It may seem like Nintendo will be playing catch up with the VR gaming trend in the near future but, truth be told, it already tried to dabble in that technology decades ago. Unfortunately, it was far too ahead of its time back then and the disastrous fate of the Virtual Boy may have caused Nintendo to take a cautious … Continue reading
Few companies connected to the auto industry can resist the allure of starting their own car sharing service, it seems. After a brief tease, AAA’s venture wing has launched Gig, an app-centric car sharing service, in Berkeley and Oakland. You pull…
We expect that some time later this year OnePlus will most likely take the wraps off their next flagship handset, the OnePlus 5. We’ve already seen an alleged render of the handset where it looks like OnePlus could be going with a dual camera lens setup, and thanks to a post on True-Tech, alleged camera samples taken by the phone have leaked online.
How do they know that these photos were taken by the OnePlus 5? This is based on the photos’ EXIF data which mentions a particular model in the form of the A5000. In case you haven’t been following the OnePlus 5 news, the A5000 is said to be the model number of the handset which was also spotted at China’s radio regulation authority.
The EXIF data also revealed the resolution of the photos to be 4,640×3,480 which means that we’re most probably looking at a 16MP sensor for both cameras, with one presumably for zoom and one for wide angles, and when combined they’re supposed to help create a shallow depth-of-field look that you might achieve with DSLR or mirrorless camera.
Other than that, not much else is known about the phone. We have heard speculation that it could be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, which we guess makes sense since it is the “best” chipset available today, and that OnePlus might even stuff the handset with as much as 8GB of RAM, but until then take it with a grain of salt.
Alleged OnePlus 5 Camera Samples Leaked , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
If you weren’t that impressed by the HTC U Ultra or U Play handsets that were announced earlier this year, not to worry as it looks like HTC has a new flagship in the works in the form of the HTC U 11. We’ve been hearing about this handset for a while now, and thanks to recent benchmarks, we now know what to expect.
According to a recent sighting on Geekbench, a handset that is allegedly the HTC U 11 was spotted. Unsurprisingly the handset was spotted running on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset which is to be expected of flagships launched in 2017. It also appears to come with 4GB of RAM and Android 7.1.1 Nougat as its OS of choice.
All of this is pretty standard, but what’s interesting is the fact that according to the Geekbench scores, it managed to get a 1,912 for single-core and 6,137 for multi-core, which is pretty close to what the Snapdragon 835-powered Samsung Galaxy S8 scored which was 1,915 and 6,106 for single and multi-core respectively.
That being said, benchmark scores are only one measure of a phone and things like an optimized software is also just as important, but it will be interesting to put the HTC U 11 through its paces when it is launched, which last we heard will be on the 16th of May.
Alleged HTC U 11 Benchmark Scores Revealed , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
As perfect as we’re sure Samsung was hoping the Galaxy S8 launch will be, just like whenever new hardware or software launches, there are bound to be issues that are only uncovered after a release. Recently it seems that there are some Galaxy S8 owners who are complaining that their phones are randomly restarting themselves.
These issues have been posted on the XDA forums as well as Samsung’s official forums. One user by the name of “Lazazy” writes, “So I picked up my Galaxy s8 and everything seems to be working well except the phone keeps restarting itself. I have had it for about 10 hours now and it has already restarted 7 times while I was using it. It happens when I’m using an app like the camera or Samsung Themes and it doesn’t matter if the phone is charging or not. All of a sudden the app freezes, the screen shuts off, and a few seconds later it restarts.”
However we should point out that the number of users reporting this problem don’t appear to be too many so it doesn’t seem like it is a widespread issue. It could be due to the apps that they are using that are causing the phone to crash and restart, and since everyone is using different apps it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly could be causing this.
Samsung has yet to respond to these issues so we’re not sure if they are aware and that a fix could already be in the works, but we’ll be keeping an eye out for more details. Prior to this, some users were already complaining about a red tint on their screens and how wireless charging isn’t working for their handsets.
Some Galaxy S8 Users Reporting Random Restarts , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Ethics lawyers and historians have argued that Donald Trump has blurred the line between his public office and private business interests in an unprecedented fashion.
In another sense, it’s part of a much larger social trend.
Commercial entreaties – whether in the form of magazine ads, radio jingles or television spots – have long been a part of modern life. But advertising is now encroaching on public space as never before.
Cities and states now grant businesses the right to put their names and logos on parking meters, bridges, fire hydrants – even lifeguard swimsuits. Public parks intended to offer a respite from the travails of daily life now allow retailers to advertise amidst historical sites and nature preserves. School boards ink deals with all sorts of businesses to help them meet their budgetary needs.
It’s not just public space that is filling up with brand shout-outs. In conducting research for a new book on modern marketing and its regulation, I discovered that a host of once ad-free environments – from the living room to our friendships – are now becoming sites for ads or surveillance technologies designed to make them more effective.
Some might shrug, calling the ad creep an inevitable part of modern life. But there are dangers to this trend, along with legal remedies – if people care enough to actually do something.
New marketing techniques and technologies allow businesses to reach consumers in new ways and venues. One space becoming increasingly critical to market researchers is the home.
Smart technologies – from Microsoft’s Xbox One to Vizio televisions – now come embedded with what could be described as “spying” capabilities. These devices can record activities once considered private, like the movies we decide to watch and even our facial expressions while playing a video game. This information becomes part of a digital profile used by advertisers to get a better portrait of who we are and how we can be convinced to make a purchase.
Meanwhile, every time we sign on to Facebook or search Google on our personal computers or smartphones, we are adding to vast stockpiles of market research. This kind of surveillance is hard to escape. Marketers have moved past cookies: They can now identify individual users from the number of fonts in their browser or the rate at which their particular computer’s battery loses its charge.
Even our brains have become fair game for advertising annexation. A landmark 2004 study asked subjects to take sips of Coke and Pepsi while a machine measured blood flow in their brains. When the brand was a secret, participants expressed a slight preference for Pepsi. But when the brand names were revealed before taking a sip, participants, both verbally and neurologically, revealed a preference for Coke. The study was widely heralded as proof of the ability of advertising to actually change our brain chemistry, to instill emotional markers that can trump objective evaluation of the actual product.
Since then, companies have spent millions to record activity in consumers’ brains to better capture the desires we won’t or can’t articulate. Some major ad campaigns we currently see – from Samsung to Campbell’s soup – reflect the results from this new neuromarketing research.
Our friendships and social networks aren’t immune. Marketers target “micro-influencers” – often people with modest Instagram or Twitter followings – that can be leveraged to sell products or services on social media. While Federal Trade Commission rules require endorsers to acknowledge the compensation they receive in return for giving favorable plugs for a product, enforcement is minimal.
Even those bullish about these new marketing gambits do admit that they can be annoying. Still, a common response to complaints about the growing presence of ads is “What’s the harm?” As the argument goes, being annoyed is a small price to pay for subsidized public infrastructure, free online content and exposure to ads more attuned to our actual interests and needs.
My research shows, however, that there are significant costs to opening up our lives to advertisers. One is a loss of consumer agency. Reliance on brain scans to design more effective commercials strips audiences of their ability to consciously shape the advertising content they see and hear. Market research used to rely on focus groups and surveys, not the unfiltered disclosure of brain activity. The result can be advertising campaigns that celebrate biases or behaviors we would rather keep hidden from view. For example, thanks to data gleaned from brain scans, Frito-Lay launched a series of ads encouraging antisocial practices like intentionally putting Cheetos in another person’s load of white laundry. When directly questioned, sample viewers objected to the ads’ gleeful embrace of vandalism, but MRI readings told a different story.
Another cost comes from how advertising can change an environment’s character.
The civic values meant to be instilled by public schooling now must compete with the materialist messages of the sporting goods stores and clothing retailers that advertise in cafeterias and hallways. The use of micro-influencers on social media could make us less trusting, never knowing if that online friend is really a corporate shill.
And as commercial spying becomes routine, norms change to permit snooping in other parts of our life. Witness the recent use of facial recognition technology by churches to record the attendance rates of their parishioners and the placement of monitoring devices on once-innocuous objects like Barbie dolls and children’s toothbrushes so parents can keep tabs on their children.
So what’s to be done? It isn’t realistic for consumers to abandon Google, to drop off of Facebook, to take their kids out of public school or to stop using public infrastructure. Halfhearted measures – like regulations requiring consumers to opt in to some of these troubling advertising practices – won’t do much to change things either. Studies show that such legislative nudges don’t work, that motivated marketers can get us to opt in if they apply enough pressure.
Instead of defaults, the law needs to create hard and fast rules preventing the entry of advertising and corporate spying into these spaces. This kind of reform doesn’t require a sea change in legal attitudes. The history of advertising regulation in the United States reveals several episodes where lawmakers moved to put an end to objectionable selling strategies fueled by new technologies.
The American right to privacy emerged in the late 19th century as a response to advertisers using the relatively new technology of photography to take pictures of people without their permission, and then using these photos to sell products. Judges objected to this forced blending of the personal with the commercial, with one court equating the practice to enslavement by a “merciless master.” Similar objections caused lawmakers to act against a barrage of scenery-obscuring billboards in the early 20th century and subliminal advertising in the 1950s. Of course, not every new advertising strategy has met with a legal response. But the historical record shows strong precedent for using the law to keep some areas of life off limits from commercial entreaties.
A normalization process can easily occur once advertising enters a new territory. Take pre-film advertising in movie theaters. When it was first introduced in the 1990s, audiences howled at the presence of commercials before the trailers and the actual movie. Lawsuits were filed and new legislation proposed to stop the practice. But over time, the lawsuits and legislation sputtered out. Surveys now suggest that audiences have become ambivalent to the presence of pre-film commercials.
The story of pre-film ads should be a cautionary tale. Without a coordinated effort, this same normalization process will take place in more and more spaces, engulfing them into the vast, existing space of commercial white noise.
Mark Bartholomew, Professor of Law,University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
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Sebastian Gorka, a deputy assistant to President Donald Trump who generated controversy for his alleged ties to a Nazi-aligned group, is expected to accept a new role soon outside of the White House, according to multiple reports.
A senior administration official told the Washington Examiner that Gorka, a national security adviser who was heavily criticized for having links to a far-right Hungarian organization, will accept a new role dealing with the “war of ideas” that focuses on radical Islamic extremism.
Another official told CNN that it is unclear if Gorka would take another job within the Trump administration, but it seems more likely he will just leave the White House completely.
Gorka served on the Strategic Initiatives Group, an internal policy organization within the White House, in addition to his duties as a national security aide. However, a source told the Examiner that his position with that organization was only meant to be temporary.
A senior administration official told The Daily Beast that Gorka had been “entirely excluded” from the day-to-day work of the National Security Council.
Gorka was previously the national security editor for Breitbart.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
When Mario Kart 8 was originally released for the Wii U, it actually helped to boost the sales of the console which was already not doing well, which goes to show the importance of having good titles available for a console platform. Turns out its pseudo-successor, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, has an almost similar effect.
According to a report from GamesIndustry, it seems that over in the UK Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has managed to clinch the number 1 spot for video games in the country. Like we said this isn’t surprising given the popularity of the Mario Kart franchise and how well-received the original Mario Kart 8 was.
However what was surprising is the fact that GamesIndustry notes that this is the first time that a Nintendo game has managed to land itself in the top position in the UK since 2011! This also means that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has managed to beat The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild which has received near-perfect review scores.
Over on Amazon, we had also previously reported that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe had managed to outsell Breath of the Wild. Granted it’s just one platform and doesn’t take into account digital downloads, but it’s still pretty impressive all the same.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Hits No. 1 In The UK , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Over the past few quarters, we’ve heard how Apple’s iPhone sales have been declining. One of the reasons is because consumers are reportedly getting “bored” of the iPhone, which isn’t helped by the fact that Apple has used the same design for the past three iPhone generations which doesn’t exactly make for a compelling reason to upgrade.
However it is possible that for some reason the decline might have stopped. According to the latest numbers from the IDC, it turns out that Apple’s iPhone sales for the first quarter of 2017 has actually remained relatively flat and it might have also increased marginally. The IDC claims that Apple shipped 51.6 million iPhones in Q1 2017, versus Q1 2016 where they shipped 51.2 million.
However overall market share for Apple’s iPhones has dropped from 15.4% the same period last year, down to 14.9% in the first quarter of 2017. Continuing to lead the way is Samsung whose shipments have remained flat, but is still way ahead of Apple at 79.2 million shipments and a 22.8% market share in Q1 2017.
We’re also seeing Chinese OEMs catching up with Huawei increasing their market share from 8.4% last year to 9.8% this year, Oppo from 5.9% to 7.4%, and Vivo from 4.4% to 5.2%. That being said, next year’s numbers could be drastically different as many are expecting Apple to enjoy a supercycle with the rumored iPhone 8.
IDC: First Quarter iPhone Sales Remain Flat , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
When it comes to heat, plastic is usually a pretty bad idea, which is why it has been advised not to use plastic together with hot things, like boiling soup, drinks, food, and etc. So if plastic isn’t advised for hot food, it probably makes sense that you wouldn’t use plastic for even hotter things, like a rocket motor, right?
However the folks at MIT have done just that (via Engadget) when they decided to cobble together a rocket motor that has been made out of 3D printed plastic parts. You might think that this would be a disaster, but surprisingly enough the plastic casing of the motor survived the initial thrust, although there was a small amount of damage to the motor’s throat, but other than that it wasn’t as if the casing melted or exploded from the heat.
The second test unfortunately did not fare well, although to be fair the researchers at MIT did not intend for it to fire up more than once. As to what is the point of having a rocket motor whose casing is only good for one use? The idea is that this can help to keep costs down since 3D printing metal can be expensive in terms of materials and the machine itself.
It can even be used in events where the rocket might only be needed to be used once, or for relatively short trips.
MIT Creates 3D Printed Rocket Motor Made Out Of Plastic , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
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