Hasta La Gadget!

Heads up Assassin’s Creed fans, if you enjoyed Ubisoft’s latest swashbuckling adventure in the form of Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, you might be interested to learn that Ubisoft will be bringing the pirate adventure onto your mobile devices (both iOS and Android) in the form of Assassin’s Cred Pirates. Unfortunately this is not an extension of the game for console, but will instead just share a similar play setting, which we guess could be fun in its own right as well. The game will focus on naval battles and will star naval captain Alonzo Batilla.

The game will require players to enlist a crew for the ship and will battle for treasure, with the ultimate goal being La Buse’s treasure. Along the way they will encounter other pirates, assassins, and Templars. Originally announced back in September this year, The game will be seeing a release on the 5^th of December and will be priced at $4.99 for both iOS and Android devices. In the meantime if you’re wondering what sort of game you will be getting your hands on, be sure to check out the trailer above for an idea of what to expect. So, who else is looking forward to getting their hands on the game?

Assassin’s Creed Pirates Headed Onto iOS And Android December 5th original content from Ubergizmo.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if celebrities were the voice behind your turn-by-turn navigation? It would almost be as if they were right in the car with you! Well the good news for Waze users is that celebrities will be voicing turn-by-turn navigation for you thanks to a deal Waze and Universal Studios have struck up. In a bid to promote new movies as well as add some value to the popular app, the app will be utilized by celebrities who want to promote their movie. As it stands the first celebrity to lend their voice to the app would be Kevin Hart who will be starring in the upcoming movie, Ride Along, alongside Ice Cube.

Earlier this year Google announced that they had acquired Waze, which for those unfamiliar, is a mapping service that relies on user data to help construct maps with real-time traffic reports and updates, allowing drivers to potentially avoid areas that could be jammed. In any case it will be interesting to see which other celebrities will be hopping aboard the Waze bandwagon. What do you guys think? Which celebrity would you love to hear lend their voice to the mapping application?

Waze To Get Celebrities To Read Out Turn-By-Turn Directions original content from Ubergizmo.

Movement tracking could get a whole lot more granular if the New York-based startup behind this wearable sensor gets its way. Notch, currently being shown off in prototype form on Kickstarter, is a wearable sensor designed to be concealed within clothing at natural hinge points around the body to track and capture specific body movements – sending that data back to a companion (iOS) app for tracking and review.

Right now, there’s no shortage of wearable tech aimed at fitness and activity use-cases, whether it’s Fitbit or Jawbone’s UP or Nike’s Fuelband to name a few. Easily enough activity tracker bangles to fill the average-sized forearm. And that’s before you get started on smartwatches. But fewer Bluetooth sensor-makers are aiming to capture precise body movements – likely because on the surface it seems a smaller, more niche use-case. Something for dancers, athletes and freerunners to get excited about, perhaps.

But then again, a wearable sensor – or more accurately a network of sensors if you want to capture a whole concert of body movements using Notch – that can record precise, physical movements and deliver localised feedback to an arm or leg, has potential to be useful in a variety of ways. As a warning system against slouching when sitting, perhaps (a la the LUMOback). Or a stress monitor, based on how much nervous gesticulating you’re doing at work.

Notch is designed to both capture movement data (either continuously or on demand – recording and pausing can be controlled by tapping on an individual sensor), and to output haptic feedback, via tiny vibration motors, meaning it can be used for motion-triggered notifications. The sensors use inertial measurement units to capture body motion, and Bluetooth Low Energy to send recorded data to the Notch app.

For starters, Notch’s own app will offer the ability to set up the individual mobiles, record movements, collect data on those movements, replay the movements as 3D visualisations, and download the data in XYZ format, say its makers. But they are also planning to release an API to allow third party developers to build out additional use-cases for Notch. So if they can excite enough developers, they could end up with some pretty off the wall motion trigger-tech scenarios.

Each Notch sensor is 1.3×1.2×0.31inches (30x33x8mm), and weighs less than 0.35oz (10g). They’re designed to be charged via standard microUSB and will run for 3+ days “normal usage”. The sensors are designed to snap onto clothing via standard male sewing snaps. The startup is also offering some custom clothing – including button-up shirts and casual tees – with built in connector pockets for Notch.

Early Kickstarter backers can bag one Notch sensor for $49, with various other pledge levels up for grabs. But if you want the full body capture option it’s considerably more pricey – circa $360 for eight modules, to allow for motion capture of wrists, elbows, head, torso, feet. So that’s clearly going to remain niche.

The startup is also seeking a rather sizeable $100,000 to make Notch fly – with sub-$5,000 raised so far, and 43 days of their campaign left to run. If they hit their funding target they’re aiming to ship Notch to backers next June.

We have heard the rumors that Facebook had at one point in time attempted to bid on Snapchat for a cool $3 billion, which the creators of the app decided to turn down, and even turned down Google’s reported $4 billion bid attempt as they felt that they were worth a lot more. Well according to a report from GigaOm, they are reporting that Instagram could be getting instant messaging features, similar to what Snapchat is doing at the moment. It’s kind of like, if you can’t beat them, join them! After all Instagram had added video capture to the app in a bid to compete with the likes of Twitter’s Vine, so this would not be unprecedented.

GigaOm reports that this feature would allegedly be introduced to the app in a major update scheduled for release by the end of the year. As it stands there is no way to message someone on Instagram privately, and the only way to get their attention would be to either tag them or mention them in your comments. This alleged private messaging feature of Instagram is said to offer one-on-one messaging, as well as group messaging. Take it with a grain of salt for now, but what do you guys think of this feature making its way onto Instagram? Yay or nay?

Instagram Rumored To Be Adding Private Messaging Feature original content from Ubergizmo.

Motorola has rolled out a pair of new smartphone applications for users of some of its Android devices. The new apps are Assist and Connect. Both of the apps are available on the Google Play store right now. The apps are compatible with a limited number of Motorola devices so they won’t work for everyone. […]