Wednesday, March 27, 2013

These Six Regular People Just Got Invited To Use Google Glass (GOOG)

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/six-regular-people-get-google-glass-2013-3

google glass

Earlier today, Google announced that it had picked the winners of its #ifihadglass campaign this week.

It will be sending out thousands of invites telling these lucky people that they can buy the Google Glass device for $1,500. 

Google just sent us a list of some of the winners along with the things they will do with Glass once they own a pair.  Here's the full email.

In February we asked people across Google+ and Twitter to tell us what they would do #ifihadglass, because we’re seeking a diverse group of Explorers to help us shape the future of Glass. Glass isn’t the sort of technology you can develop in a conference room -- we really need people to take it out into the world and see what they’d like to do with it across a wide range of hobbies, lifestyles, and environments.  

And now, the suspense is almost over -- the results are in! Over the next few days we’ll be contacting several thousand people over Twitter & Google+ to invite them to join the Explorer program.  

It’s been inspiring for the team to see such an enthusiastic response to Glass -- when you’re taking a moonshot this big, the encouragement and feedback along the way really helps a lot. And as we’d hoped, we’ve seen all sorts of ideas we never could have predicted -- here are a few fun ones:

As always, you can keep in touch with Glass on its Google+ page. There are also a lot of Glass communities springing up, like this community for the Glass Explorer Edition or even the more grassroots Society of Glass Enthusiasts (with multiple regional chapters!).

SEE ALSO:&nbs! p;The 25 Most Creative People In Tech

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Tuesday, March 26, 2013

DICE+ launches $99 developer kit, pre-orders for $40 consumer model start this summer

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/26/dice-launches-99-dev-kit/

DNP DICE launches $99 developer kit, hopes to release $40 consumer model this summer

Game Technologies, the Poland-based company behind the little electronic die that is DICE+, has just announced a $99 developer edition that bundles a transparent-cased model along with its software development kit. As a reminder, the DICE+ is an inch-sized rubberized cube packed with Bluetooth, an accelerometer and a rechargeable battery, with the aim of bringing human interaction to electronic board games and beyond.

We had a look at a demo DICE+ here at the 2013 Game Developers Conference and it looks relatively unchanged from the one we saw at E3 last year. However, the microUSB port is now revealed via a sliding mechanism instead of a pull-out flap, which should result in a more balanced roll. Marketing director David Gatti also told us that the cube's internals have been revamped and simplified for more cost-effective production.

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Source: DICE+

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HP introduces Unreal Engine 4-ready 'turnkey solution' workstations, collaborating with ALT Systems

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/26/hp-workstations-gdc-2013/

HP introduces Unreal Engine 4ready 'turnkey solution' workstations, collaborating with ALT Systems

Hewlett-Packard may not be well-known by consumers for creating the machines that power the industries that power the world we live in, but the company's workstation business does just that. From film to oil drilling to medicine, HP's workstations have their hands in a lot of pies -- and today, that expands more directly to yet another major industry: video games. With its Z1, Z820 and Z620 workstations, HP is collaborating with Epic Games, Autodesk, and ALT Systems to create what they're calling a "turnkey solution" to game development workstation woes. The three aforementioned units can be customized to arrive with a variety of variables, including Unreal Engine 4, Autodesk, and NVIDIA GTX-line GPUs.

In so many words, ALT Systems will take the disparate pieces of hardware and software from HP, NVIDIA, Autodesk and Epic Games to provide an all-in-one buying solution for game dev studios. As ALT Systems president Jon Guess laughingly explained, it provides clients "one neck to wring" should things go wrong, rather than dev studios having to suss out hardware issues on their own. The first fruits of the partnership arrive this year in game developer-centric versions of the aforementioned three workstation models. For a full rundown of the various workstation configurations that'll arrive this year, ALT Systems has a site set up just for you.

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Unity to bring Qualcomm optimization to its game engine

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/26/unity-to-bring-qualcomm-optimization/

Unity to bring Qualcomm optimization to its game engine

Unity already supports development for (nearly) all mobile platforms and now the game engine maker's working on an optimized version for those with Qualcomm processors -- ie, quite a chunk of them. On the heels of freshly announced competition, it announced that it's collaborating with the chip-maker to release a new version of its multi-platform engine "in the coming months" to speed up Unity-authored games for Android and Windows Phone 8 devices powered by most flavors of that CPU. So far there are over 1.5 million registered developers building games for around 770 products that pack the necessary Snapdragon / Adreno combo, according to Unity -- meaning there's a decent chance you'll soon see some extra oomph in one or another of the games you play, whether you're in Redmond or Mountain View's camps. Hit the PR after the jump for more.

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What's the Best iPhone Data Plan?

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5992452/whats-the-best-iphone-data-plan

What's the Best iPhone Data Plan?T-Mobile has the iPhone now. It's only a hundred bucks! There's no contract! Unlimited everything! But before you get too excited about the prospect of jumping ship for forgotten carrier, let's take a look at how exactly that its iPhone 5 data plans compare to the other big dogs.

Following is a chart that compares individual device plans across on-contract iPhone carriers like AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint, as well as unsubsidized vendors with national scope like Virgin Mobile and Walmart's Straight Talk Wireless. Everyone has their own needs, obviously, but the bottom line is that if you use a lot of data, you should definitely start looking beyond AT&T and Verizon .

What's the Best iPhone Data Plan? Click to embiggen!

Over a reasonable two-year lifespan of the iPhone 5, you're looking to spend $2,120 with Sprint versus $2,260 on T-Mobile and $1,730 on Straight Talk. How that compares to AT&T and T-Mobile depends on how much data you use, but even if you stick with just 1GB/month you're looking at $2,240 on AT&T over two years and $2,360 on Verizon.

Other considerations obviously come into play; Verizon will have better reception than AT&T, AT&T will let you do simultaneous voice and data while Verizon won't, T-Mobile doesn't have a functional LTE network yet, Sprint is... Sprint. But in terms of pure value, T-Mo made a strong case for itself today.

Or, you know, just pick up a Virgin Mobile iPhone 4S and save yourself a grand.

Additional reporting by Robert Schoon. Data plan info provided by Apple. AT&T Mobile Share costs were used for more accurate comparison with Verizon's Share Everything plans.

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