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DC5m United States IT in english 7 articles, created at 2016-11-05 16:00

'Instant ' are coming to 1 /7 7.7 your Facebook Messenger chats

Ever since Facebook spun Messenger out as its own separate app, Mark Zuckerberg and his team have been pushing the idea of Messenger as a platform - not just a place to chat with (or ignore) friends, but somewhere you can run apps, do your shopping, send payments and more besides.

According to reports over the weekend, gaming is going to be the next big step forward for Messenger, with some of the major studios (like Candy Crush maker King) said to be prepping titles for an imminent launch. "Instant Games" is the name of the new feature, say sources speaking to The Information.

It's no secret that Facebook wants to bring games to Messenger - we've already seen some efforts made by Facebook appear, and if you know the right tricks you can already launch mini football, basketball and chess games inside the chat app.

This new roll-out seems to be on a whole new though, and marks a fresh attempt by Facebook to get you to stay inside its own walled garden rather than drifting away to those other app and stores owned by the likes of Google and Apple.

In an ideal world, Mark Zuckerberg would want you to only have to install Facebook and Messenger on your phone - and putting games inside Messenger would be part of that. You'd be able to challenge your friends directly inside the app and Facebook could potentially take a cut of in-game purchases.

The insider sources say a development kit is arriving later this month so watch this space for an official announcement - and watch your Messenger app for a new invasion of mini games and challenges from your Facebook friends.

2016-11-05 09:30 By feedproxy.google.com

The best One games - 20 of 2 /7 6.2 this generation's must-play titles

It's hard to believe it's been almost three years since the Xbox One launched, but since then it's consistently delivered great and memorable gaming experiences.

We've been more than satisfied by updates to our favourite platform exclusives like Halo and Forza, while being suprised and delighted by one-off titles like Sunset Overdrive. Let's not forget we still have access to more than 250 of our favourite Xbox 360 titles thanks to backwards compatibility.

It's hard to deny that the Xbox One offers a great library of games. There are so many of them that it's hard to create a succinct best-of list, but somehow we've managed it.

Whether you're still running a launch console, have just picked up an Xbox One S , or you're scouting out what you'll be able to get if you decide to pick up Project Scorpio , our guide to the best Xbox One games will help you make the most of your console. We're always updating it, too, so you'll never fall behind on the latest and greatest releases.

So without further ado, check out our top picks for the best games released on the system, and look out for the HDR -enabled delights of Gears of War 4, and in the near future.

A top-class graduate of the "" school of action-adventure design, in which an enormous world gradually opens up as you unlock new abilities, Ori is the kind of experience you show a reactionary relative who thinks "videogame art" is a contradiction in terms.

There's the world, to start with - a dreamlike maze of canted-over trunks, thorny caverns and sunlit glades – but it's not just a question of blissful visuals. Ori is a crisp, empowering platformer, with a main character who learns to scurry up surfaces and ricochet away from projectiles, like a spacecraft "sling-shotting" around a planet.

The Definitive Edition improves upon the original by adding new areas to explore and additional background on one of the game's most beloved characters.

Despite being the sequel to a prequel about the young of the Lara Croft, this still feels like a Tomb Raider game that has grown up. The reboot which saw a brave new direction for the franchise seemed a lot of the time to be little more than a bit of light cosplay, but Rise is a far more accomplished game.

There's now a genuine which feels like there is always something to do, and something more than just harvesting up collectibles in exchange for a light dusting of XP. There are also tombs. Yes, that might seem a fatuous thing to say given the name, but the previous game gave them short shrift. In Rise though they are deeper and more plentiful. Rise also has one of the best narratives of any Tomb Raider game, penned again by Rhianna Pratchett, it's sometimes rather poignant.

So come on, ditch Fallout 4's wasteland for a while and give Lara some love.

While the original Forza titles were about pristine driving skills around perfectly upkept tracks, the Horizon series has a penchant for trading paint and isn't afraid to have you get down and dirty with off- road races from time to time. As with its predecessors, Forza Horizon 3 uses the pretext of a fictional festival called Horizon, in which car enthusiasts get together to race and party, as an excuse for its .

Unlike previous years where you're cast as an unknown underdog, however, Forza Horizon 3 throws you into the deep end as the festival's director allowing you to build out the event exactly to your liking. (Thankfully, that's as easy as accepting quests, unlocking new cars and forcing other drivers to eat your dust.)

While the first two entries in Turn 10's spin-off franchise surprised and delighted, Forza Horizon 3 is the unabashed pinnacle of the series, and stands amid some of the greatest racing games ever made.

All things considered, this is one of the best games Bethesda has made. It ticks all the boxes: a massive, detail-oriented open-world; still-fantastic tenets of looting and shooting; a story filled with intriguing side quests and subplots that feel like they matter; and of course a classic soundtrack that brings it all to life. In many ways it's the game we've been waiting for since Fallout 3 steered the series away from its top-down role-playing roots. Not only is the world itself wider, but the plot is better, and more digestible, than any of the games before it. There's still a sense of mystery about what's happening but you no longer have to dig forever and a day through terminals to piece it together.

Welcome home, stranger.

Inquisition is the proverbial RPG banquet - a 200- hour array of quests, -infused scraps, postcard landscapes and well-written character interactions that's perhaps a bit too familiar, at times, but makes up for it with sheer generosity.

It puts you in charge not just of a four-man party of adventurers but also a private army with its own castle and attendant strategic meta-game, tasked with defeating a mysterious demon menace.

The choice of Unreal Engine makes for vast open environments and sexily SFX-laden – fortunately, you can pause the latter to issue orders if the onslaught becomes overwhelming. It's a genre giant.

The original Titanfall was a great game – so great that it long held a place on this very list. However, its sequel, , improves on it every conceivable way: the motion is more fluid, there are more distinct titans to choose from and, hold onto your hats here, there's actually a single-player campaign that might take the cake for the best first- person shooter story of the year.

This game's pedigree is inherited from one of this generation's smartest and most unusual FPS that marries ninja-fast on-foot combat to the gloriously thuggish thrill of piloting giant mechs, which are summoned from orbit a few minutes into each match.

Again, the skill with which Respawn has balanced this mix of styles is remarkable – Titans have firepower in excess but they're easy to hit, and maps offer plenty of places for infantry to hide. These ideas coalesce into one of this year's most remarkable entries in the genre and is well- deserving its own shot in the spotlight as well as a Game of the Year nomination.

Isolation is the game that made the Alien scary again.

We've run into H. R. Giger's eyeless, monstrosity in so many dodgy spin-offs over the years that the basic design has lost much of its capacity for terror. Creative Assembly's interpretation stands apart in a couple of ways. One: it can't be killed by conventional means, obliging you to spend much of the game hiding in lockers with one eye glued to your motion tracker. Two: it's horribly smart, responding to your avoidance tactics as a predator would rather than plodding along a pre- programmed path.

Add in the space station environments, which are modelled with obsessive exactness on the film's sets, and you have a franchise-defining title.

Had it been rushed, Quantum Break could've been an absolute train wreck of disjointed narratives and confusing motives. But, as it stands, the gameplay and video work in tandem to deliver something most games never achieve: cohesion. What I mean by cohesion is that the characters helping you, the often forgettable side characters in game who are used to get you from point A to point B, become real people. Both in a literal sense (Quantum Break's live-action video cast includes Aiden Gillen from Game of Thrones, Shawn Ashmore from X-Men, Dominic Monaghan from The Lord of the Rings and a half-dozen other famous actors and actresses) and in a figurative one.

Quantum Break takes on two new and different genres (sci-fi, video) and does so in an impressive way. It's a neat combination that works in tandem to deliver a better experience than either could on its own.

Press Play's "single-player co-op" endeavour Kalimba strikes a homely figure alongside Xbox One's surfeit of dust-brown shooters, but in terms of originality of concept and inventiveness of execution it has few equals.

The gist: you control two hopping, differently coloured totem heads simultaneously, guiding them past hazards and pitfalls. The twist: your characters are often split up from one another by the terrain, and must face different combinations of hazards, including energy fields which fry anything that isn't the same colour.

The result is an incredibly testing puzzler that has the immediacy and zest of a title.

The Master Chief Collection's aggravating networking problems have dominated headlines since release, but let's not forget just what a value- for-money package it represents. For the price of one game you get four of the greatest sci-fi shooters ever made, exhaustively reworked to take advantage of Xbox One's HD graphics capabilities and (when everything works smoothly) online functions.

Among other perks, there's a neat dual-engine feature for Halo 1 and 2 that allows you to switch between old and new graphics in real-time, and a hub menu that lets you splice missions from all four games into a bespoke themed campaign.

If you've yet to play Halo, this is the place to start in preparation for Halo 5: Guardians .

Yes, including one of last generation's greatest games among this generation's finest is rather boring, but GTA V on Xbox One is too good to ignore, with HD visuals, a longer draw distance and a faster frame-rate.

Among other, more practical perks it includes a first- person mode, which genuinely makes this feel like a different game, though the missions, tools and characters are the same. The new perspective pushes Rockstar's attention to detail to the fore, allowing you to better appreciate the landscape's abundance of in-jokes and ambient details.

GTA V's open world multiplayer remains a laidback thrill, whether you're stuntdiving with friends or teaming up to complete a Heist (a long overdue addition to MP, but worth the wait) – it's probably the best place to hang out on Xbox Live.

Hitman is a series that's been around since the original Xbox, but it never really found its footing on the 360. That's changed completely with the Xbox One's Hitman reboot, which has huge open-worlds levels that make its predecessor's look tiny in comparison. But despite their size, Hitman's levels are absolutely brimming with detail, from endless items that you can fashion into weapons, to small incidental conversations that point to hidden areas and tasks to complete.

We were nervous when we heard that the game would be split into seven episodes, but with four episodes released (and a fifth on the way soon), it looks like IO Interactive is well on its way to crafting the definitive Hitman experience.

Playing a game is a masochistic thing. The pain of losing to the same ten times in a row is crushing, but chasing the buzz of a victory makes it all worth it.

Dark Souls 3, the latest in the soul-crushing series, is back and more terrifying than ever. The graphics have been updated for the modern era, with stunning lighting effects, which illuminate all that is good, as well as what's better left unseen. The gameplay is faster than previous Souls games, riffing off of 's rapid pacing. Finally, the story and the online multiplayer come together to make this a game that you won't put down once you pick it up.

It's easy to label as another two-bit collection looking to exploit that sense of nostalgia you get by looking at the cover art for games like or Banjo-Kazooie.

But dismissing the incredible collection of 30 games from Rare's heyday means missing out on an expertly crafted walk down memory lane.

While some games hold up better than others (cough, Gunfright) with a collection that spans 30 years and a half-dozen systems, you're bound to find a few titles to fall in love with one more time.

A refreshing jump back in time

In the latest Battlfield game, DICE takes players back in time to World War One and by doing so completely rejuvinates the once stagnating franchise. 's historical setting helps it to stand apart from the rest of the modern military shooters on the market with all new weapons, vehicles, and level designs that feel fresh and capture the chaos and brutality of war.

The game offers a poignant and entertaining single-player campaign that sets a new standard for first-person shooter. Broken into six sections, each following a different character and front line location, the campaign never feels dull or repetitive. The single player campaign even feeds neatly into Battlefield 1's multiplayer mode which, while familiar, also benefits from the much-needed breath of life that the change in setting gives.

Graphically impressive, entertaining, and sometimes touching, Battlefield 1 is a return to form for the series.

Geralt didn't have the smoothest of entries to consoles, but after some heavy patching and a lot of angry words about visual downgrades, we're left with an RPG boasting tremendous scope and storytelling. Oh, and combat. And don't forget Gwent, the in- game card game. And there's the crafting to get stuck into. And the alchemy.

You're rarely short of things to entertain yourself with in The Witcher 3's quasi-open world, then, and all the better that you're in a universe that involves the supernatural without leaning on the same old Tolkien fantasy tropes. Invigorating stuff.

It's a Batman simulator. You get to be Batman.

If you want to pretend you need more reasons than that alone to play it, Rocksteady has a track record for peerless fisticuff-based combat, empowering gadgetry and dark storytelling. Oh, plus you can drive the Batmobile. In short, it's the complete superhero sim package, presented impeccably and unrelenting in its delivery of show-stopping cinematic set-pieces. Even standing on top of a building watching your cape dance gently in the breeze makes you feel cool.

Calling Destiny ambitious is a disservice to the game. It's an ambient world (er, galaxy) that operates in real time. It combines single- and multiplayer into a single campaign, seamlessly transitioning between the two. It's from the team that made Halo, so while Destiny may not have the iconic face of Master Chief plastered on the box, it will have the same creative minds doing what they do best: sci-fi.

So what do you do? Imagine a first-person shooter- inspired . You'll create a character and build him/her from a rookie enforcer to earth's savior by unlocking abilities and improving your expertise with one of the four main types of weapons. Before long you'll be haunting the same locales for a rare weapon drop and partying up with friends to take down some of the toughest space brutes this side of a Sith Temple.

Okay, so Hideo Kojima's last game for Konami - and his last ever Metal Gear game - might be a little tough for the MGS n00b to get to grips with, but it's still one of the best stealth-action games ever crafted. The open-world shenanigans will satisfy all your behind-enemy-lines / Rambo fantasies and probably confuse you with crazy plot twists and a million characters all with the same gravel-toned voices.

But hey, that's all part of its charm, right?

The singleplayer campaign may not be the perfect FPS creation that many hoped it would be, Microsoft included, but the multiplayer action is what made many of us fall in love with the original Halo in the first place. Where the campaign is a very much by-the-numbers jaunt, 343 Industries has taken more risks with the multiplayer side and that looks to have paid off.

The tense, constantly evolving Warzone game mode alone makes Halo 5: Guardians a worthy purchase alone, but there are many other parts which have you glued to your controller.

2016-11-05 06:26 Nick Pino feedproxy.google.com

Why 'invisible smart glasses' are 3 /7 0.5 the perfect wearable

What if smart glasses looked like regular, everyday glasses?

Google Glass was derided in the press as a dorky, clunky, privacy-invading error. (In truth, it was a bold experiment that launched the smart glasses revolution.)

Google Glass proved that conspicuous wearables don't belong on your face. The camera made people nervous. The screen caused a malady I called "Glass eye" (pain from having one eye exposed to bright light in a dark room). Looking at the Google Glass screen created awkward social situations when users looked up and to the right to see the screen. Battery life was terrible.

All these problems were caused by the visual elements of Google Glass -- the camera and screen prism. But what if someone came out with smart glasses without optics?

Good news: smart glasses with no camera or screen are coming on the market. The great thing about these glasses isn't the lack of cameras and screens. It's that they can pass as totally normal, everyday prescription glasses or sunglasses (or both).

I call this category "invisible smart glasses," because the wearable computing elements are invisible.

This ability to pass as normal glasses is, to me, the ultimate feature. Most people won't accept conspicuous electronics on their faces.

I believe that invisible smart glasses will soon surpass smart watches and all other wearables. Eventually, they'll surpass even dumb glasses. Here's why all glasses should be invisible smart glasses.

The best "invisible smart glasses" I've seen so far are called Vue smart glasses. They're being crowdfunded on Kickstarter.

I sat down this week with two members of the four- person Vue team: co-founder Tiantian Zhang and product marketing manager, Aaron Rowley, at their incubator office in San Francisco. I also got to check out Vue prototypes.

Vue glasses look almost exactly like ordinary prescription glasses or sunglasses. No bulky electronics. No strange visible screens or lights. And at 28 grams (0.9 ounces), they're light.

Vue glasses will come in two styles ("Classic" and "Trendy"), three colors (black, white and brown) plus five options for the temples (black, "carbon fiber," "wood," brown and blue) and three lens types (prescription, sunglasses and "fashion" -- where you just wear glasses for the look).

All the "smart" interface elements are hidden. Sure, if you look carefully at the earpiece or curve of the temple (the part of the glasses that hook around your ears), they do look fat. Unlike Google Glass, which are fat on one side and basically wire thin on the other, both Vue temples are the same size, with the bulk of the electronics on one side and the battery on the other.

Vue smart glasses have bone-conduction pads on both sides (Google Glass needed optional earbuds because the design allowed bone conduction on one side only), a tiny LED light on the inside of the temple near the frame on the right side and a tiny microphone embedded in the right temple. A touch screen graces the outside of the temple on the right side -- but they don't look like they're touch controls.

The flashing light alerts you to incoming messages and emails, and you can choose what the blinking means in the settings section of the app. The LED light is positioned to get your attention, but to be invisible to others.

The bone conduction pads let you hear any sound you might normally hear through earbuds, including Siri or Google Assistant, phone calls, alerts, audio feedback, music, podcasts and so on. (Vue claims patent-pending technology that prevents others from hearing anything from the bone-conduction speakers.)

The best thing about bone conduction is that you get sound without anything entering or covering your ears. So you can have access to the audio cues all day without the discomfort of wearing earbuds. And if you do need to listen to music or take a longer call, your ears are free and you can do so without removing the glasses. (Note that bone conduction technology is not an acceptable replacement for earbuds when it comes to music. It's fine for notifications and even short phone calls. But the audio quality is nowhere near even cheap earbuds or headphones.)

The touch screen on the outside of the right temple offers four gestures, which users can customize: single tap, double tap, swipe and long press. For example, you could use the single tap gesture to answer a call and the swipe gesture to go to the next email. Vue is building an online tool for choosing the right prescription lenses, and is working with an FDA- approved lens maker to handle prescription lenses, according to Rowley.

An accompanying app will run on iOS and Android, and will provide a range of features and options. For example, you can track your glasses if you lose them, monitor your steps, and get estimates of distance traveled and calories burned.

You can charge Vue glasses by inserting them into the included charger case. Like Apple's AirPods, the Vue glasses' case includes its own battery, so you can charge the glasses on the go without plugging into an outlet. Vue claims up to three days of standby time with the glasses themselves, and up to seven days of standby battery life when you combine the total charge of the glasses and case.

Crowdfunding is one way to gauge demand. Vue's Kickstarter campaign launched less than two weeks ago, and has raised more than $370,000.

Kickstarter backers can get Vue glasses for $179, and the company expects to ship in July. The full retail price is expected to be $269.99.

(You can hear my full, candid conversation with Zhang and Rowley by subscribing to my podcast, The FATcast .)

Vue glasses represent an emerging category of invisible smart glasses that make the gadgetry invisible by abandoning optics -- no cameras, no screens. Other contenders in this space include Zungle Panther sunglasses and VSP Level glasses.

Eventually, we'll have the technology to make invisible smart glasses that do have optics. I wrote in January about Carl Zeiss's smart glass technology , which achieves invisibility using something called a fresnel lens.

Laforge Optical is already offering for pre-order a $590 pair of smart glasses called Shima glasses , which do offer a heads-up display but achieve near invisibility by reflecting a temple-embedded screen into the right eye via a "series of optical elements in the lens. " (I wouldn't advise pre-ordering new technology like this without seeing and trying them first.)

Optics, not optics -- whatever. The crucial feature is "invisibility" of the electronics. The future of smart glasses will be dominated by wearables that pass as ordinary, everyday glasses.

I believe the so-called "killer app" for invisible smart glasses is artificially intelligent virtual assistants -- the coming-soon revolution I wrote about here recently .

Consumers are falling in love with their Amazon Echos and Google Homes. These virtual assistant appliances thrill because you don't have to pull out your phone and find and launch an app. You just talk. And the appliances talk back.

Once people have these in their homes, they want them in their cars, offices and everywhere. But plugging in "appliances" all over the place is inelegant. True ubiquity (as well as improved fidelity, lower cost and enhanced personalization and privacy) will be enabled by wearing the virtual assistant appliance on your physical person. Hearables are one solution. This new category of wearables that I told you about in this space involves earbuds with wirelessly connected computers built in. Hearables are great, but aren't practical for everyday, all-day use. They're uncomfortable after a few hours, which doesn't matter, because their batteries don't last that long.

Invisible smart glasses will prove to be far more practical. With batteries that last longer than a full day, and no uncomfortable "bud" in your ears, they'll be just like wearing the glasses you're already wearing.

Unlike Google Glass, hearables or even smart watches, invisible smart glasses are perfectly "sticky. " Because they're your glasses, you'll wear them all day, every day, even if the battery is dead.

After pondering the promise of invisible smart glasses like Vue glasses, it's clear to me that ordinary glasses that deliver your A. I. virtual assistant are the perfect wearable. They're socially acceptable. They're "sticky. " And you're already wearing glasses. Once you see invisible smart glasses, the future of wearable computing comes into focus.

2016-11-05 04:00 Mike Elgan www.computerworld.com

10 ways to make sure your 4 /7 4.0 remote workers are being safe

With an ever-expanding mobile workforce, infosec teams are increasingly tasked with extending cybersecurity safeguards beyond the physical and virtual walls of their organizations. With endpoints not only increasing but on the move, the challenge is real. In addition to implementing the appropriate technical defenses, there is an important aspect to protecting corporate data and systems: Asking end- users to get involved.

Wombat Security Technologies recommends remote employees follow these 10 best practices to shore up security for their organizations -- and themselves.

[ Make threat intelligence meaningful: A 4-point plan . | Discover how to secure your systems with InfoWorld's Security Report newsletter . ]

Free WiFi (hotspots that are not - protected) are oh-so-available and oh-so-tempting, particularly for employees who pay for their own data plans. End-users should be made aware that these networks are not secure enough to use when logging into secure systems or transmitting sensitive information (customer data, credit card numbers, etc.). Travelers should use a mobile hotspot (or enable the function on their mobile devices) when they need secure connectivity. Word to the wise: Free WiFi is a hard habit to break, even for cyber-savvy individuals.

If a home wireless network is left unprotected (with no password or technical safeguards in place), it will be as vulnerable as any free WiFi hotspot. At minimum, it’s critical that remote users password- protect their networks and enable encryption (preferably WPA2). Even better, infosec teams should develop a checklist for remote employees to use in applying security settings.

Most organizations that have remote employees utilize a VPN -- and those that don’t, should. While this will protect company-issued devices, it won’t help in BYOD situations. And plenty of BYOD users access corporate systems from their phones and tablets.

Don’t put up road blocks (like assuming this step is too technical for end-users to handle). Instead, identify an appropriate VPN application for employees, ask them to install it, and provide tips for using it. Even partial adoption is a step in the right direction. Remote workers are highly likely to connect corporate devices to personal networks and devices (home WiFi, wireless printers, fitness trackers, and other IoT equipment). End-users should be instructed to change default passwords on these kinds of devices (particularly wireless routers). Default passwords are often accessible online, and hackers use this information to exploit unsuspecting users.

There has been plenty of press about these types of discretions, but the security ramifications aren’t up for political debate. As a general rule, corporate data should not be transferred to personal devices. Every time sensitive data is co-located, the risk to that data is compounded -- and most of the risk will fall to the end-user who moved the data outside of the audit trail.

In a similar vein, employees should be cautious about placing their personal data on corporate devices for the simple fact that the information leaves their jurisdiction and could potentially be accessed by others. This is a danger for on-site and remote end-users, but those who consistently work from home could feel disconnected from corporate policies and procedures and not realize that sharing details of their work lives could create an issue for their employers. As well, individuals who travel a lot often fall into the trap of oversharing (posting check- ins at airports, hotels, restaurants, and more).

Employees should clearly understand the dangers of making business itineraries, corporate information, and daily routines public on social media.

Like default passwords, cyber criminals seek opportunities to exploit known vulnerabilities in software and plug-ins like Adobe Flash, Acrobat Reader, and Java. Remote workers should be made aware that plug-ins and software, including mobile operating systems and trusted applications, should be regularly updated on all devices they use (with automatic updating activated whenever possible).

Employees who work in their own homes can sometimes take security for granted. However, they’re likely to be visited by plenty of people who shouldn’t be privileged to know sensitive or confidential details about their work or personal lives. When traveling, the “stranger danger” factor increases tenfold.

Remote workers should be cautious about discussing any confidential matters on the phone when non-authorized individuals (including spouses and children) are within earshot. As well, they should make sure that sensitive data on screens, printouts, or notepads is not visible to snoopers.

This goes hand-in-hand with avoiding eavesdroppers and shoulder surfers as it has everything to do with taking control of personal space and personal devices.

In home offices, computers and paper files should be locked and secured when not in use. When traveling, extra care should be taken with devices and confidential materials; phones and files should not be left unsecured in unoccupied hotel rooms or vehicles.

When going on a business trip (or a personal trip, for that matter), end-users should pare down to the bare necessities as far as devices and sensitive data are concerned. If a laptop won’t be needed, it should be left behind in a secure location. Superfluous files, credit cards, and devices also shouldn’t make the trip.

RELATED: 10 ways to secure a mobile workforce

2016-11-05 03:00 Ryan Francis www.infoworld.com

The Week in Apple News: MacBook Pro headlines, Apple

5 /7 and augmented reality, Apple 1.3 Campus 2 drone videos, and more

There’s a lot of chatter about the new MacBook Pro. Some it it is about the new Touch Bar, but a lot of it is about the laptop having only Thunderbolt 3 ports. Lost in the chatter are plenty of other Apple-related headlines, and we have the important ones in this slideshow. Click on the link to get more information. The battery on the new MacBook is a measly 54.5Wh compared to the massive 74.9Wh power pack on its predecessor. Even with a decidedly wimpier battery, Apple says the laptop is still good for 10 hours of web browsing over Wi-Fi just like the 2015 version.

Also: The 2017 MacBook Pro may have more RAM and a lower price tag (Macworld) Apple’s new MacBook Pro may be the world’s fastest stock laptop (Computerworld) Say goodbye to the MacBook Pro’s signature startup chime (Macworld) The 2017 MacBook Pro may have more RAM and a lower price tag (Macworld) Apple reduces prices on USB-C adapters (Macworld)

Ive said the company develops prototypes that employees then live with for awhile to see if the approach is a good one. Two years ago, Apple began developing larger trackpads with haptic input, then decided to combine a touch display with a mechanical keyboard.

Also: No, the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar isn’t a precursor to a touchscreen Mac (Macworld)

Want a MacBook Pro with more storage and don’t care about the Touch Bar? Upgrade the 2015 15- inch Pro to 512GB for $200, down from $300, or to 1TB for $600, down from $800. The 13-inch Pro can be upgraded for $200 (for 256GB), $400 (for 512GB), or $800 (for 1TB).

How is that even possible, you might be wondering? Well, the fact that the smartphone industry continues to operate largely at a loss means that Apple can manage to capture profits beyond the 100 percent mark.

Despite Apple pushing sales for its latest high-end iPad Pro models, the earlier iPad Air and iPad mini models are Cupertino’s best-selling tablets, accounting for two-thirds of its shipments in the third quarter.

Duke became one of the first hospitals to integrate with Apple HealthKit via Epic, and to use the platform to incorporate patient-generated health data into its EHR. The initial pilot used HealthKit to track blood pressure and weight for patients with cancer and heart conditions.

Apple’s AR technology will most likely be integrated into a next-generation iPhone, as we’ve already seen with iOS apps like Snapchat and Pokémon Go. It’s also possible that Apple plans to use the iPhone to power an all-new augmented reality headset.

Apple’s Cambridge office is home to less than 30 people, including many of the employees from VocalIQ—a voice recognition startup that was spun out from the university and acquired by Apple in 2015 for up to $100 million (£80 million).

From Al Diaz-above it all: [[4K]] Aerial Tour of Apple Campus 2||November Update

From Matthew Roberts: Apple Campus 2 November 2016 Update 4K

From Duncan Sinfield: Nov 2016 Apple Campus 2 Drone Construction Update

2016-11-05 03:00 Macworld Staff www.itnews.com

Still using your Galaxy Note 7?

6 /7 Here's what Samsung is doing 4.3 now

Attention, Galaxy Note 7 holdouts: it's about to become even more bothersome to use the device if you live in the US (and no, we're not talking about washing machines either).

Samsung announced today that "nearly 85% of all recalled Galaxy Note 7 devices" have been swapped out as part of the refund and exchange program there, with "the majority" of consumers opting for another Sammy handset ("Phew! " - Samsung, we imagine).

But that means there are still Note 7s, which were subject to not one, but two recalls after defective batteries kept catching fire, out in the wild.

To bring these rouge handsets home, Samsung has a two-pronged plan.

The first is to release a software update "in the coming days" that will effectively prevent the Note 7 from charging beyond 60%. Samsung doesn't say whether this is because that's a safe(r) level for the battery to be at or any other reason for that specific limit, though we've asked.

In addition to not being able to charge your device fully, you'll also get a pop-up notification whenever you charge, reboot or turn on your Note 7's screen. Basically, anytime you look at your Note 7 when it's turned on, an alert will appear, telling you to exchange your phone.

We've asked Samsung if it plans to roll the software out globally, and we'll update this story if we learn more. In the meantime, if you still have your Note 7, no matter where you live, we recommend taking Samsung's advice - power it down and get in touch with Samsung or your carrier about replacing it ASAP.

2016-11-05 00:32 Michelle Fitzsimmons feedproxy.google.com

Do online high schools make the 7 /7 1.4 grade?

Natalie LeBaron dissected earthworms, grasshoppers and frogs for her 10th-grade biology class.

Sure, high school students have been excising amphibian hearts for decades -- but not like LeBaron. She wields her scalpel on top of the dryer in her family's laundry room in Stockton, California.

LeBaron, 15, had just completed her sophomore year with Stanford Online High School (mascot: the Pixel), where she takes classes while in a fluffy chair in the corner of her bedroom. When she does science experiments, like dissecting frogs or measuring cellular respiration, her teacher sometimes asks to see photos, which she snaps and sends with an iPad.

But it's not all homework at Stanford Online High School (OHS). Student life can be surprisingly well- rounded.

LeBaron, for example, runs a weekly club focused on the multiplayer Artemis: Spaceship Bridge Simulator. She's also performed in a one-act play via Adobe Connect, sharing the virtual stage with a fellow actor in New Jersey as audience members applauded with emojis.

"Sometimes it gets a little bit lonely, being the only person in Stockton that goes to my school, but it works out," says LeBaron, who has met classmates at get-togethers on Stanford's Palo Alto, California, campus 85 miles from home. "I love the challenge. I love the environment. "

There are all kinds of online high schools -- from government-funded public and charter schools, which are free to resident minors, to private schools including those like OHS, which are affiliated with universities.

Nearly 460 full-time charter, privately run or district- operated virtual schools enrolled more than 261,000 students during the 2014-15 academic year, according to the National Education Policy Center.

So what's the appeal? For some, like LeBaron, these virtual schools feel like natural extensions to their home schooling. Others might have been bullied, struggle with chronic illnesses or live in remote areas.

Others are high achievers who need higher academic standards or the flexibility to compete in sports, start companies or perform on stage.

German student Birte Doludda, 17, checks off several of those reasons for attending OHS. She and her family moved to Tokyo eight years ago when her father got a job there with chemical maker Nippon Aerosil.

"In physical schools, I often had disappointing teachers who seemed uninterested in their own subjects," says Doludda, who just completed her junior year. "[At OHS] I get to work on subjects that I like and experience things like philosophy, which I am told not many high school students get to do. "

Alex Shaffer, now 25, attended Indiana University High School because it made it easier for him to juggle homework while keeping his 30 marketing clients happy.

"I needed a high school that was flexible with my schedule so I could go to meetings and work on my projects," Shaffer says on the school's website. "I was able to work at my own pace, and being able to work anywhere was a good thing because I traveled. "

The center also notes that for-profit virtual schools account for nearly three-quarters of all enrollments. They also have the highest student/teacher ratio, with 44 students per online classroom. The report's authors go so far as to describe the virtual schools it looked at as "dismal -- if not disastrous. "

"The whole model is flawed," says lead author Gary Miron, a professor of education at Western Michigan University. "[It] was not developed by academics or researchers or practitioners. "

Even schools with impeccable academic credentials have their skeptics. That's because they can't provide the social elements -- from varsity tryouts to locker room awkwardness -- that are an important part of growing up. For some, that's OK.

"I do think that I am missing out on some typical high school experiences, like walking to class with my friends," Doludda says, "but I believe that I experience all the ones that really matter. "

She says she's made close friends at OHS, but has met them only over Skype.

On a Tuesday evening, hardly a standard time for a high school class, Kim Failor led an AP biology class from a video chat window on one side of a computer screen, while students on camera answered questions or delivered presentations.

Vikram Venkatram, for example, gave a report on plant defenses and posted visuals on a virtual whiteboard he shared with classmates as far away as China and Japan. They praised him with smiley faces and virtual high-fives after he'd finished.

"I really like how a lot of the assignments and teaching are focused on quality over quantity," says Venkatram, 16, who started his senior year this fall.

"It's definitely a lot of work and it's not easy. But it's nice because every homework assignment will ask in-depth questions on something new versus 16 or even 50 questions on the same kind of math [but] with different numbers. "

For sure, they're high achievers, but they also tend to be more self-reliant than their peers attending brick-and-mortar schools.

"I really like that the students are doing lab work at home, because then they're really required to get the full experience of being a scientist," says Failor, head of the science division at OHS.

"They have to set up the apparatus. They need to troubleshoot. In graduate school I noticed that not everyone had the skills to troubleshoot an experiment. They always had an expert on hand. " Count LeBaron in the take-charge OHS crowd. At just 15, she's already looking ahead to a career in physics or medicine and, if her high school record is any indication, she could end up doing both.

This story appears in the fall 2016 edition of CNET Magazine. For other magazine stories, click here.

2016-11-05 00:00 Leslie Katz www.cnet.com Total 7 articles. Generated at 2016-11-05 16:00