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Microsoft Announces Windows 10

Posted: 30 Sep 2014 12:12 PM PDT

Windows 10

With rumours mounting regarding Microsoft’s next operating system, the company has now announced that it will be called Windows 10.

Windows 8 is a sorry state. Meant to be the very best operating system in terms of catering to desktop and tablet users, those using non-touchscreen devices found themselves baffled by the Windows 8′s layout. The Metro layout gave users live tiles to keep track of sports, news and the weather but it also removed the longstanding Start button which was seen as a confusing design choice given that so many users had enjoyed the Start menu’s practicality for so long. As a result, Microsoft could only do one thing to appease its users – bring the Start button back – and with the announcement of Windows 10, it seems that the company is doing just that.

Yes, bizarrely Microsoft’s next operating system won’t be called Windows 9, as previous reports led us to believe. Instead the company is naming it Windows 10 to signal what a big step this is from its predecessor. But what’s in a name? Well, other than the Start button, we will still have those live tiles just not in the way that we know them. Specifically, we’ll be able to drag and drop tiles into our Start menu, resizing them as we see fit and providing us with easier access to the software and files that we care about.

David Johnson who covers Microsoft for Forrester Research explained that “The Start Menu is perhaps the most important thing that will make the desktop experience familiar to business users, and will help it reduce resistance to its installation.” The statistics show that he is likely correct; Windows 8 powers just 13.4% PCs, meanwhile Windows 7 powers 51.2% and even Windows XP, which is no longer supported by Microsoft, powers 23.9% of PCs. So, understandably Microsoft would need to do something drastic to win casual consumers and business users over.

Is the Start menu a big enough selling point, though? The company mentioned “universal apps” that are tailored to a range of devices which is promising but there was no mention of other popular features such as the Cortana virtual assistant (think Siri, but Microsoft branded) that’s been seen on Windows Phones. Bringing Cortana to Windows 10 could be a huge draw for those left burnt by Windows 8 and it would be in Microsoft’s best interests to include it. However, we’ve yet to see all of Windows 10′s features but Microsoft says that in addition to rolling out a technical preview (an unfinished version, mainly for developers), they will also reveal more info at their Build conference in April, 2015.

Microsoft adds that they will release Windows 10 before the end of 2015. We’ll keep you posted once we know more.

Source: BBC

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Playbulb candle: LED lights change colors via your smartphone

Posted: 30 Sep 2014 07:00 AM PDT

Playbulb Candle 1

Getting the right mood in a room has never been easier as with the Playbulb candle, a series of LED bulbs that switch colors via a smartphone app.

The Playbulb candle is one of those ideas so simple yet brilliant that makes you wonder how come no one came up with it before. The MIPOW USA team from San José, California came up with the concept, a mobile App controlled device that makes light change colors. No matter what colors you like or what mood strikes you, any color is just a couple taps away thanks to the app in your smartphone, available at both App Store and Google Play Store. Users can turn them on or off from the app, but as the whole point of Playbulb is to be fun, users can also blow them as if they were regular candles.

Playbulb candles use LED light instead of flame, so they’re safe for any room. They have a timer for battery saving purposes and is also highly portable.

The product is in the process of being funded via Kickstarter, but has already surpassed the initial goal over 200%, so expect to see it in retail very soon.

Via Kickstarter

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Tokyo Game Show 2014 Recap: The 5 Biggest Highlights From The Show

Posted: 30 Sep 2014 06:00 AM PDT

Tokyo Game Show 2014 image

Lets review the most important news from the Japanese video game trade show.

Its reach might not be as large as year’s past – especially, when attendance drops to 18,000 less visitors from 2013 – but when the Tokyo Game Show comes around (September 18th to the 21st), somehow the Japanese gaming expo still evokes a fevered passion that matches other major industry-wide events, like E3 or Gamescom.

Albeit, it does generally help when there's something to show – and "to show" there was. With a year of a new console generation under its collective belt, the Japanese side of the gaming industry seemed to be swelling with tons of awesome items being featured at the show; new announcements, hot footage of highly anticipated games, and other fascinating story lines that one list probably couldn't contain.

I'm going to do it anyway, though! So here now are the five biggest highlights from Tokyo Game Show 2014.

1. Final Fantasy XV Is Alive & Well

The biggest surprise at TGS this year had to be – hands down – the latest trailer for Final Fantasy XV. Long mired in development hell since 2006, when it originally went by the name Final Fantasy Versus XIII, the Square Enix role-playing game has been surrounded by a dark cloud of doubt regarding its development status.

This past week's incredible unveiling though, after a year of silence from E3 2013, when the game was reincarnated from a spin-off title to a full-fledged Final Fantasy release coming to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, have seem to inspire a bit of new found hope that the troubled project will see a release in the near future.

Perhaps by late 2015 in Japan (with a subsequent release in other territories in early 2016), if all goes well. Square Enix management appear to be fully committed to getting the game out the door, replacing the game's original show-runner, Kingdom Hearts director Tetsuya Nomura, with Hajime Tabata. Tabata is a director that has a solid pedigree of shipping projects in a timely manner, so it will be up to him to insure the same for FFXV.

According to Tabata in an interview at TGS, Final Fantasy XV is “55% complete” at this time, with a demo planned around the first half of 2015 sitting at 80% completion. No sound, or loose release date has been confirmed for either, but for now we're left with a promising taste for what audiences should expect when the RPG launches.

2. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain – Quiet on the Set

Hideo Kojima brought all the Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain info he could to this year's Tokyo Game Show. With the game nearing completion, the famed Konami director brought a great amount of new gameplay footage to his stage presentation, showing off a new local and more insight into the character of Quiet.

The scantly-dressed female sniper happens to play an important role in one of Phantom Pain's key gameplay features, the buddy system. This allows players to team up with A.I. controlled partners out on the battlefield, who then have their own unique set of abilities.

Depending on certain conditions met within the game, your choice of A.I. partner will vary. Chances are you might even buddy up with other mission partners, such as a wolf-dog that Big Boss can raise and accompany him in later missions, if the player manages to rescue as a puppy.

Players necessarily don't have to go out of their way to form these relationships, they're totally optional and can be ignored if you just want to focus on the central campaign. But as a total package, it's nice to see the kind of depth we might expect when Metal Gear Solid V ships sometime next year.

Here’s footage of the Tokyo Game Show stage demo in action:

3. New Nintendo 3DS Makes Its Debut At The Show

In typical fashion, Nintendo themselves were absent from the festivities of TGS, but not when it came for their upcoming latest handheld, the New Nintendo 3DS. At Capcom's booth, demo units for the handheld – in either its standard or XL forms – were being used to try out the Japanese publisher's next big 3DS release, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate.

Releasing October 11 in Japan, the New 3DS improves on its past revision with a host of new features: better 3D screen, a small boost in hardware performance, and the ever apparent new C-Stick, which gives users an optional control method for in-game cameras. How do the new changes fair with a game like Monster Hunter 4? Here's a video from an Engadget reporter, who got to try out the handheld from the TGS showroom floor.

4. D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die Stealth Release On Xbox One

Rarely does the spotlight fall on the Xbox brand during TGS (you can look up how badly every Microsoft made console has performed in Japan to see why), but it did just that with the immediate announcement and launch of D4, a Xbox One exclusive developed by Access Games and directed by Hidetaka “Swery65″ Suehiro.

Swery's directorial efforts certainly have their own mad-ball flare, and that almost alone makes them worthy to try. Deadly Premonition, his previous effort, is game that is full of oddities, both comedically and in it's surreal presentation. D4, or rather Dark Dreams Don't Die, certainly extends into the auteur realm of which Swery affectionally belongs to.

In D4, players take the roll of private investigator David Young, who must solve the murder of his wife by going back in time to relive the fateful moments before her death. Using Kinect (although, the game can also be played without it), hand gestures and voice recognition can be used to find clues to further get to the bottom of this mystery.

Some major gaming outlets have already giving D4 some high recommendations, and better yet, the game is available to digitally purchase right now for $15.99 off Xbox Live. D4 is an episodic mystery adventure (you get the prologue and the first two episodes with your purchase), with more chapters to come in the following weeks and months.

If you happen to be a fan of the weird, especially of the Japanese variety (which is of a special variety), then you should certainly check out D4 if you have a Xbox One.

5. Bloodborne Gets Dated For Worldwide PS4 Release

Sony managed to fit in one more last surprise before the Japanese gaming exhibition came to a close: namely, a worldwide release for the dark action-role-playing game from the makers of the Dark Souls series, From Software's Bloodborne, arriving exclusively for the PlayStation 4 on February 6, a day after the gothic-inspired title launches in Japan.

Bloodborne will be available in both a standalone edition and a prestigious collectors edition that costs $79.99 USD and comes with a Steelbook collector’s case, an art book featuring concept art from the game, and a digital copy of the game’s complete soundtrack. Below you'll find the latest gameplay trailer for the game, possibly the last bit of new footage before the game's release in early 2015.

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iPhone 6 Plus Bendgate Highlights Massive Design Flaw

Posted: 30 Sep 2014 05:00 AM PDT

iPhone 6 Bendgate

As the iPhone 6 Plus racks up millions of sales, Apple’s new handset is hit with controversy as the phones begin to bend under normal usage.

There are lots of things that made the Apple iPhone 6 Plus a huge talking point just a few weeks ago. For one, it was the iPhone moniker that got everyone whipped up into a frenzy, while Apple also explained that the device has a better battery life than its predecessor and is also the most powerful iPhone ever. But on top of this many were also hooting and hollering about the device’s size as at 5.5 inches the iPhone 6 Plus is a certified phablet (phone/tablet hybrid). And while this size has its advantages for watching TV shows and playing games, it also has its downsides and with iPhone 6 Plus Bendgate, a massive design flaw could spoil everyone’s fun.

iPhone 6 Plus Bendgate, to give it its headline-friendly nickname, is the controversy about the iPhone 6 Plus’ bending. Coming to light after some users reported that their handsets beginning to look warped or bent after normal usage, many were concerned that their phones would lose their shape. Investigating, Lewis Hilsenteger of YouTube channel UnboxTherapy made the above video to prove that despite Apple saying that just nine people had reported that their iPhone 6 Plus’ had been bending, the flaw clearly isn’t a fluke.

In his video, he chalked down the iPhone 6 Plus Bendgate problems to the phone’s aluminium body. The phone is huge and aluminium is a famously malleable material so did that mean that the iPhone 6, the HTC One (M8) and other aluminium based phones are susceptible to bends too? It didn’t, actually, as Hilsenteger’s above video proved. All of the phones ‘bend tested’ in his footage proved to be fine – there were some creaks but nothing as major as the iPhone 6 Plus’ issues.

This is terrible news for Apple, not least because they now have thousands of customers wanting answers as to why they sacrificed the device’s bulk for a slimmer device that actually loses its shape, but because Bendgate is seeing them lose money. Combined with iOS 8 problems, Apple’s stock dropped drastically last week showing that this is a controversy they’d like to avoid in the future. That could mean that future iPhones become a little thicker but as those horrendous bends could potentially damage the innards of the phone too, this is a small thing to concede.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories, iOS 8 Hit With Phone Breaking Bug; Apple Patch Makes It Worse, Apple and Bono Working on 'Secret Project' to Fight Music Piracy

Project Photoshop Streaming Brings Photo Editing to Chromebooks

Posted: 29 Sep 2014 01:51 PM PDT

Adobe Photoshop Chromebooks

Just in case Chromebooks weren’t appealing enough, Google has just made them even better by announcing that Adobe Photoshop will be available on them.

Schools and students already represented one of the main audiences for Chromebooks, and young professionals are to be attracted with this new addition to Chrome OS. Google just announced that it partnered with Adobe to bring a cloud-based version of its photo editing suite to the Chrome OS notebooks.

Mountain View said in a blog post written by Stephen Konig, Product Manager and self-proclaimed Sunset Photographer that “Chromebooks are fast, easy to use and secure. They bring the best of the cloud right to your desktop, whether that’s Google Drive, Google+ Photos or Gmail. Today, in partnership with Adobe, we’re welcoming Creative Cloud onto Chromebooks, initially with a streaming version of Photoshop. This will be available first to U.S.-based Adobe education customers with a paid Creative Cloud membership—so the Photoshop you know and love is now on Chrome OS. No muss, no fuss.”

Well, Chromebooks are everything about the cloud, so a cloud version of the world’s best known photo editing software makes perfect sense. In schools, these machines require little to no maintenance, since cloud apps have great safety measures (well, the iCloud doesn’t), and the Chromebooks themselves are at least in theory immune to viruses and malware, in general.

Google added that “This streaming version of Photoshop is designed to run straight from the cloud to your Chromebook. It’s always up-to-date and fully integrated with Google Drive, so there’s no need to download and re-upload files—just save your art directly from Photoshop to the cloud.”

Chromebook users wanting access to the new Project Photoshop Streaming will need to visit Adobe.com and apply there.

With each passing day, Chromebooks are getting better, partly thanks to Google, and partly to developers. The tech giant encourages people to develop apps not only for Android, but also for Chrome OS, and the app-ecosystem is indeed growing at a rate that’s envied by others. The company even showcased the Chromebook-compatible Android apps Duolingo and Sight Words at Google I/O earlier this year, thus hinting at its intentions of tightening the relationship between its two mobile operating systems.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the Photoshop prank that gets people waiting for the bus into nearby ads, and the Shortcut-S keyboard that features 319 shortcuts for Photoshop.

In Case of Emergency Use the Solar E Power Cube

Posted: 29 Sep 2014 01:24 PM PDT

Solar e Cube 1500

Now that green energy is at most people’s fingertips, at least in the developed countries, relying on gasoline-powered electric generators is a big no-no.

There still are plenty of situations when a power bank comes in useful, and not all of them are emergencies. When a backup source of electricity is required, solar panels are the most cost-effective, even though at the moment their efficiency is not that great. The Solar E Power Cube is exactly what the doctor ordered, as it can collect energy without harming the environment, and then it can store it for prolonged periods of time so that you can use it when needed.

Made by Wagan Corporation (Wagan Tech), a company that specializes in power inverters and other related goods, the Solar e Cube 1500 is not exactly a new product. In 2012, when it was first showcased, it won the “Best in Class” award at the DIY (Do it Yourself) Network and the National Hardware Show.

Chad Youngblood, the General Manager of the DIY Network had only words of praise back then: “This baby is stylish and portable. It houses all of the modern power connections and mobile devices people use today. [It] could play a role in keeping my family safe and comfortable.”

Alex Hsu, Wagan Tech Vice President of Sales, explained that “We have spent years developing a solar generator that is not only ‘plug-and-play’ but also fully portable. We were pleased to see that our hard work and dedication to this project had attracted to so much attention. Winning Best in Class really showed us that consumers understand the problems with current gasoline generators and are looking for other cleaner forms of power, which we are able to offer.”

The Solar e Cube 1500 makes use of 5 solar panels to collect 80W of energy in a 100Ah hybrid AGM-gel battery. It packs 2 USB ports and everything else you need to power up your gadgets when there’s a storm. In addition, it can also be charged from an AC power outlet, just in case you live in an area where there’s not much sun, and use it in case of emergency.

The Solar e Power Cube is a tad pricy, since you will have to spend $1,299 to get one. It’s currently available on Kotulas, should you be looking for a backup solution.

Ironically enough, I’m listening to Hans Zimmer and The Magnificent Six – My Enemy, which is basically Electro’s theme in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. I don’t like dubstep at all, but there’s something really catchy about this tune.

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