RoboCat and Taptanium aren’t fans of the typical weather app, which tends to bombard the user with numbers when they just need a heads-up as to whether it’s warm or likely to rain. Its newly launched Haze, then, is the potential antidote. The iOS app initially shows just the core temperature, humidity and hours of sunlight in different sections, with its namesake haze effect giving a clue as to whether conditions are trending up or down. If you need to know more, a tap expands the details, and a swipe down shows a 5-day forecast. There’s also a handful of elements that we seldom see in these apps, such as a direction-relative wind indicator, optional motion-driven navigation and visual themes. RoboCat hints to us that an iPad version might be on the way, although ports to Android and other platforms are more likely to depend on the early response.
We had the chance to give Haze a spin ahead of launch. It’s at least a refreshing take: there’s an appeal to exposing only the weather we want to see, and in a colorful way that never needs more than one hand to navigate. Compared to Apple’s default app, though, it’s at once providing more information and less. Haze is much better at supplying the current day’s conditions, but its forecasts don’t always reveal what’s happening — you’ll know the humidity is shifting on Tuesday, but not the likelihood of snow. Consider the app more of a single-day weather specialist in its current form and the 99-cent price ($3 after a promo period ends) is easy to justify.
Sonos is aiming to revolutionize home theater audio by taking all the high quality sound you need and want, and cramming it all into one big ol’ soundbar you can drop at the bottom of your TV. Sure, it’ll work with other Sonos units you have hanging around, the Sonos Playbar is also a starter piece that can stand alone. And for a soundbar, this sucker sounds good. More »
It’s time for more Kickstarter fun and action than you can handle as the crowdfunding group brings on their very first mobile app for iPhone. This app will allow you to fund and follow projects galore as well as follow your friends – and the projects you’ve backed! You’ll be able to check all the newest and most powerful ideas in the land as well as watch your own funded projects flourish!
This app has two sides to it – you can see it as a project backer or you can see it as a project creator. When you’re a creator, you’re able to connect with your backers with messages and updates. You can track your project’s progress on the back-end, and you can post updates from wherever you are in the world – all mobile-like!
You’ll first come across a list of Kickstarter “staff picks” when you enter the app, with several other list views available to you with a tap at the title of the list. From there you’ll be able to work with Popular projects, projects you’ve starred, and a collection of categories just as they’d appear on the full Kickstarter website. Art, Fashion, Technology, and the rest are all here.
This app is available for free from the iTunes app store right this minute and is optimized for iPhone – iPhone 5 display size included. Go grab it right this minute and let us know what you plan on backing first! Also have a peek at the timeline below to see recent Kickstarter-related stories to see what all the hubub is about!
This weekend A Good Day to Die Hard comes out in theaters across the USA, and with it the mobile game DIE HARD for iOS and Android, ushering in a new wave of mobile games: Endless Shooters. This game is hinging on the roll-out of one of the greatest new ways to play a game in the mobile realm, an endless runner, switching it up to include danger coming at you from up front rather than behind, making you go on the attack rather than running away. In this and inside the minds of the creators of the game we’ve found this app to be a beast not just for this movie opening, but for the future as well – check it out!
We had a chat with two of the heads from the groups responsible for the creation of this game, Matt McMahon, Vice President, Fox Digital Entertainment, and Andrew Solmssen, Managing Director, Los Angeles, POSSIBLE – the developers of the app. It was Solmssen that let us know that the idea for the DIE HARD app initially started with POSSIBLE’s hit game The End: “With the success we had with The End, an endless runner, we decided there was an opportunity to expand in that vein. … We felt that we hit upon something that was kind of a different subgenre, an endless shooter.”
Adding to that line of thought, McMahon spoke up: “In contrast with the other endless runners you’re always running away from something. With Die Hard you’re taking the fight to the enemy – that’s classic John McClaine.” And indeed it is a sweet ride from start to finish – you’re playing as the real-deal characters from the movie and you’ve got nothing but blasts to take care of in a series of missions mixed with customization of your gear and experience.
UPDATE: An important note from Solmssen himself! “One important note: the group that created TheEndApp and the Die Hard game is Goroid http://www.goroid.net/, the game studio that is part of POSSIBLE.” Thanks!
For those of you wondering – this was, as Solmssen notes: “a Die Hard game from the beginning.” Having been reached out to by the folks at Fox who are, according to McMahon, “always looking for talent anywhere in the world,” it was The End that brought the two forces together. McMahon continued, “We came across the game POSSIBLE had, The End – we thought it was a really solid product and we simply reached out.”
This game is ready for action right this minute in the iTunes App Store as well as the Google Play app store, and will be available in the Amazon app store soon! It’s also worth noting that this game will not end when the movie is no longer in theaters – instead we’ve got a guarantee from Fox that they’ll be bringing “ongoing support” beyond the movie, and that they “look to update the game with new levels and new environments” well into the future. Grab it now!
Under Armour has always touted the scientific underpinnings of its sports apparel. From moisture wicking to heat trapping and everything in between, the company is quick to assert that it isn’t just another athletic clothing company. But, performance enhancing shirts and pants have their limitations and, arguably, performance monitoring is a far more interesting and burgeoning field. In 2011 it dabbled with E39, a compression shirt with a space to insert a “bug” that included and accelerometer and heart rate monitor. Today, at an event in beautiful, chilly New York City, it officially unveiled the next evolution of that toe-dipping, Armour39. While there may be a shirt in the future, for now the system consists of a traditional chest strap, an iPhone app and an optional watch for those that don’t like to carry their expensive smartphone with them on runs.
We’ve long been enamored of Sonos’ musical streaming technology and its wireless speakers, whether it’s the S5 Play:5, the Play:3 or the Sub. But, what if you’re looking for some Sonos gear that can stream your favorite MOG or Spotify playlist and deliver surround sound on movie night? Well, you’re in luck, because the Playbar has arrived, packing all of Sonos’ streaming capabilities you know and love in a soundbar form factor.
It’s got nine speakers: six 8-centimeter (3.15-inch) aluminum cone mids powered by neodymium magnets and three 2.5-centimeter (1-inch) titanium dome tweeters. It connects to TVs, game consoles and cable boxes via Toslink cable and wires into home networks via Gigabit Ethernet or wireless connectivity can be had for those who own a Sonos Bridge. Naturally, it can be controlled by the Sonos app, but volume can also be toggled by your TV remote, thanks to the IR receivers on board and the remote codes stored on Sonos’ servers.
Naturally, Playbar can deliver simulated surround sound on its own, but it can also be paired with Sonos’ other speakers to deliver true 5.1 channel sound should your wallet be willing and able. Speaking of, the Playbar goes on sale worldwide on March 5th for $699, €699 or £599 depending which part of the globe you call home. We got to see (and hear) the Playbar for ourselves at Sonos HQ in Santa Barbara, California and chat with the folks who built it, so join us after the break to learn more about the company’s first foray into home theater.
Streaming music specialist Sonos has been hinting at home theater expansion for years now, but it’s taken until today for the fruits of that ambition to arrive: the Sonos PLAYBAR, aiming for a spot under your TV. Promising the traditional Sonos ease of setup and use, but with a dual-personality catering both for TV and movie audio, and for music, the PLAYBAR hooks up as another zone in your home entertainment network and packs nine speakers as well as playing nicely with other PLAY models. We caught up with Sonos to find out why the PLAYBAR was special.
The company’s reluctance to extend itself beyond musical speakers has been down to a fear of losing focus: the audience is still dedicated music lovers, Sonos says, but concedes that many in that audience also love films. Meanwhile, while display technology has advanced hugely, skinny flat-panel TV sets have squeezed speakers into something of an afterthought, thus opening the door to hardware like the PLAYBAR.
All-in-one speakers aren’t new, of course, but PLAYBAR does some things differently. That starts with setup: there’s wireless onboard, for the easiest way of connecting, but you also get a pair of ethernet ports on the back for wired networks (and for passing the connection through, say, to your smart TV, or being the first node hard-wired to your router for an overall Sonos installation). Otherwise there’s just power and an optical digital input – no HDMI, since Sonos expects the TV to remain the “brains” in charge of switching and managing media – along with the usual three physical buttons for mute and volume up/down which are on one end of the bar.
When you first set up, the PLAYBAR can learn the volume buttons on your favorite remote (whether that be for your TV, your Blu-ray player, or your set-top box). Out of the box there’s presets for the popular brands/models – most users will just have to press the volume-up key for the PLAYBAR to recognize it – but there’s also a nine-key-press learning mode for new sets. Cleverly, Sonos collects up those programming settings and updates them across all PLAYBAR units, meaning the next user with the same remote won’t have to go through the teaching process. On the back of the soundbar there’s a broad IR repeater strip, just in case placing the PLAYBAR in front of your TV blocks its IR receiver, and there are two IR windows on the Sonos itself, catering for table or wall mounting.
Back when the PLAYBAR was first spotted sneaking through the FCC, there was speculation as to what its dual wireless chipsets might be used for. As the company explained to us, it’s all down to latency – or the avoidance of it – in surround sound mode. The PLAYBAR has one regular WiFi chip to hook up to the network as per all Sonos speakers, but also has a second, ultra-low-latency chip which is used to maintain up to three perfectly-synchronized channels in a surround setup, feeding two PLAY:3 rear speakers and a SUB subwoofer.
As for the speakers inside the PLAYBAR itself, there are six mid-woofers and three tweeters, the latter spread across the outer edges and one in the middle. At normal volumes, the woofers are synchronized, but they can automatically shift out of phase if required – complete with some clever DSP – to avoid distortion when you crank up the audio. Sonos has also equipped the PLAYBAR with completely different settings for music and movies (in fact they automatically change depending on physical orientation, too).
Most importantly, in either mode, it sounds great. Music has a surprising degree of precision, with vocals coming through clearly in the center while the rest of the soundstage has a spread that belies the placing of the speakers. Movies, meanwhile, go even further: the virtual surround you get with the PLAYBAR alone is impressively effective, and the bass has some decent thump to it (given the limitations of the 36 x 5.5 x 3.4 inch footprint and the speakers Sonos has been able to fit), but group it up with a couple of PLAY:3 rear channels and the SUB, and it’s both incredibly loud and precise.
Sonos PLAYBAR overvew video:
Control, as you’d expect, is via Sonos’ existing PC, Mac, iOS, and Android apps: the PLAYBAR shows up as a regular zone, which means you can group it up for party music. However, there’s a little extra consideration for the TV focus there too; if you try to add the PLAYBAR to a group, it’ll double-check to make entirely sure you want to do that, and if you start playback on your TV, the soundbar will automatically switch to whatever is coming through its optical input. You can, though, manually change the audio while leaving the screen on, handy if you want to show a photo slideshow with music from, say Spotify.
The Sonos PLAYBAR will go on sale on March 5, priced at $699 in the US, £599 in the UK, and €699 in Europe.
Kanex may be more famous as a cable maker, but it still has priors when it comes to knocking out the odd device. meDrive is a small white box that’s designed to turn any old USB HDD into a network attached storage (NAS) drive. We’re no friend to buzzwords like “private cloud,” but as the unit promises to swell the capacity of our microSD-slot lacking iOS devices, we couldn’t resist giving it a go. Does this $99 box do all that it promises to do? Find out, after the break.
We’ve come across a number of DLP-based pico projectors over the years and while these products are getting smaller, brighter and higher resolution, it’s the integration with other devices that’s really captured our imagination. Samsung’s Galaxy Beam, which we reviewed last year, merges a 15-lumen nHD (640×360) DLP-based pico projector with a Galaxy S Advance. More recently at CES 2013, Texas Instruments announced its new Tilt & Roll Pixel chip architecture and demoed a handful of other DLP-equipped products live on our stage, including 3M’s Streaming Projector and Smart Devices’ U7 tablet.
The company recently invited us to play with some of these devices and to show us other applications in areas such as 3D printing, 3D scanning, optical research, medical imaging and even automotive. Some of this DLP-equipped tech, like the Interactive Center Console, shows where we’re headed in the near future — other products, like Christie’s VeinViewer Flex, exist today but remind us of something right out of science-fiction. Take a look at our galleries below, then join us after the break for our hands-on video and more info on these devices.
Oh, the wondrous experience that is Toy Fair. And that particular experience, as you may know, includes anything from NERF hoop games and foam fusillades, to boxing robots and itty-bitty, tinkering novelties. To make things even better, though, Hasbro was kind enough to invite us over to its 2013 showcase in NYC, where the prodigious toy maker was exhibiting some Furbyamigos known as Party Rockers, Iron Man’s Sonic Blasting figurine and Arc Fx Mission life-sized mask, a Sesame Street play-and-learning system for toddlers, as well as a Transformers Rescue Bots Beam Box which enhances the experience by allowing the toys to mesh into a game that can be played on a TV set. There was also a little Star Wars and Star Trek action, of course — and the good news is you, too, can see it all, just head past the break to take a look at the vast gallery and a quick video showing off a few of Hasbro’s new toys.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
