Where did the atoms of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, phosphorus, and iron (all essential for life) come from? When Joni Mitchell sang “We are stardust,” she was poetically giving the correct answer to this question.
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(Credit: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation)
Wolverine is putting the “snikt!” in Kinect. To celebrate the errant X-Man’s return to the big screen on July 26, you can step inside the action of “The Wolverine” when you head to the theater.
Like the recent “Iron Man” immersive experience, “Be the Wolverine” is a booth in theaters and shopping centers that uses Microsoft’s Kinect cameras to record your movements, allowing you to fight off ninjas atop a speeding bullet train.
Hugh Jackman once again dons the improbable coiffure, rampant facial furniture, and stabby adamantium bits in “The Wolverine.” Directed by James Mangold, “The Wolverine” is set in Japan, after the events of “X-Men: The Last Stand.” Let’s hope it’s a cut above the dodgy 2009 prequel “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” as the ol’ Canucklehead takes on assorted wrong’uns without the benefit of his mutant healing powers.
Read more of “Be the Wolverine on Kinect gives you X-Men claws” at Crave UK.
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Nintendo Japan has warned Club Nintendo users to change their passwords, after revealing that the member rewards site was hacked back in June, leading to tens of thousands of unauthorized logins. The first Nintendo realized of the compromised security was a dramatic increase in errors spotted on July 2, with subsequent investigation turning up 23,926 stolen logins and almost 15.5m attempts.
However, the first of the hacks apparently begin on June 9, continuing up to July 4, Nintendo Japan says. All passwords for the Club Nintendo service have been reset, and users will need to create new credentials when they next try to log in.
Club Nintendo is the company’s membership scheme, which offers rewards – including both in-game content, special limited edition games, warranty extensions, and real promotional gifts – in return for playing games on the Wii U, Wii, 3DS, and other Nintendo consoles. There’s no indication that Club Nintendo US or Club Nintendo UK have been compromised.
Fortunately, Club Nintendo never held any credit card data from its users, though the company says that it suspects names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses have all be taken. There’s currently no confirmation that any unauthorized use of Club Nintendo Points has taken place.
Nintendo is bulking up its security systems, in the hope of preventing something like this from happening again, but advises anyone who used the same credentials – such as email address, username, or password – for other services to change them there, just in case. It’s also sensible to be on the lookout for a potential increase in phishing attempts, which often follow email address thefts.
VIA Kotaku
Club Nintendo Japan hacked is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Microsoft has opened up public beta registration for the 2013 Xbox Live update—so if you want to get involved, go sign up.
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A user named Zhouwei has taken a thorough look at the latest Google Glass Explorer XE7 version and found a few gems, including a possible app store called the Boutique. That would make sense given that there’s no central repository for apps right now, and the code indicates that Glassware and APKs could be synced to the hardware via such a market. Other changes of note are a lock-screen that would work by swiping a lock pattern (there’s currently only an unofficial app for that) and some kind of video player, though there’s no info on how the latter might work. We’re not sure how much of this code will actually be enabled when it hits our own device, but an app store and some proper built-in security would be nice.
Filed under: Wearables, Google
Via: Slashgear
Source: Zhouwei (Github Gist)
Amazon has apparently dropped the price of its Kindle Fire HD ereader-tablet in what appears to be a response to Barnes & Noble’s NOOK HD cuts, dropping the 7-inch Android-based slate by as much as 15-percent in the US and UK. The price adjustment sees the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD come down to £139 in the UK (saving £20) for the 16GB model, and to $169 (saving $30) in the US, compared to the latest 7-inch NOOK HD at £129/$149 for the 16GB model.
In the US, Amazon lists the Kindle Fire HD change as a “limited time” offer, though it’s worth noting that B&N has used the same nomenclature for its own discounting. Our suspicion is that the cuts will last for roughly as long as the other company’s do, given the fierce competition between the two firms.
Despite Amazon’s changes, the NOOK HD is still the cheaper of the two. For a start, B&N offers an 8GB version, which is $129, and has no direct capacity equivalent in the Kindle Fire HD range. However, B&N’s motivations are very different to Amazon’s as well: the company admitted last month that it planned to clear its stock of existing NOOK HD/HD+ models and then in future license the brand to third-party tablet manufacturers, rather than make its own models.
Instead, B&N would focus solely on developing e-paper based ereaders, such as the SimpleTouch. NOOK sales overall in Q2 – including ereader hardware, software, and accessories – dropped 34-percent, with the company blaming a shortage of high-profile titles as well as waning hardware appeal.
It’s not the first time Amazon has shuffled Kindle pricing to ramp up pressure on B&N. Back in 2009 the retailer cut the second-gen Kindle after its rival launched the NOOK, on the assumption that ongoing content sales would offset any narrowing of hardware margins.
VIA Paul O’Brien
Amazon cuts Kindle Fire HD to ramp B&N NOOK HD pressure is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
I feel embarrassed right now. For the first time in ages, I actually paid attention to the keys on which I’m typing. And they’re filthy. I am a bad person.
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Google’s recent XE7 update for its Glass Explorer Edition already shows signs of an unactivated locking system for the wearable, as well as a “Boutique” app store and media player. The official changes in XE7 include a web browser – which you can see demonstrated after the cut – using physical head movements to navigate pages, along with boosts to search, contacts, and other features. However, some digging through the update itself has revealed a number of much-anticipated extras that Google hasn’t mentioned publicly.
Zhuowei worked his way through the code, and found a number of dormant or work-in-progress features. Most topical, perhaps is the provision for locking Glass, an absent feature which has meant that, so far, anybody stealing the wearable off your head (or from your bag) can instantly gain access to whatever data it has saved on its roughly 8GB of onboard storage.
Google’s system for dealing with that appears to be coding Glass with a swiping lock with four components. The lock screen code suggests wearers would flick between each of the four lock IDs with swipes up and down on the side touchpad, then set each pattern with swipes left and right.
We’ve seen a similar approach from non-official Glass locking app Bulletproof. That also included the proviso to only turn on the lock if the wearable’s motion sensors showed that it had been removed – either taken off and put down to recharge, perhaps, or pulled off in a theft – rather than demanding an unlock every time the user wanted to activate it.
Google Glass XE7 wearable web browser demo:
Google had already confirmed it was working on a lock system for Glass, as part of the company’s response to a US congressional committee concerned about privacy and security. For the moment, though, Google suggests those who lose their Glass can remotely reset it from the web interface.
However, it’s not the only change spotted in the XE7 code. There’s evidence of the Glass Boutique, what appears to be a version of the Android Market for Glassware apps for the wearable. Not yet usable in XE7 – there’s mention of the Boutique, but not the actual code for it – it appears that the store will allow synchronization to Glass of Glassware and native APKs, which also implies native app support is also on the cards.
That would mean another way of running software on the wearable beyond the existing Mirror API, which basically acts as a conduit between Glass and web-based software. Google currently has Glass locked down, with the only way to install local software being an unofficial hack. Instead, the Mirror API works as a route for Glassware to communicate with the headset – as Google explained using cats back at I/O – while keeping local processing (and thus battery consumption) to a relative minimum.
Other new features center on multimedia. There’s a new set of cards mentioned – though, again, not the code for the actual functionality – for a music player, with the usual play/pause/next/previous skipping support, and album/artist information on-screen; a video player also gets a terse mention, though there’s even less detail around it. Functional already, though (even if it requires a little modification in order to activate it) is a volume control, adding a new option to the Settings that allows adjusting the volume of Glass’ bone-conduction speaker.
The remaining changes are either minor, mysterious, or both. A new, red microphone icon has been added, along with a package installer – not yet functional – that looks like it might eventually permit downloaded APKs to be loaded onto the headset. The ability to only see timeline cards from a specific contact is also hinted at, though again doesn’t yet work; there’s also what appears to be a version of the new contact list – which now includes all of your Gmail contacts rather than just ten as Glass originally supported at launch – that can be navigated by head movements, just as with the new browser.
When Google might go live with any of these newly-spotted features – if, indeed, they ever graduate to public functionality – remains to be seen. However, it’s a sign that Glass is slowly progressing from a wearables novelty to a more legitimate mobile platform in its own right.
Glass Boutique app store, MP3 player, Lock-screen & more revealed is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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