processing information from the sensors that tell it where you're looking and how you're moving your head. It will speed up voice recognition and spatial sound processing, too.
That doesn't just let you see the digital world projected around you; it lets you see it on top of the real world. You can see the person standing next to you and talk to them, avoid walking into walls and chairs and even look at a computer screen, because HoloLens detects the edge and doesn't project over it so you don't need to keep taking it on and off as you work. You can take notes or answer email on a computer with a keyboard or a pen instead of trying to force that kind of close up work into the world of gestures and gaze.
If you wear glasses, this close-fitting headset isn't ideal. It's hard to make it fit comfortably - I found it either pushed my glasses down onto my nose or pressed them hard into my face, and I much preferred using it without my glasses on. As I'm short sighted, that made it harder to see detail. Talking to people outside Microsoft who've tried the actual HoloLens headset, it's light and comfortable to wear but the first version will probably still press on your glasses more than you'd like. And if you wear varifocals, you move your eyes automatically to look through the right part of your glasses for what you're focusing on; that can mean you look down at things that aren't in view for HoloLens (or for someone on a Skype call to your HoloLens) or look up and lose the HoloLens image.
The good news is that even if you're very sensitive to motion and prone to get VR sickness, or if you get headaches wearing 3D glasses, HoloLens is comfortable to use. I'm very prone to both of those and have problems with many other systems; after a brief moment the first two times I put it on when I could tell I was adjusting to what I was seeing, I had no problems at all with nausea, headaches or the other discomfort that can come when you trick your brain into thinking it's seeing something real.
The HoloLens projected screen moves as you move your head and you control apps either with voice commands or by using the equivalent of a mouse click - the air tap. You just hold your fist out in front of you where you can see it then raise and lower your finger. I didn't have to worry about getting it in the right place or moving it at the right speed; as long as I made sure my other fingers and thumb were out of the way, HoloLens got the gesture every time.
Digital reality
I tried three different applications with the HoloLens. I also got to watch several people using the Holo Studio 3D building tool, which has the most sophisticated controls, using a combination of gaze, gesture and voice commands to let you design objects you can see in the real world, so you know they're the size you want before you spend time and money 3D-printing them.The most engaging was playing HoloBuilder; inspired by Minecraft and built with the help of the Minecraft team, this is a game that lets you build a digital landscape that exists in your physical space. Think the giant LEGO setup in the basement of Will Ferrell's house in The LEGO Movie, only invisible until you put HoloLens on, and built both on top of and underneath your furniture - and even extending under the floor and into the walls.
Using voice commands and the air tap gesture and my own real feet, I walked around a village, tickled a sheep to stop it falling off the table, dug through a (real) bench to make a hole, blew up some TNT to drop zombies into the lava pool that was in the chamber I'd dug through to, then blew a hole in the wall and lit a lamp to see the bats flying through the caverns in the wall.
Like Minecraft, half the fun is that your creations are obviously digital, but seeing them perched on real tables and benches was even more fun. This combination of virtual and physical worlds was delightful and immersive and shows the obvious gaming and entertainment potential here.
But the other two apps I tried were actually more impressive and certainly more useful. Making a Skype call from HoloLens is a good way to try out voice and gesture commands; you can look at the person you want to call in the address book - which is a grid of faces - then air tap to call them. The video call doesn't jump around the room if you move; it sits in one place unless you look too far away and then it moves back into view, or you can pin it in place.
The person you're calling doesn't need a HoloLens; they see in Skype what you're looking at and they can draw diagrams on the video that appear in your view. So if you're helping someone change a tyre or fix their dishwasher or fit a new light switch, you don't have to explain what they need to look for or pull out or unscrew - you can take a pen and show them.
This would fantastic for teaching and training, for remote support or for getting an expert opinion; imagine a remote handyman who could give customers advice (and charge them for it) or a repair service that always turns up with the right part because you've shown them what they're fixing in advance. It would also be a really interesting way to have a meeting where you're collaborating remotely on physical objects, not just the usual documents and presentations.
Remote working is something NASA has to do, but the OnSight system the Jet Propulsion Lab is building with Microsoft made me feel like I was walking on Mars. Some years ago I visited the Supervisualisation Lab at the university of San Diego, where they have a wall of screens that can show a life-size image of Mars using the photos sent back by the Mars Rover and I could look out at Mars like looking out of a window. HoloLens meant I could step out onto the surface of Mars and walk around, bending over to look at rocks, turning round to see the view and looking up to see the sky. This is where I most wanted to have peripheral vision because with HoloLens you only see what you're looking at; as you turn your head, the Rover suddenly comes into view and it's a rather large surprise.
OnSight isn't for digital tourism, delightful as that is; there are tools to tell the Rover where to go next to take photographs and samples - and the terrain that looks flat and easy to drive over on a PC screen is revealed as a treacherous series of slopes and ditches the Rover can easily fall down when you see it in 3D, so JPL scientists can look for an easy route before they air tap to give the Rover a target to photograph or burn with its laser.
They can also collaborate; other people in the landscape show up as stylised avatars, and a handy dotted line shows you where they're looking (HoloLens knows that, so it can show you), which avoids all the creepy 'uncanny valley' problems of realistic avatars. This is something we're going to have to work out social conventions for; when you say goodbye to someone miles away on the telephone it's easy to hang up, but when you can still see their avatar just turning away and ignoring them feels slightly rude. (Equally, watching someone use HoloLens is disturbing because they're turning and crouching and reaching out for things you can't see, and it's hard not to think they look strange.)
Walking around Mars with another scientist, or walking around an unfinished building and seeing where the walls will be, or being able to pull a virtual engine out of a physical car to see how it fits together so you can work out which screws to undo - there's a huge range of possibilities here, because this is far more than just a gaming system. And Microsoft is sensitive enough to privacy issues to have avoided the creepy feeling of using augmented reality to spy on the public world that Google Glass is so prone to. HoloLens doesn't just tag the physical world with information you can get other ways; it adds a realistic 3D digital world on top of (and underneath) it in a way that feels like magic and is delightful to use.
Early verdict
It's far too early to tell whether the HoloLens will be a success; only a select few have used the final design - instead of the early developer rig we tried out - so I can't comment first hand on how comfortable it is (with or without glasses).I saw only four apps, one of which is more of a proof of concept (sorry Minecraft fans, HoloBuilder may not even ship). Price and battery life are both things I can only guess at. It's entirely possible that HoloLens may be more of a curiosity than a mainstream success. But if it takes off, and later models get smaller and lighter and less obtrusive, then Microsoft has just changed the world of computing again the way it did with Windows. HoloLens quickly feels natural and it's easy to see how useful it will be - and how much fun too.
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In Depth: Mad Max shows off the future of video game graphics today
Want to get the best gaming experience with the highest fidelity graphics? The obvious solution has almost always been to go with a PC, unless you're talking about a console exclusive title. But while PC gaming has led the charge with better textures, dynamic lighting, particle effects and more – the big question is where will the industry go next.
Recently, TechRadar sat down with Avalanche Studios, the developers behind the hotly anticipated Just Cause 3 and Mad Max games to delve into this very subject. As Avalanche Head of Research Emil Persson explained, pushing the graphical envelope in games isn't just about better textures, it's also a matter of making them look more realistic.
High-dynamic lighting
"Just Cause 2 was still using an low-dynamic range pipeline [and with it] we were able to squeeze an awful lot of image quality out of that," Persson explained. "Eventually, the move to high-dynamic range allowed us to work much more naturally and create more realistic lighting."The Just Cause 3 team has been working in a pipeline with HDR for several years, and in that time they've also introduced physics-based lighting and clustered shading. The latter of which, according to Persson, allows the game use many, many lights simultaneously without adverse effects on the frame rate.
On top of introducing better lighting techniques, Persson highlighted players will notice another clearly visible improvement in their terrain engine. With Just Cause 3, the studio promises a lusher world filled with tiny details such as overhangs, tunnels and sea stacks seamlessly incorporated into the environment.
Unlike a traditional terrain system, Persson said his team could create an interesting landscape without the need for separate meshes, stretched textures or visible seams. "A truly next-gen terrain system will be a differentiating factor for us," he quipped.
Level of detail
But it isn't just a matter of using all your resources at once. Persson explained that the Avalanche engine uses an extensive Level-Of-Detail system that optimizes the amount of detail render objects depending on their distance from the player."So for instance for vegetation, close up you will see individual trees and bushes as highly detailed models," Persson said. "[These] also react to the weather and can be interacted with by the player, or even destroyed."
"A little bit further away we will drop detail, but you are unlikely to notice unless you know exactly what to look for," he said. "Eventually we batch trees together, and further off they become 2D billboards, and really far it really just a textured carpet giving the impression of a forest."
Beyond vegetation Persson says their Level-Of-Detail system also manages character models and AI, strongholds in the world and even the weather. In essence best overall visual quality with the given computational power and memory available in the users' systems.
"We can't have the entire world simulating at once, so we need to be a bit smarter about it and use our available power where it matters the most," he expounded.
Indirect console benefits
Indirectly, the new Xbox One and PS4 consoles might be the biggest relief for Avalanche Studio's workload. Rather than having to develop Just Cause 3 and Mad Max for three different architectures, Persson said his team can focus on programing one PC version and scale it accordingly for everything from a fully loaded gaming PC or laptop to the architecturally-similar Xbox One and PS4."Before, we had two consoles with two very different GPUs, with very different performance characteristics and feature sets," he said. On the CPU front things were especially disparate with the Xbox 360 and PS3 running a PowerPC platform while PC's were of course built with an x86 processor.
"Fast forward to this generation. Both consoles are using a fairly standard GPU that's also quite commonly found in gaming PCs," he said. "The overall performance of the consoles are the same, so any optimization we do will likely benefit all platforms, unlike in the past were a change could speed up one console but slow down the other."
Burning up
On the purely PC side, this also frees up Persson to focus on making Just Cause 3 and Mad Max the best games they can be. "In the past, the PC suffered for being more powerful than we could necessarily take advantage of," Persson explained. "As long as we needed to support much less capable consoles there was always a problem of finding meaningful things we could spend the spare cycles of the PC on."The Avalanche Studios team expects this will be a much smaller problem now. Memory-wise, the consoles meet the standards of a typical gaming PC and even exceed a large number of PC systems. What's more, the graphics cards inside the consoles can keep fairly on pace with mainstream systems.
"Since the GPUs are the same basic architecture," he began. "It's easier to tune algorithms, and the performance differences only means we need to be able to scale the work a little according to each platform's power."
"There are, of course, high-end GPUs [on PC] that are far more powerful, [so] there's definitely still room for us to come up with interesting extras to spice up PC versions of our games."
- Final Fantasy is the first look at PC gaming with DirectX 12 and Windows 10
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Microsoft creates the most useful Surface Pro 3 dock you can't buy
Microsoft employees had created a custom dock for the Surface Pro 3 that's even more practical than the $199 (£131, AU$254) dock that Microsoft sells. The VESA-mounted dock brings the tablet to eye-level so users can power a multi-display setup from their Surface Pro 3, and the dock adds a USB port in the front for quick connection to peripherals like USB flash drives.
The dock was shown off in a session at Build 2015, and there's an optional lock so users can secure their tablets in an office.
Magnetic edge connector
Unlike the existing Surface Pro 3 dock that's being sold through Microsoft stores, this employee-made edition doesn't come with physical parts that need to snap into the Surface Pro 3's display-out and USB ports.Employees are leveraging the magnetic edge connector - the same connector that the Type Cover keyboard snaps into - to make docking simple with no moving parts required.
"Docking is easier than ever because we use the zero-insertion force 40-pin magnetic edge connector which breaks out into DisplayPort, power, and USB. So you just drop in your tablet and you're up and running with a full desktop experience in seconds," Microsoft wrote on its developer channel blog. "No moving parts. No cables to plug in. Simple one step docking."
Enterprise use
Aside from the easier docking mechanism with the magnetic edge connector, enterprise users will benefit the most from the VESA mount on the dock. This allows multi-monitor setups where the Surface Pro 3's display would line up with other monitors on the desk.Unfortunately, at this time, the dock is only an internal concept that's created by employees. Hopefully, Microsoft will work on commercializing this solution in the future given the increasing popularity of the Surface line.
In its most recent earnings call, Microsoft revealed that revenue for its Surface business has increased 44% year-over-year compared to a general decline in tablet sales by the rest of the industry.
If you want to see the dock at Build, you can watch Microsoft's video at the 22:15 mark.
- Read our Surface 3 review
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Microsoft pens deal to acquire N-trig
Microsoft has finally confirmed that it has acquired N-trig, the firm behind its popular Surface Pen for the Surface Pro 3 and Surface 3.
The deal, which was reported on the Surface blog, sees the advanced digital pen technology become a part of Microsoft and follows years of work between the two on the technology currently inside Microsoft products.
Rumours of the deal first began flying earlier this year when it was reported that Microsoft spent some $200 million (about £132 million, or AU$255) to acquire the Israeli firm and it's anticipated that N-trig's 190 employees will migrate to Microsoft's office in Israel.
Massive increase in usage
The Surface Pen has seen a "massive increase in usage" on the Surface Pro 3 Panos Panay, chief of Microsoft's Surface hardware group, told the Wall Street Journal, and that comes after it was redesigned with N-trig DuoSense technology that has 256 levels of pressure sensitivity.Microsoft's N-trig digitizing technology competes against Wacom. Microsoft had previously used Wacom's pen technology on the Surface Pro and Surface Pro 2 before the switch to N-trig on the Surface Pro 3. Samsung is a current investor in Wacom, and the company also uses Wacom's tech in its S Pen on the Galaxy Note series.
Combine this with the added handwriting functionality that will big a big part of Windows 10 and the newly unveiled Edge browser, and you begin to realise that acquiring N-trig was quite simply a no brainer.
- Check it out: Windows 10 release date, price, news and features
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Steve Jobs' old business cards will go to the highest bidder
If you're jonesing to do a little good in the world while also nabbing a new item for the memorabilia case, today may be your lucky day. The Marin School in San Rafael, California has put three of Steve Jobs's old business cards up for auction, first caught by Business Insider.
The three cards span from 1984 to 1990, when Jobs went from Chairman of Apple, to CEO of NeXT and Chairman of Pixar. These little cards have undoubtedly caught the attention of Apple and tech lovers everywhere.
According to the Sierra Antonio, Director of Communications at The Marin School, the cards were provided by a family that used to cater for Jobs and wisely kept them in the condition they were when they left the tech icon's pocket.
After the online auction is closed, it will go to a gala to benefit The Marin School, with absentee bidding available through the site.
The auction to benefit the school is open until May 7. The current bid is at $3,035 (about £2,006, AU$3,879) and rising as of this writing, making these cards pricier than a Michael Jordan rookie baseball card. (Though, to be fair, far less than an Apple Watch Edition.)
- See what we think of the Apple Watch
Image Credit: The Marin School
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Confirmed: Apple Watch and wrist tattoos don't mix
Will there ever be an Apple product release that's not mired in controversy?
After a week of user complaints that Apple Watch does not work well with tattoos on their wrists, Apple has confirmed it's a problem with the wearable's sensors.
In a newly updated page on the smartwatch's heart sensor Apple notes "permanent or temporary changes to your skin, such as some tattoos, can also impact heart rate sensor performance."
According to the Cupertino company, the ink, pattern, and saturation of some tattoos can block light projected by the watch's infrared sensors. The Apple Watch uses these sensors to detect the user and when they are wearing the smartwatch as well as tracking their heart rate.
The issue first came to light when inked users took to Reddit, Twitter and YouTube to present the malfunctioning sensor, calling the widespread issue "Tattoo-gate."
Another setback
The Apple Watch was released on April 24, and already this is the wearable's second major issue.Just a day ago, a report from The Wall Street Journal stated the smartwatch was running into delays due to faulty Taptic Engines - a key component that taps the users wrist for notifications.
- Which wins out in the Apple Watch vs Moto 360 fight?
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Quantum computing OS could speed up arrival of powerful PCs
Cambridge Quantum Computing (CQCL) has developed a new OS designed to run the quantum computers that will shape our future.
The new OS, which is called t|kit>, has been facilitated by CQCL's own proprietary custom designed high-speed super computer and this allowed the company to accurately mimic how a quantum processor will work.
"CQCL is at the forefront of developing an operating system that will allow users to harness the joint power of classical super computers alongside quantum computers. The development of t|ket> is a major milestone," read a statement from the company. "Quantum computing will be a reality much earlier than originally anticipated. It will have profound and far-reaching effects on a vast number of aspects of our daily lives."
Working QC is getting closer
Even though it can be extremely expensive, Quantum computing has been coming on leaps and bounds in the past 12 months, and the speed it completes complex tasks when compared to regular PCs is one of the biggest advantages it brings.CQCL's release comes in the same week that IBM brought us even closer to a working quantum computer by accomplishing simultaneous error detection of two quantum errors.
Alongside this it also unveiled a design that makes its quantum computer highly scalable thus bringing it closer to becoming a realistic proposition.
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7 days in Phones: LG goes hell for leather and the vegetarian in me isn't pleased
7 days in phones
The inevitable march of time continues apace, each heavy tick and every despairing tock carrying us ever closer to the cold embrace of the grave. With that cheery thought it is time for another 7 days in phones!Maybe this week my witterings will be posted on time and not unceremoniously dumped at a random day. It's "7 days in phones" after all, not "7ish, maybe 8, could be 3 days in phones". Not that I'm bitter or anything.
LG wants me to buy a phone by covering it in the skin of a dead animal
I never thought as a vegetarian my morals would impact my phone buying – it would just be a simple life of chewing leafs and trying to convince people that tofu tastes good – which it does. Honest.
But now LG has released the G4, which seems like a fantastic smartphone clad in leather, and although this 'premium' look will undoubtedly appeal to some people, I can't help but feel weird about it. I don't want an animal to die so that I can make phone calls and play Crossy Road – which thanks to my incompetence with the game involves countless deaths of virtual animals instead.
At least there are more veggie friendly options, such as the thrilling white ceramic-painted and metallic coated versions, so my morals won't get in the way of purchasing those – though my bank balance probably will.
Microsoft goes shop lifting
How does that old saying go? If you can't beat them, just nick their stuff. Well, it's something like that, and it appears it's a tactic Microsoft is employing to get people to use the Windows Store.There's probably a fair chance that you never ventured into the Windows Store – and with good reason, too.
With iOS and Android you could be pretty confident that any big apps would be available on the platform, but Windows Phone was often neglected, the store a rather desolate waste land. This caused a rather unfortunate self-fulfilling circle of strife as people would hesitate going to Windows Phone due to it lacking apps, which caused developers to delay or cease creating apps due to the small market share of the operating system.
By putting slightly rejigged iOS and Android apps onto Windows 10 devices, Microsoft clearly wants to boost the Windows Store (which currently has 300,000 apps compared to the 1.2 million apps on iOS and 1.3 million on Android).
Sounds like a good idea, but I'm not too sure about this method. I'd much rather have an app that was designed from the ground up to work with my phone and operating system of choice, as a crowbarred in app will probably ignore any unique features of the Windows Phone operating system, ignoring Cortana and wondering where that Siri lass had got to.
It also means the few developers who were working on Windows Phone apps will probably stop all together. Why waste time building a Windows Phone version if it's going to end up on there anyway?
At least Microsoft will have some inflated numbers to wave around and try to convince people to buy a Windows Phone. Good for them!
The Chosen One
In the days of yoreElder lips smacked
And chattered of a hooved hero that bore
Upon his brow a horn
And in his heart for ever more
A phone, berry black in hue
That ceased to ring
But tho' in silence it stayed
We would sing
About The Chosen One
Who would bring balance to the force...
"Wait a minute" exclaimed Winston, as he read the ancient text that had been scrawled on the back of a Motorola Flipout user manual.
"What is it, o Chosen One?" the mighty eagle enquired.
"Well, first of all this is quite possibly the worst poem I have ever read." Gasps rang out amongst the council. "And secondly, it seems to start ripping off Star Wars towards the end." Yet more shocked gasps. A polecat fainted.
"This is a sacred text!" roared an angry looking gazelle. "You may be the chosen one, but there's no need for blasphemy!"
A murmur of agreement broke out from the gathered animals. Winston looked sheepish, which is difficult for a half robot Unicorn to do.
"I'm sorry" he croaked. "This is all very new to me. I do want to help, really. But what do you need of me?"
"Ah, well for that you'll need this" the eagle gravely intoned.
Winston gasped. In the eagle's proffered talon lay a tangled black mass, the likes of which had long stalked Winston's nightmares: a proprietary Nokia charger.
Shinning in the rain
JK Shin, President and CEO of Samsung was excited to launch the Samsung Galaxy S4, but some bright spark thought why not make this launch event cheesy and cringe inducing as well? Bring on the tap dancers, rubbish child actors and musical numbers!Strange press shot of the week
"Hello, is that the police?...A strange orange man has entered my house...OK I'll remain calm, pretend I'm happy to see him...he is very orange though..."
Retro video of the week
If you thought annoying idiots that use their phones during a meal are a modern phenomenon, then guess again with this old advert for Radio Shack's affordable, transportable, cellular telephone.
Not only can you obnoxiously use the phone during meals, you can chatter away on a golf course or ignore your wife when on a boat.
True fact: the kid at the end who jokingly said to buy 100 shares cost his father his job, and directly caused the economic downturn of the late 1980s. The dad was last seen selling used shampoo bottles in a Little Chef car park. For US readers who don't know what a Little Chef is, imagine a much bleaker version of Denny's.
Proper bits from the site
- Oh dear, it looks like OnePlus's rift with Cyanogen has come to a head
- ZTE is launching a new phone with insane specs
- We find out why the Apple Watch was delayed
- The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 pops up with code name 'Project Noble'
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This creepy female android can blink and fidget like a human
Hiroshi Ishiguro, the director of the Intelligent Robotic Laboratory, has just unveiled his lab's latest creation. Her name is Yangyang.
She's an android - a robot designed to look and act as human as possible - and by all accounts seems to have been the star of the Global Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing between April 28 and 30 2015.
Ishiguro has spent almost his whole life creating and designing a series of realistic androids. He's made one that looks like himself, one based on his own daughter, and now one based on researcher Yang Song, the wife of the president of a Chinese technology company that he collaborated with.
Yangyang has been designed to be as humanlike as possible - able to blink, shake hands and fidget like a human. She'll be used to teach kids about robotics, and may also be used in more commercial settings - as a 'greeter' in a department store, for example.
Ishiguro has been granted $16 million by Japan's Sci-tech funding body ERATO to continue his work, with one eye on the lucrative Chinese market. "The Chinese market is more active than the United States and Japan. They're eager to accept new technology," he told Vice. "A lot of robotics companies are focusing on the Chinese market now as they are more flexible and richer than the Japanese one."
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Surface Pro 4 reportedly slated for an anniversary announcement
Microsoft Surface fans hold on to your hats as the firm's latest high-end tablet-PC hybrid is getting for its first outing later on this month.
First reported by SlashGear, an anonymous source told the site that the Surface Pro 4 will get its long awaited big reveal at a special Microsoft event that is slated to take place in the middle of May.
It goes on to explain that even though they've had limited experience with this source they have "great reason" to believe that the prediction will come true come mid-May. This would also make the reveal an anniversary announcement to last year's Surface Pro 3 event, which took place on May 20, 2014.
Broadwell on board
It's was widely rumoured that Microsoft would unveil the new high-end tablet-PC hybrid at Build 2015 this week before throwing it into mass production at some point in June. It could still hit the production line mid-2015 and arrive just in time for Windows 10's purported release slated for this summer.When it does get released it's expected the device will have a 12-inch, 2,160 x 1,440 pixel display, Intel's Core M 'Broadwell' chip and come with an N-Trig pen, although there is little more detail than that at present. We reached out to Microsoft for a comment regarding the event and subsequent release, and are currently waiting to hear back.
- Check it out: Surface Pro 4 release date, news and rumours
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Week in Tech: Week in Tech: Hololens, X-Wings and the Apple Watch - the future has arrived
Technology is many things, but it's rarely dull. Take this week, for example. Microsoft may have just shown us the future of the PC, we've seen smartphones covered in cows and we've discovered how chickens can cause chaos in virtual cities. Not only that, but we've seen a whole tech sector die and a watch hurt somebody's shoulder. It's another weird and wonderful week in tech!
Microsoft: Build and they will come
This week Microsoft held its Build 2015 conference, sadly without Steve Ballmer doing any developer dancing. But there was more than enough excitement coming from Microsoft products to compensate: we saw a holographic version of Windows via Microsoft Hololens, a way to turn Windows 10 phones into fully-fledged PCs with apps to match. We saw a new version of Windows 10, of course, but that wasn't the only interesting announcement, as Cameron Faulkner explains in his TL;DR guide to the biggest announcements of Build 2015.A new Surface should surface soon
Microsoft hasn't just been messing around with virtual reality and phone apps. It's been beavering away on Surface Pro 4 too. Kane Fulton's been following the leaks and rumours, and "there's good reason to believe that the Surface Pro 4 could turn out to be something special." With brand new Windows, brand new processors and a revitalised Microsoft behind it, the Surface Pro 4 could be one of the best Windows 10 devices we'll see this year.Gee, it's the LG G4
The new LG G4 "comes with an all new design, a brilliant camera, a fancy screen… and it's covered in cow." Not a whole cow, of course: as James Rogerson and Matt Hanson explain, "It features a premium design led by a leather back option that contrasts with the glass-backed Samsung Galaxy S6 and slippery iPhone 6 aluminum. No need to buy a leather case now." It's available for order now in South Korea and should cost around £500 (US$650, AU$,1066). How does it compare to its predecessor, the LG G3? It's better. James Rogerson explains why in LG G3 vs LG G4.Have we just seen the Samsung Galaxy Note 5?
Two new Samsung phones have been spotted in the wild. One of them appears to be a variant of the Galaxy S6, but the other one's more interesting: it might just be the Samsung Galaxy Note 5, or Project Noble as it's currently called. If you're wondering what kind of processor it has, what the pixel density of the display is or whether it can talk to animals, we've no idea, and neither does anybody else outside Samsung. Let the leaks begin!Apple Watch watch: rubbish for running, far too cheap
It's been an interesting week for Apple Watch watchers, because the first happy customers have got their Watches on their wrists. Their verdict? It's rubbish for running. Our own Gareth Beavis reckons it isn't as good as a Garmin. Not only that, but "I can't tread water and I've hurt my shoulder." We're not sure whether that's the Watch's fault.Are watch firms worried by the Apple Watch? Tag Heuer isn't. It's unveiled a fancy Android Wear watch that'll cost US$1,400 (about £900, AU$1,740) and run for 40 hours on a single charge. It'll be a while before we can check that claim, though. It won't go on sale until at least October.
If you've ordered an Apple Watch and you're still waiting, James Peckham knows why. "Goddamn Taptic Engines!" he cries. The taptic engine is the bit of the Watch that taps you when you receive a notification, and one of Apple's suppliers wasn't very good at making them. So many of AAC Technologies Holdings PLC's taptic engines failed in testing that Apple had to switch suppliers at the last minute.
TomTom's in bandit country
Would you swap a GoPro for a TomTom? The question isn't as mad as it sounds, because TomTom is moving into the action camera business with the TomTom Bandit. As Hugh Langley explains: "It might sound like a strange move for one of the world's leading satnav companies to make, but TomTom started down this road with the launch of its 2013 Runner watch and subsequent sports wearables." The aim is to make action cameras even more awesome than they already are, and we can't wait to put it to the test.RIP 3DTV
We've been saying for ages that 3D TV was dead tech walking, and this week Sky hammered another three-dimensional nail into its three-dimensional coffin. It's pulling the plug on its 3D channel this summer, presumably because nobody's been watching it. We hate to say we told you so, but…X-wings and chickens. The world's getting weirder
We've seen things you wouldn't believe. Real X-Wings in real space, and fake chickens in fake cities. Two people from Essex have managed to send a model X-Wing up to the very edge of space and film it with high altitude balloons and GoPro cameras for no good reason, while in GTA V's Los Santos we've finally discovered why the chicken crossed the road. "To commit armed robbery, hijack a cop car and finally make its getaway in a fighter jet," Hugh Langley says.
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IBM whips up a new iPad app to help the elderly
Apple and IBM are working together on a piece of software that has the potential to revolutionise the lives of elderly people worldwide.
First reported by the Wall Street Journal, the two companies are working with Japan Post to develop Post Office Watch service software for the iPad that will assist in the care of elderly people.
Post Office Watch was launched at the end of 2013 and allows Japanese Post employees to check on elderly clients, offer consultations and report back to family members. The hope is that eventually the technology will be used by IBM and Apple to bring a similar experience to other countries around the world.
"Where Japan is maybe first, many others will follow," said Apple CEO Tim Cook. "I think this shows the enormous potential of the partnership between IBM and Apple that was announced last year."
The elderly watch service is currently used by just 100 elderly people, who pay a charge of ¥1,000 (around £5.50, $8.33, or AU$10.60) per month. A pilot program that gets underway later this year will give free iPads to 1,000 elderly people and there's currently no word on how much will be charged when it becomes a regular business in April 2016.
Five million users by 2020
By 2020, IBM hopes the software will reach between four and five million Japanese citizens and it success will be gauged against the number of other countries with similar systems.The new system is just the latest release to come from the partnership signed by Apple and IBM in July 2014, in which IBM has promised to develop enterprise software and apps for Apple's iOS devices including iPhones and iPads.
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