TAG Heuer's uber pricey $1400 smartwatch will be released by November
Luxury
watch company TAG Heuer will release a Google Android Wear-powered
device by the end of the year, sporting a whopping $1,400 price tag. The
custom watch could be available in October, but shouldn't launch any
later than November, according to company officials.
The
watch has been created with the help of Intel and Google, with all
three companies announcing a partnership in March. Google is providing
Android Wear while TAG Heuer will use a new Intel microprocessor to
power the costly watch.
Following the same idea as other smartwatch manufacturers, TAG
Heuer hopes the Apple Watch helps bring additional attention to the
wearable market.
"The more they sell, the more a few people will want something different and come to TAG Heuer," said Jean-Claude Biver, CEO of TAG Heuer, in a statement to Bloomberg.
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Discrete and integrated GPUs working together with DX12 provides gains
We've
known for a while that DirectX 12 will be providing some serious gains
in performance, as well as the ability to join GPUs and their VRAM, but
over the last few days we've been learning more about DX12 thanks to
Microsoft's Build 2015 conference.
The
company showcased their new DirectX 12 "Multiadapter" feature,
something that allows unused hardware inside of a PC to be fully
utilized. This provides the ability to use integrated GPUs on CPUs -
something that would otherwise be completely unused - to be utilized
alongside the GPU for additional performance.
This premise isn't anything new, as the likes of AMD, LucidLogix
Virtu and other technologies have tried this - but it has never taken
off like DX12 will. Microsoft's new DirectX 12 Multiadapter technology
creates a specialized coherent link between every GPU available inside
of the PC, and lets them work together to provide as much performance as
possible.
One of the demos used to showcase this impressive technology was a
demo created by Square Enix called "WITCH CHAPTER 0 [cry]". This demo
was powered by four NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X video cards, with 63
million polygons per scene and massive 8K x 8K highly detailed textures,
showing off the next generation of graphics. The DirectX 12
Multiadapter technology was using both the integrated GPUs and all four
Titan X cards for added performance. The single adapter/discrete option
was seeing an average of 35.9FPS, but the multiadapter using the
discrete and integrated GPUs was providing 39.7FPS.
There's much more to this story, so check out
the source if you want to get blasted with some serious numbers and information.
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Google Glass competitor from Allwinner will cost just $199
Google
Glass was quite the product, and while it didn't receive widespread use
or universal praise, I personally thought it was a great device on the
market. For one, it was something completely new - there's nothing quite
like it, and if it was done right, it could turn into something very
useful.
Well,
it will soon have a competitor from Chinese manufacturer Allwinner.
Allwinner hasn't named its wearable yet, but they have said that it will
be a Glass like device, with a much better price of $199, compared to
the $1500 asking price of the Google Glass Explorer Edition. Allwinner
is really talking up its wearable, saying that it will be able to
outperform Glass in both price, and performance categories.
Inside of the Allwinner wearable, we'll find their own A33
processor, with Taiwanese design firm Coretronic provided the design
work on the device. It will look quite similar to Google Glass, but cost
nearly 1/10 of what Mountain View was charging. It will feature Wi-Fi
and Bluetooth, but right now there is no release date for Allwinner's
Glass competitor.
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The first DirectX12 powered CryEngine tech demo is here
A
couple of engineers working at Snail Games took just six weeks to port
King of Wushu from DirectX 11 to DirectX 12 in CryEngine, with the
results of this work in the video below.
As
you can see, King of Wushu is a new 3D martial arts based MOBA, with
some very delicious graphics and physics. There's some impressive age
contact collision and motion capture animation that can be spotted, but
it's the DX12 side of things that has us excited.
There are over 10,000+ drawcalls in the DX12 tech demo of King of
Wushu, over 20,000+ polygons per character, with one of the big
differences between the DX11 and DX12 versions of the game being CPU and
GPU utilization. Under the DX11 version of the game, CPU utilization is
fine at around 99%, but GPU utilization hovers at an average of 83%.
Once DX12 is enabled, the GPU usage shoots up to 98-99%, which is a
sizeable jump in performance from switching APIs.
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Analyst: Apple will find a way to 'iron out' problems with Apple Watch
An
issue with the Apple Watch's taptic engines has slowed the wearable's
rollout, but Apple will resolve the problems and move on, according to
an analyst. This is the first new product under CEO Tim Cook's
leadership, so expect reported problems to be thoroughly investigated.
"Apple
always has produced a phenomenal product. They are driven to produce a
high-quality product, so I think they will iron out all these issues and
bring a quality product to market," said Ivan Feinseth, analyst and chief investment officer at
Tigress Asset Management, in a statement published by CNBC.
The popular Silicon Valley company is closely watched by
consumers, analysts, and the media, typically fixing issues with its
products sooner rather than later. Analysts still believe millions of
Apple Watch units will be sold this year, helping give a major boost to
the wearables market in 2015.
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Toshiba's ChihiraAico humanoid robot serenades shoppers in Japan
The
Toshiba ChihiraAico humanoid robot was first shown off during CEATEC
last year, and recently completed a 15-minute singing performance
alongside humans. Although Toshiba designed the robot to speak to
department store guests, including using Japanese sign language, a
singing performance was a unique way to promote the robot.
Robots
are being featured in an expanding role, especially in Japan, with
designers hoping to show off their humanoids without scaring off
visitors.
"We chose a very realistic appearance and movement, which can be used for the service industry,"
said Hitoshi Tokuda, marketing head for the business development
division at Toshiba, in a press conference earlier in the year.
"We
plan to extend our technology to an automatic response. We plan to use
[ChihiraAico] with elderly people who have conditions such as dementia
and she can be connected to a counselor or doctor."
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Oracle publicly downplays rumored desire to purchase Salesforce
Cloud computing company Salesforce is reportedly speaking with advisers
regarding a possible takeover,
with rumors pointing towards Oracle opening up the checkbook. Even if
Oracle doesn't make a move, and Microsoft, IBM, SAP, or another company
steps in, Oracle believes it is in a win-win situation.
"We never comment on these kinds of things. We've never had a deal leak," Catz said in front of the media.
"If
it's acquired by someone else, it's probably good for us, two be
honest. Everyone brings their own stuff to these things, especially
someone big enough to acquire them."
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is a former executive at Oracle, and
remains friends with Oracle chairman and CTO Larry Ellison. If a
takeover doesn't occur, Ellison previously stated that his company would
leapfrog Salesforce as the No. 1 software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider
by the end of the 2015.
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Activision preparing Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 for Nintendo Wii U?
Activision's
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 will officially be available for the PC,
Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4, but it's possible the game
title could be released for the Nintendo Wii U. The game is scheduled
for release on November 6.
The
Activision Support Twitter page responded to a question regarding
Nintendo IDs being connected to the Call of Duty website since there is
no support for the Wii U console. In a tweet, which has been deleted,
Activision responded:
"Hey there. Stay tuned for more Wii U releases."
It's hard to tell what Activision is planning, as they could
simply be referring to other Wii U titles - and Black Ops 3 may not be
included.
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Graffiti 'artist' uses drone to tag massive Kendall Jenner ad in SOHO
Drones
are being used for a lot of new and innovative purposes, and a few
rather questionable activities. It looks like drone graffiti could be a
future trend, with a tagger taking aim at a billboard featuring a
Kendall Jenner ad.
"KATSU"
used a drone with a can of red spray paint attached to the side,
successfully vandalizing the billboard in SOHO, between Houston and
Lafayette streets. He had this to say about graffiti drone 1.0, when
speaking with WIRED:
"It turned out surprisingly well. It's exciting to see its first potential use as a device for vandalism."
Graffiti removal is a costly effort in metropolitan areas, so
this certainly could push the boundaries even further. It may take some
time for KATSU and other taggers to develop a stable platform for drone
graffiti, but it certainly may end up a major headache for a lot of
people.
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Researchers create ape-inspired robot that could explore the moon
National
space programs have shown new interest in lunar exploration, and it's
possible robots could roam the moon's surface. The German Research
Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) has created an iStruct
Demonstrator, also known as "Charlie," a robotic ape that can you
different locomotion styles.
Using
four-legged locomotion adds stability, but bipedal is best for speed
and ability to maneuver - so having the robot be able to choose how to
move is absolutely huge.
"We chose the ape because it allows us to study several locomotion modes," said Daniel Kuhn, DFKI researcher, in a statement to CNN.
"For
example, they have quite good quadrupedal walking abilities but they
can also perform stand-up motion and walk on two legs - their ability to
do this is greater than other animals. This change in posture and
walking form interested us."
The US, Japan, China and India all plan to explore the moon, even
though interest also is increasing for research missions to Mars. The
lunar surface dates back more than 4.5 billion years, with a large
amount of inner solar environment which can be collected an analyzed.
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Night Terror uses augmented reality to turn your living room into game
Want to try a unique gaming experience?
Night Terrors is a mobile game that will use augmented reality to scare the hell out of you.
The
game creates a map of your home, with walls, rooms, ceilings and floors
tracked by your smartphone's accelerometer. Using the data collected, a
custom gaming experience is created with monsters in your living room. A
player explores with the lights off, and a phone's LED as the only
light source - with the camera and microphone information used in
real-time to enhance the experience.
"If the game needs the player to go down their hallway, it manipulates the player to go there," said Bryan Mitchell, the game's developer, in a statement on Reddit.
"If
the game doesn't want the player to see or move, it presents a
situation where seeing and moving will get the player 'killed.'"
"As an example, the game might kill the LED for story reasons,
play heavy breathing sounds (spatialized right behind the player) and
have this thing move closer and closer to the player. As whatever that
thing sniffing around in dark is looks for the player, the player's
imagination does the heavy lifting."
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Russian military said to be developing mind-controlled exoskeleton
Military
technology has become absolutely fascinating in the past few years,
with autonomous drones, robots, smart technology, and exoskeletons
advancing nicely.
The
Russian military is reportedly developing mind-controlled exoskeletons,
multiple Russian news outlets claim. If there is any truth to the
reports, soldiers could carry up to 600 pounds of additional weight.
What makes this announcement curious is the idea that Russia is five
years away from being able to include a neuroelectronic interface so the
suit's wearer has a unique controlling mechanism.
"The Russian Army is set to receive mind-controlled exoskeletons," the Russian Sputnik media source said.
"The
wearable robots will be controlled by brain waves and will increase the
strength and endurance of the serviceman wearing it by several times."
The US military and other governments are trying to create their
own exoskeletons to help carry added payloads. Lockheed Martin and the
US Navy are currently
testing the Fortis exoskeleton,
with the private defense contractor hoping it will one day be available
for the commercial market. Meanwhile, the Okinawa National College of
Technology has
created a Skeletonics exoskeleton that could make future breakthroughs.
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Mayweather vs. Pacquiao offers piracy websites lucrative night
Saturday
night will feature one of the most anticipated boxing matches in recent
history - and that will bring with it a likelihood of major Internet
piracy. HBO and Showtime already
prevented two piracy websites from showing the Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao fight, but there will be plenty of other illegal options for viewers.
"This could be one of the biggest live-streamed events, at least from the piracy side," said Ernesto Van der Sar, founder of
TorrentFreak, in a statement to NBC News.
"I think it will be bigger than the Super Bowl and the World Cup."
The standard definition pay-per-view will be $89.99, while the
high-definition PPV will cost a whopping $99.99. Restaurants and bars
have to invest thousands for the right to broadcast the fight, so a
smaller number of establishments plan to air the fight, or pricing
rather outrageous cover charges.
UFC PPVs and WWE events are available online, in addition to free
sports streams, but Mayweather vs. Pacquiao could prove to be
especially great for pirates. So, how are you planning to watch the
fight?
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Boeing 787 Dreamliner glitch can make it lose power, FAA reports
In
a bid to make skies safer, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
warned that a software fault could result in loss of power mid-flight
on the gigantic Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
Discovered
by Boeing themselves in private testing circumstances (not real
flight), this issue can occur if the aircraft is not powered down
between trips, resulting in the generator systems on board switching to
fail-safe mode and seeing all AC power cut - mid air or not.
This issue is said to take 248 days of usage for the fault to
occur, rendering it as an unlikely thing to happen in real-world
circumstances. However, this model of aircraft
has reportedly experienced some other issues resulting in extended boot up times.
My father used to tell me to run the car for a little before
speeding off on a cold morning, it seems the 787 Dreamliner is no
exception.
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Valve's Dota 2 International raises over $1.5m in under 24 hours
Professional money-maker Valve games
released its community Compendium yesterday
for the upcoming International 2015 tournament, seeing 25% of all money
spent by the community towards this being donated toward the total
prize pool.
Valve
kicked it off with its usual investment of $1.6 million, seeing the
community band together to bring this total up to $3.2 million at the
time of writing this article - in under 24 hours!
I'm not the best at math, but if Valve are donating 25% of their
income toward the prize pool this means that they've cashed more than $5
million US overnight.
It's certainly great that Valve are supporting the community with
this continued event, but have you stepped back and thought to yourself
about how much money they are pulling in from this? There is no denying
that Valve are good when it comes to making money.
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Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) Cinema Movie Review
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Since
its purchase by Disney in 2009, the theatrical arm of Marvel as headed
up by producer Kevin Feige has undoubtedly gone from strength to
strength, churning out hit after hit - regardless of whether the
property is well known, as in
Iron Man or niche as in
Guardians of the Galaxy.
But success of course comes with its own drawbacks and when it comes to
following up the third highest grossing film of all time, the studio
has clearly erred on the side of doing exactly the same as before.
Following on from the events of
The Avengers and the separate Marvel Universe films (especially
Captain America: The Winter Soldier),
the Avengers collective are now operating outside the sphere of the
disbanded SHIELD organization, against the remnants of Hydra. During a
strike at a Hydra outpost in Siberia, the Avengers are attacked by two
genetically enhanced beings, a product of Hydra's human modification
programs; Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen)
before managing to retrieve Asgardian outcast Loki's powerful scepter.
When Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) discovers an artificial intelligence
at the heart of the weapon, he secretly attempts to harness it for his
failed global defense program dubbed Ultron, but when the defense system
becomes sentient, it constructs itself into an android hell bent on the
destruction of Earth.
Caution: Here be spoilers.
Without doubt, the first
Avengers was a huge spectacle; a
3D tour-de-force which gave audiences something they'd never seen before
- namely six superheroes fighting on screen together battling a
charismatic villain and a commanding army astride massive warships
destroying the city below. But by pulling out all the stops, it makes
taking it to the next level very hard. It's obvious that the filmmakers
have tried, but the problem is that there's very little to
Age of Ultron that we haven't already seen.
The film opens with what should be an impressive opening
sequence, with digital crap flying everywhere, things blowing up and the
superheroes jumping about in impressive super slow-mo looking buff and,
well, cool. But rather than 'hell yes, they're back', I was struck with
more of a 'ho hum, here we go again'.
I don't want to sound like an old grumpy man, because for the
most part I dig the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. They really do give
fans what they want to see - they're real popcorn, big-screen,
crowd-pleasing events. They make a lot of people happy and they make a
ton of bank. But they aren't infallible.
My
biggest problem with these films is the general lack of danger, of real
peril to the heroes. Whilst there might be a character loss in this
film, it's only of passing consequence and besides, death in the MCU
isn't necessarily final. Just look at the last film which killed off
Agent Phil Coulson, only for him to reappear in the
Agents of SHIELD television show. Sadly, this only serves to cheapen and degrade what drama there actually might be.
The cast, led by Robert Downey Jr., are uniformly superb - you
simply cannot fault Marvel casting. They've all played their characters a
number of times and by this stage have a very good handle on how to
play them. As with the first outing, Joss Whedon performed a solid job
in balancing the wide lineup and allowing each character their own
moment to shine. Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye is gifted a bit more of a
backstory this time, but even so, his character still feels mostly
perfunctory to proceedings - although this is addressed in the film's
narrative. Unlike the first film, the villainous Ultron is considerably
weaker, aiming to wipe out the human race, but achieving very little
towards that aim. He might be voiced impeccably by David Spader, but the
frequent use of humor unfortunately undermines his menace. He's
certainly not up to the standard set by the deliciously smarmy Loki in
the predecessor.
Age of Ultron is a fun ride. It delivers everything it
promises and what fans expect. The problem is that there's a danger in
constantly trying to please fans. With the
Age of Ultron, that
mentality has finally caught up with the studio. Hopefully the Russo
brothers can reinvigorate the franchise with the upcoming
Infinity War sequels in the coming years.
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Microsoft's
giving you the chance to try out its Edge browser before Windows 10
drops on July 29th, along with other new features that will come with
the platform. You'll have to download Windows 10's latest preview build
for PCs to take it for a spi... 
Google
Translate is notorious for spewing out either oddly worded or overly
formal results, but the company says it's getting better thanks to
people's help. Mountain View's online translator is now more adept at
figuring out informal speech -- for i... 
The
ability to follow your favorite music artists on Shazam isn't new, but
that feature is now getting a huge boost. Starting today, the service
will let you see how entertainers are using Shazam to discover tunes,
too. Because famous people -- they'... 
Do
you constantly struggle to make jokes? Are you one of the millions of
folks who wishes they could be spontaneously funny when communicating
via the internet? Microsoft Research has some news (PDF) for you. The
company's developed a web-based chat ... 
When
PayPal updated its user agreement with language suggesting that it had
broad powers to make automated calls (aka robocalls) and texts,
customers were understandably nervous. Was the company going to spam you
until you bought more stuff using its... 
Passwords
are, by many accounts, quickly going the way of the dodo. And while
many sites now allow users to log in via social media, they're not
always a viable option. That's why (as an alternative to logging in via
Facebook or Twitter) blog-publish... 
Yelp
really, really isn't a fan of Google's search rankings, and it's making
sure that you know it. The location-based service has partnered with
net neutrality pioneer Tim Wu on a study alleging that Google is
"knowingly degrading" search results by... 
It's
tempting to think of Tizen as an also-ran in the smartphone world next
to powerhouses like Android and iOS, but that's not entirely true when
Samsung has sold 1 million Z1 phones in India since January. In fact,
there are now signs that the Kore... 
This
week the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup will conclude, and the USWNT is
taking on Germany Tuesday night. Beyond that, Cameron Crowe fans (still
sticking around since the release of Aloha) can finally see Vanilla Sky
on Blu-ray complete with an exte... 
Earlier
this year, a few eagle-eyed folks in the East Bay region in Northern
California noticed unmarked minivans with what looked like an array of
cameras and sensors sitting on top of it. It turns out that the vehicles
were registered to Apple, whi... 
Frustrated
with the Google Hangouts app on iOS from time to time? Us too. Mountain
View updated the mobile software today with a refreshed UI and more.
First, you'll likely notice the new coat of Material Design paint that
tidies things up a bit. Hec... 
The
trends of remaking and remastering classic games just kicked into
overdrive. Rebellion (best known for its Sniper Elite games) has
revealed that it's developing not just a virtual reality version of the
original Battlezone, but a refresh of the 1... 
Facebook
continues to refine what you see in your news feed. Today, the social
network that your mom uses announced that it will track more information
about your video watching habits to include whether or not you perform
any actions like turn up th... 
Sprint
is trying to do everything it can to compete with T-Mobile's audacious,
budget-friendly plans. As such, the carrier's introducing a new plan
called Best Buy One Family, featuring two lines with unlimited data,
talk and text for $100 per month ... 
If
you're a baseball stats hound, you probably don't enjoy tearing your
eyes away from the game just to dig up facts about the latest at-bat
matchup. You might not have to distract yourself for much longer if
you're a Comcast subscriber, though -- th... 
It
turns out that Uber's desire for mapping tech didn't really stop with
Nokia's Here maps. The ride-sharing platform just picked up a portion of
Microsoft's Bing maps technologies and about 100 of Redmond's employees
as TechCrunch tells it. The way ... 
Quite
a few smartwatches are round, so why are they still using rectangular
batteries? LG Chem certainly doesn't think that makes sense. It just
started shipping a hexagonal battery that should deliver 25 percent more
capacity in circular watches, wh... 
Myon
is a shiny white humanoid robot and the star of My Square Lady, an
opera that opened this month in Berlin's Komische Oper in Germany. The
operatic robot is a product of the Neurorobotics Research Laboratory at
Berlin's Humboldt University and th... 
If
you fancy playing with Lego blocks and you're not familiar with Jason
Allemann, take a few minutes to browse his work. He's one set of hands
behind JK Brickworks, a site that posts rather unique builds with the
plastic bits, including gravity-powe... 
By Sarah Kessler
Can
you believe that Google Earth has been around for a full decade now? To
celebrate this milestone, Google unveiled a pair of striking new (and
expanded) features to the planet virtualization system on Monday. The
first is Voyager, which available ... 
Cinema
always reflects our anxieties back onto us, so it's no surprise to see
that the Top Gun sequel will involve unmanned aerial vehicles. Producer
David Ellison told Collider that Tom Cruise will return to the series
that made him famous, with a s... 
When
Oracle got a second chance at making Google pay for using Java
programming kits in Android, the folks in Mountain View raced to the
Supreme Court in hopes of stopping that renewed lawsuit dead in its
tracks. Unfortunately for Google, that's not ... 
London's
red double-decker buses are going green. No, we're not talking about a
change to their iconic paint-jobs: Mayor Boris Johnson today announced
plans to introduce an all-electric model in the capital. London is
already served by hundreds of hy... 
Wondering
how you'd exchange info between smartwatches when their displays are so
small? Apple thinks it has an easy answer: make the same gestures you
already use to greet your friends. The tech firm has applied for a
patent on a system that exchang... 
