3d illusion arts: Walyou

Walyou

Xbox One gets another price cut: now $349
Amp iPad speaker case enhances the iPad experience
Dexmo F2 Haptic Exoskeleton Grants You Control Over Virtual Matter
Google’s Project Ara to Have Its Own Component Store
Is Android Wear about to become compatible with iOS?
deCarta and TomTom Team Up Against Google Maps

Xbox One gets another price cut: now $349

Posted: 27 Oct 2014 09:30 AM PDT

Microsoft’s Xbox One is getting ready to rule the holiday season with a new price cut that puts the console at $349 USD until the end of the year.

Users who are in the market wanting to jump to the latest generation of consoles are in for some good news: from this weekend onwards, Microsoft’s Xbox One is getting a $50 USD price cut on all their models until the end of the year. That means the Xbox One is now, for all intents and purposes, $349 in its Kinect-less version, and $449 with the Kinect bundle, the one they keep insisting is the “real” way to enjoy the console.

These price cuts don’t only affect the console, but also some of their newly announced bundles such as Assassin’s Creed Unity, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, and Sunset Overdrive, a new franchise for Microsoft based around open-world super-hero antics.

This will mark the first time the Xbox One sells for less than the PS4, which remains at the top of the sales charts at $399 USD.This promotion will last until January 3rd.

Via Gamespot

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Amp iPad speaker case enhances the iPad experience

Posted: 27 Oct 2014 07:17 AM PDT

At some point in history, it seemed an iPod was utterly useless without a good dock or bay to recharge it and enjoy tunes. Is the iPad gearing the same way?

iPods, iPhones and iPads all sound fantastic and are great products in their own right. That is, until you have to take off your heaphones because you want to share the experience with those around you. It’s there where docks, speakers cases and the like become a necessity instead of a luxury.

This case is called Amp, and was created for iPad users who are willing to share in the joy. It is being marketed as "the first premium wireless iPad Air case of its kind", and by pairing the device with its speakers via Bluetooth provides a great audio solution, doubling the iPad’s volume. The project is currently being crowdfunded at Kickstarter, where $129 USD can get you an Amp iPad Case before anyone else, cheaper than the $249 it will cost once it hits retail.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories at iPad Air 2 Images Leak Ahead of Apple's October Event and Microsoft Collaborates With Apple to Launch Office for iPad.

Dexmo F2 Haptic Exoskeleton Grants You Control Over Virtual Matter

Posted: 27 Oct 2014 06:30 AM PDT

Being able to actually feel objects in virtual reality is a game-changing fact. Dexmo is a hand exoskeleton that is able to do just that, and more.

Dexta Robotics, the Shenzen, China-based company that developed the Dexmo haptic exoskeleton, is confident that Virtual Reality still has a long way to go. If Dexmo will ever get in a commercially viable form, Dexta thinks it could find its way into music production, drawing, rehabilitation, animation, and obviously immersive gaming in the VR world.

In a Reddit AMA, a Dexta Robotics spokesperson pointed out that the Dexmo F2 uses force feedback (and not just vibration) to help you feel the shape and size of digital objects. I guess the next step is to look for a way to feel texture. After that I wonder who’ll ever need the real world again…

The creators of this haptic exoskeleton are currently looking to crowdfund their project on Kickstarter, where they want to raise $200,000. At the time of writing, backers had pledged a bit over 25 percent of the needed money, but the campaign still had 27 more days to go. This actually has a good chance of becoming a real product. The concept is great and I hope that Dexta Robotics gets to patent it before a tech giant picks this up and turns it into an uber-expensive gadgets for their video game consoles.

Unlike other VR devices or exoskeletons, Dexmo is extremely affordable, also because it comes in the form of a DIY kit that you need to put together using just some basic tools. To secure a Dexmo virtual reality exoskeleton for yourself, in the event that the campaign is successful, you need to pledge $65 as an early bird or $75 as an early backer. The Dexmo Development Kits are expected to ship in May 2015. Mind you, these prices are for the Dexmo Classic Development Kits, which only allow you to control robots from a distance. If you’re not so much into bomb disposal or other similar potentially dangerous sensitive tasks, you’ll have to get $179 out of your pocket for the Dexmo F2, the version of the exoskeleton that comes with all that haptic feedback goodness. Limited edition versions made entirely out of metal are also available, but that are a tad bit more expensive, costing you $2,000.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the MusicGlove hand device that accelerates recovery in stroke patients, and the Daewoo Shipbuilding workers that were equipped with exoskeletons.

Google’s Project Ara to Have Its Own Component Store

Posted: 27 Oct 2014 05:30 AM PDT

Much like the Google Play Store, which also sells Android devices besides millions of apps, the Project Ara component store will offer people plenty of options when building a modular smartphone.

Since Google did not launch separate websites for its Android devices, you might wonder what could determine the company to create a dedicated component store for Project Ara. The Play Store already offers a great experience when it comes to buying Nexus smartphones and tablets, but it doesn’t include a review system. On top of that, the Project Ara component store will feature recommendations on how to mix and match various smartphone modules in order to get the best performance for specific tasks.

Team leader Paul Eremenko explained in an interview at a Purdue University event that the Project Ara component store will resemble the Google Play Store, not just in the design, but also in the overall shopping experience.”By following the Android model, we are creating a free and open platform… The Ara MDK (Module Developers Kit) is free and open and available to everybody, so everybody could create a module per the specifications of the developer’s kit and put it in the Ara module marketplace, which is analogous to the Google Play store, and sell directly to consumers.”

The idea of basing the component store on an already successful recipe is not bad at all. If it’s not broken, why not use it again? There are still a few questions to be answered by Google, such as the approximate number of modules will be available in the component store at the time of the launch. Also, the world has yet to find out who Google’s partners are in terms of smartphone module manufacturing. Is it the usual suspects all over again? Surely Samsung, LG, Motorola, Asus and HTC have plenty of experience in making Nexus devices, but I wouldn’t mind seeing some new players besides them.

In the interview, which is available above in its entirety, Eremenko didn’t say anything about the current status of Project Ara, so we don’t know when the modular smartphone will become a reality. Considering that Google has only organized one of the three Ara Developers' Conferences announced for this year, we might be in for a surprise this holiday season.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about Google’s lesson in modular smartphones, and Project Ara as the kickstarter of an entirely new mobile industry.

Is Android Wear about to become compatible with iOS?

Posted: 27 Oct 2014 05:00 AM PDT

Jeff Chang, Android Wear’s product manager has made clear that he’d love it if his and the iOS team could collaborate and play nice. Is a revolution incoming?

Android Wear OS, Google’s open source operative system for smartwear has been getting good reception amongst techies so far, but Google would like to take it one step further and make it compatible with iOS gadgets too. According to Jeff Chang, the iOS’s user base is a very attractive target for them if only because of its sheer size. He explained that “we always want as many users as possible to enjoy our experience, so in terms of enabling more people to use Android Wear we’re very interested in making that happen.”

The tricky part is getting Apple to be okay with it, as they get the last word on each and every piece of software that runs on their devices. It’s not like Apple don’t know what they’re doing, or will outright refuse, as they’ve already collaborated with Microsoft, for example, in order to bring Office to iPhones, iPads and the like. Yet, wasn’t Apple going to launch their own Smartwatch too? We’ll update you once we have more information.

Via Techradar

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter! And for more geeky stories and tech news at A Microsoft Smartwatch Could Launch in November and Sony SmartWatch 3 Is Now Available on Google Play for $250.

deCarta and TomTom Team Up Against Google Maps

Posted: 26 Oct 2014 01:30 PM PDT

Providers of maps and personal navigation devices have a really hard time competing against Google, not only because the search giant’s maps are very accurate, but also because they are offered at no cost.

TomTom has made a name for itself over the years with the help of the mapping products it created. When Apple ditched Google Maps in 2012, it was TomTom it turned to. Well, that’s not a particularly cheerful thing to bring to mind, as at that time Apple Maps weren’t exactly accurate. deCarta, on the other hand, specializes in mapping software and local search. The solution resulting from this collaboration will tackle, among others, connected mapping and navigation, local search and real-time traffic.

In an interview with Greg Sterling of Search Engine Land, Kim Fennell, CEO of deCarta pointed out that the mapping product made in collaboration with TomTom is very flexible and permits customization to a higher degree than Google Maps. Keep in mind that the products these two companies are currently working on are not for consumers, or at least not directly for them. Instead, developers and business such as car makers, carriers, device makers are targeted as the main customers.

This is TomTom’s statement regarding the newly launched product line: “As well as integrating TomTom’s existing navigation software and service products, such as NavKit, NavKit Worker and NavCloud, customers and developers can now integrate TomTom’s online turn-by-turn navigation. This also includes TomTom's latest maps, real-time traffic, best-in-class routing, a comprehensive search function and easy-to-use software development kits.

TomTom’s new online navigation service enables mobile device vendors and web service providers to provide online mapping and navigation applications that don’t require an offline map. The new service is also well-suited for products in the emerging wearables and internet-of-things product categories.”

Fennell is confident about their product’s success: “In August we replaced Google local search on Blackberry phones in 122 countries and we just replaced Bing at OnStar.” It’s interesting how he doesn’t regard Microsoft as competitor, saying that only TomTom, Nokia and Google are fighting for the supremacy. I don’t know how Microsoft’s mapping software looks like in cars, but the desktop version of Bing Maps is actually quite decent, and I wouldn’t hurry to dismiss it so easily.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the TomTom GPS smartwatch for golfers and the Nokia Here maps that are coming to Android.