Karen Jackson, Author at Argyll Free Press

Microsoft’s Surface Hub has been Delayed to January

August 13, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

The Surface Hub, Microsoft’s wall computer has been delayed, and it will now start to ship on January the 1st 2016. The announcement comes right after the company’s July statement, when they noted that a Fall release date isn’t plausible.

The software-maker promised that they will update its status when August arrives.

Microsoft’s official note, regarding their Surface Hub wall computer can be read just down below.

A little bit lackluster, isn’t it?

Mary Jo Foley, a contributor to ZDNet was the first to observe this rather annoying delay, and she brings to our attention that Microsoft started taking pre-orders for their Surface Hub on July the 1st, and that the company’s initial plan was for a September 1st ship date.

The big M released a statement in July which noted that they have received strong demand for the Surface Hub, and the reason for this multi-month postponement is that they want to polish their process of manufacturing in order to produce them on a more larger scale.

Microsoft built, from top to bottom, a factory in Oregon especially to create the Surface Hub.

This delay isn’t worrying, nor has it caught us off-guard. I wouldn’t even go to say that this entails system, or production troubles. It’s just Microsoft admitting they want to make more money, because there is a demand for their product.

Microsoft isn’t selling flag-ship consumer-oriented smartphones, where timing is of the essence when considering a release date. They are trying to breakthrough a niche, which doesn’t really have a standard of quality cemented into the user’s mind, nor promoted by an industry leader.

Microsoft’s new system, the Surface Hub is a 80-inch, or 55-inch computer that you can display on your wall. It has a built-in touch input, specially made cameras that will track your movement, and other features oriented for businesses – video conferences are stable, and easily initiated.

It will come pre-assembled, and the design team at Microsoft aims it at businesses first, consumers second.

It can also run all of the apps on the Windows Store.

The Surface Hub is capable of running Windows 10 apps, and it will be more practical than their previous iterations. It will also run a sort-of custom version of the newly released Windows 10.

Depending on the size of the Surface Hub that you choose, you’ll need to pay-up $6,999 or $19,999.

As I said before, this delay isn’t worrying, but if January comes, and Microsoft delays their system once-again, then we might start to ask ourselves some questions.

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LastPass is Now Free for Mobile Users, Here’s the Catch

August 12, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

LastPass is a password management tool, considered to be a lead player in the industry.

The company announced that they will be offering their services for free on smartphones, tablets, and even desktops. But here’s the catch. If you start with LastPass on your smartphone, you’ll be able to sync your data only on other smartphones, the same goes for tablets, and desktops.

LastPass is compatible with Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Mac, and Windows.

It is also compatible with Internet Explorer, Edge, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Maxthon, and Firefox.

A premium membership is required if you want to synch data between two different devices – let’s say, a smartphone, and a tablet, or a tablet, and a desktop.

There’s a 14-day trial for LastPass Premium aimed at showing users how easy it can get when you have all your passwords in one little 5,000 rounds of PBKDF2-SHA256 encrypted vault. Premium offers unlimited syncing over any device compatible with LastPass. It also features a Shared Folder, where you can, go figure, share personal data with other people.

If this sounds appealing, you’ll need to cough up $12 a year for the Premium service.

If not, you can always stick with the free version – it offers the same features as the Premium service minus the device syncing variety.

But you should also know that not long ago, 2 months actually, LastPass was hacked. Those who got into their system didn’t steal any crucial data, the company notes.

In an official statement on their blog, the just-hacked password management company reassures its users that they keep their data secure at all times, and finding a workaround, or cracking their algorithms is nearly impossible, even for those who posses a performance-driven hack-aimed computer.

But the company warns users that if they used their master password on any other website, they should change it immediately – on LastPass, and on other websites that they have used the password.

If you still aren’t swoon over, check their Why Use LastPass? clip. Maybe you’ll become a user, and who knows, even a fan.

If having all of your passwords in one vault gives you anxiety, you can always go local, and open-source. KeePass is easy to use, open-source, you can store passwords locally, and most important of all, it’s absolutely free!

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Battleborn Might Be The Reason Why You’ll Get Fired

August 8, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

Loved Dota 2? Got addicted to Borderlands? Well, here’s something that blends the two together, and will be the reason why you’ll get fired.

Think of Battleborn as your first date, but don’t puke rainbows just yet – the word I’m looking to describe this team-based shooter is thrilling.

The last time I got this excited about a game was when I found out that No Man’s Sky leaped from being a PS4 exclusive, to being launched Windows also.

Battleborn is being developed by those twisted minds that brought us Borderlands, so you should expect a fair dosage of the insane – fine, an over-the-top dosage of the mentally unstable. Game mechanics stick to the traditional Borderlands scheme, but developer Gearbox Software sprinkles some pretty amazing new features.

Watch the Battleborn Trailer down below!

It’s an easy pick-me-up fragging experience, but it doesn’t limit itself to just Bang, Bang, You’re Dead!

No, sir. You have 25 characters in total, each with different abilities, and some of them that don’t quite fit the meta of FPS games, but believe-you me, they are more fun than any other traditional shotgun-wielding champion. Think of Machete on crack, with David Lynch directing the whole shebang.

One character which I found exceptionally thrilling was the Kata-equipped Rath.

This isn’t to say that there won’t be additional characters released throughout its lifetime – if the game is successful.

Everything just pops-out, in a good way. Animations, and colors are bright, and intriguing. They aren’t your run of the mill textures, so don’t expect Borderlands with a different name stapled on its forehead.

It implements MOBA elements just superbly, sticking to the easiest of them, but also equipping the play style with intuitive controls. It’s aimed at everyone – gamer, and non-gamer alike. It’s meant for those who want to pick-up the controller, and start the game – in a maniacal Joker’ish way, but without that whole Jared Leto look at me I’m so edgy with my tattoos look.

Think of how you level up a MOBA hero like Lee Sin, but in a first person point of view.

Battleborn will have a narrative single-player campaign up for grabs for whoever wishes to embark on a Borderlandseque story, and the multiplayer component will a whole different beast.

Watch the Battleborn gameplay trailer down below!

Hopefully, Battleborn developer Gearbox Software won’t focus on just one side of the game, and leave the other to rot. Here’s to an awesome campaign driven story line, and a more than enjoyable shattering of the skulls MP.

Gamescom 2015, in my books, is better than E3 2015 – more demos to play, and less talk about useless accessories. It’s more than gratifying when you get to play the thing you’ve just witnessed, instead of just watching countless clips that show the same thing over and over again.

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Graava Action Cam Does All The Editing For You

August 6, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

The $249 Graava Action Cam edits everything so you don’t waste time going through your footage.

We all know how tedious it can get to edit photos, or videos. You just need that spark of creativity so your friends can watch your short without taking it as a chore.

You see, Graava does all the edits automatically, and if you pre-order it right now it will cost you only $249, instead of the retail price of $399. The thing is, it uses A.I. to note what your highlights are, but you can still choose how long the highlight reel is to be. Afterwards, you just need to select a track and Graava will do the rest – as in syncing to the beat of the song you’ve chosen.

Next step – Hollywood!

The Graava Action Cam will see the light of day in February of 2016.

Besides using GPS, motion, audio, and accelerometer sensors, the Graava notes your voice cues so it can better detect what’s the highlight of the footage, and what’s not.

It can shoot 8-megapixel photos with its camera unit, and three hours of continuous video at 1080p at 30 frames per second.

It’s been quite a shock that a Kickstarter startup with just $750,000 in funding can deliver so much. Facebook, Youtube and Twitter users are drooling over this kind of devices. With video-sharing being, once again, a hip trend, the Graava Action Cam can become quite popular over night. If they play their cards right, that is.

Bruno Gregory, the founder of Graava, was almost killed by a hit and run driver while he was biking across town. Luckily for him, he managed to record everything on camera, and when the cops showed, he had evidence he could use against the person who ran him over. The perpetrator was put in jail 10 minutes later.

But Bruno notes that setting up a camera on his bike became a chore, and he usually didn’t do it because a) he had to spend more time setting it up than he wanted, and b) he had to go through hours of footage just so he can find something to edit, and a few hours after for the entire editing process.

So Bruno set out to build Graava.

It has colored holsters which you can latch onto your helmet, bike, goggles, or whatever. If you want something to be specifically added to the film, just say out loud Graava, and the action cam will take note of your vocal cue.

Once home, you just need to latch it onto the wireless magnetized stand so it will begin recharging, and dump all of the data in the editor. Easy as pie!

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Google Glass Ain’t Dead, Now It’s More Enterprise Oriented

August 1, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

Google Glass ain’t dead, and it’s going to make a come-back sometime this year, or mayhaps even in 2016. It will look almost the same, but this time it will be more enterprise oriented.

Google hasn’t admitted, yet, that their first iteration of Google Glass was a big flop, mainly because of the NSA leaks, and the big G is trying once again to make G-Glass happen.

Rumors have it that the new Glass, which is basically the same as the company’s first product, design wise, will cost less than $1,500 so enterprises will be enticed in buying them, instead of other smart glass devices already released on the market.

The second gen Google Glass device has already been distributed to Glass at Work partners, notes Re/code.

Can Google make a stance in the smart glass market? There are a few consumer oriented smart glasses set to release in 2016 like the ODG R7, but it will retail at almost $3,000. Microsoft’s HoloLens will also debut in 2016, and the augmented reality device already has a cult following, mainly because of their Minecraft demo.

Google Glass competitor ODG R7

The team behind the development of Google Glass, which is lead by Tony Fadell, who took control of the project only last year, hasn’t released any technical specs, nor any information regarding a new software update, but sources note that they are working towards developing a more user-friendly, and highly intuitive interface.

Enterprise-specific augmented-reality apps have a high demand, and enterprises are more keen on testing smart glasses, and experiment to see if it helps them on the long run. Not like average consumers, who quickly disinherited the Google Glass after its launch.

The FBI was called at a cinema by an usher, because he thought someone with Google Glass was recording the movie, and streaming it live to his friends, or on the internet. The man in cause was indeed wearing Google Glass, but he had a prescription for them, and no footage was found on his device.

Paranoia drives to more paranoia.

But this isn’t to say that Google has completely put the lid on a consumer version for their G-Glass. They are still in partnership with Luxottica, a giant glass manufacturer who played a huge part in developing the Glass 1.0.

Sources close to Google, and Fadell, note that the company is secretly working on releasing a consumer friendly device. Fadell discussed the topic with BBC, and noted that – ” it’s going to take time to get it right.”, and Google needs to make a long-term commitment, and continue to invest money in wearables.

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Facebook To Start Testing Their Aquila Solar Powered Drone

July 31, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

Last year, Facebook started teasing the world with its plans of building a little plane that would deliver internet to the masses. Now, the big F is preparing to test their Aquila solar powered drone.

The Aquila solar powered drone is a 140-foot self driving plane that will deliver internet, for free, from altitudes of 60,000 to 90,000 feet.

More than 10 percent of the world’s population doesn’t have the infrastructure required to use basic internet, and Facebook’s plan is to solve this issue.

The drone, or UAV, however you want to put it, has a wingspan similar to the well known Boeing 737, and it weighs just about 880 pounds.

It will be able to patrol a selected area for 90 days, relying solely on energy from the Sun. But this doesn’t mean that it isn’t costly. Facebook employs balloons to get the Aquila solar powered drone to a specific altitude, and then it sets it loose.

Aquila will be able to fly above commercial airliners, and thunderstorms, and at night, to conserve energy, it will drop at 60,000 feet.

Aquila drones will be able to fly in a circle in a radius of 3 kilometers, and it will be able to offer free internet within a 50 kilometer range.

It’s a little bit confusing at the moment how the Federal Aviation Administration will control this kind of air traffic.

The Aquila solar powered drone is part of Facebook’s plan of connecting the world. Through their internet.org, the company has brought free basic internet service to over a billion users, in 17 countries across the world.

Their main goal is to bring the internet to underdeveloped countries that don’t have the infrastructure required e.g fiber optic cables, microwave repeaters and cell towers.

Facebook wants to start testing their UAV later this year, but we don’t know a precise date.

Facebook has built a prototype, and has tested it in a plant in the UK, but the company hasn’t disclosed any information.

Also part of the internet.org connect-the-world project, Facebook is developing an improved way of transmitting data. They managed to go up to 10 Gbps, which, when comparing to the previous system that was capable of transmitting at 1 Gbps, is ten times faster.

FB CEO Mark Zuckerberg is aware that offering free internet to people in underdeveloped countries will also be profitable for Facebook, but he notes that this isn’t profit-driven, and it’s mainly inclined on helping developing countries, and their economies.

When you have access to the world’s knowledge only at a mouse click’s distance, you can grow better and faster.

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You Can Now Send WhatsApp Messages With Google Now

July 29, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

Google just announced that users will now be able to dictate and send messages on WhatsApp, Viber and WeChat by using Google Now. The announcement about the latest update was made in a blog post.

Android’s OK Google feature has been around for a while now. The voice assistant helped users perform various tasks like setting a reminder, Googling stuff or calling a friend. The command was pretty straightforward: “OK Google” and you were just a few spoken words away from sending a SMS.

Google Now has built on that and now its users will also be able to send messages via WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat Telegram and NextPlus as long as they dictate in English. Google’s plans include adding more languages and more apps in the neart future.

So how does the magic work? All you have to do is say “OK Google, send a WhatsApp message to Mary” and Google Now will take care of the rest.

Sending a WhatsApp or Viber message has never been this simple before. The smartphone voice assistant from Google will pick up on your command and ask you to start dictating your message. There’s also a shortcut version that’s a bit more straightforward. Here are the instructions. Just say “OK Google, send a WhatsApp message to Mary: let’s meet tonight” and Google Now will deliver your message in seconds.

If all this sounds good, make sure you have the latest version of the messaging app, the latest Google app and you’re now ready to safely text while you’re driving. In addition it’s bound to save users a lot of time opening the apps and typing up messages.

The privileged Android users are likely to remain the only ones who’ll be able to dictate and send messages on WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat Telegram and NextPlus without opening the apps and typing.

As of January 2015 WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app worldwide, with more than 800 million active users. This came 6 years after the app was launched by Brian Acton and Jan Koum and one year after Facebook bought WhatsApp back in February 2014.

In an attempt to attract even more people and cover more users’ needs at the beginning of 2015 Whatsapp launched a calling feature for Android, iOS and Windows. They also made the app available on web browsers, perfectly mirroring the chats on your mobile phone and vice versa.

We can only imagine Google Now will help WhatsApp increase in popularity and gather even more users in the following months.

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Witcher 3’s Final DLC Announced

July 28, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

The 16th and last DLC for Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has got fans on the edge of their seats with excitement for the new release. Released in May, 2015, Witcher 3 has quickly increased in popularity thanks to its DLCs which included, among others, completely new armors, weapons and even new quests.

Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a video game created by Polish video game developer CD Projekt RED that is played in a third-person perspective. It stars Geralt of Rivia, who embarks on a journey across the Northern Kingdoms. The land is filled with dangerous threats which the players have to fight off by using magic or weapons. At the same time, gamers are required to fulfill various quests and missions while travelling on foot or on Geralt’s horse.

Holding the record for the best selling video game in the UK in 2015, Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was ordered by 1,5 million players before it was even launched, dethroning Battlefield Hardline. An additional 4 million copies were sold in the first two weeks after it was launched, which translates into a gross income of 600% higher than its predecessor, Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.

What can gamers expect from Witcher 3’s final goodies package? It has been reported that the upcoming DLC will contain a new finishing animation style for Geralt of Rivia. This role playing video game was successful from the beginning, partly due to the fact that the players’ complaints and suggestions have always being taken into consideration by the producing company.

As an example, the game’s most requested feature has been New Game+ and it appears Witcher 3 players will shortly get to see all their dreams come true. This options enables you to start playing again once you’ve finished the game, keeping the weapons and upgrades you had gathered by the end of your previous game.

The second run is usually more difficult and it can also include various tweaks, motivating the gamers to give the video game another go.

According to a tweet published on Witcher’s Twitter page on July 27th, 2015, the latest free DLC, New Game+, is on its way, with a minimum ETA of at least two weeks. CD Project RED, the developer of the game, has worked hard to keep everyone happy, but it’s difficult to predict what they have up their sleeve this time.

There have been rumors about having all travel points unlocked and a tracking feature for the decisions you make on your first run, but nothing has been confirmed yet.

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Kepler Discovers Kepler-452b Which Resembles Earth

July 26, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

So NASA’s Kepler just discovered a planet that resembles Earth – dubbed the Kepler-452b, and it revolves around a G-type star like ours.

The Kepler-452b is 60 percent more massive than Earth, and this is a good thing – previous discovered planets which NASA considered to be habitable, weren’t. Mainly due to them revolving around a cool star, or having no solid, rocky surfaces.

This is starting to shape-up like the intro to one of Asimov’s Foundation books.

This exoplanet Kepler-452b, NASA thinks, has a gravity twice that of Earth’s, and thicker, and more cloudier atmosphere. Which the average Joe can only think of meaning more rain. Rain equals water. Water equals life. Boom. We just discovered aliens. I would like my money now Stephen Hawking.

If we’re lucky, there might be life starting to frolic around under those dense clouds. If we’re unlucky, the exoplanet is home to a highly-advanced alien life form which doesn’t take too kindly to other beings visiting them.

The Kepler-452b is slower than our Earth. Consider this – our year consists of 365 days, theirs might be 385.

Alas, this isn’t the first time that NASA announced that the Kepler found an exoplanet that might be habitable. It may prove to be just another lifeless planet. Sure, we can’t be the only ones in this vast universe.

NASA boasts that it has discovered, to date, about 4,675 possible planets, and they will be adding new fancy high-tech telescopes to their arsenal – they will be equipped with a 3,200 megapixel camera, and they are called Large Synoptic Survey Telescopes.

” On the 20th anniversary year of the discovery that proved other suns host planets, the Kepler exoplanet explorer has discovered a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our Sun. This exciting result brings us one step closer to finding an Earth 2.0.” noted John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

Earth 2 might just exist, but is it okay, for humanity, to find other life-forms? Even Stephen Hawking says no. Think of it this way. When Columbus, and Amerigo Vespucci, discovered the new land we call today America, they went on a crusade of killing every single human that inhabited the continent. After many years, European colonists did the same. Who’s there to say that otherworldly being won’t do the same? And who’s there to say that we won’t do the same?

Will we become the hunters, or the hunted in this new space era?

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Pebble Time Gets a Well Deserved Update

July 24, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

For those of you who have jumped on the Pebble Time trend, your smartwatch is going to get a bigger than a Pebble firmware update.

The company has started to roll out their new firmware today, and it has brought the update number to 3.2 – which adds a ton of new awesome features. Its Android companion hasn’t been forgotten, and it too has received changes here, and there.

The Pebble Time firmware update 3.2 changelog can be read just down below. Notice the improvements added for the blacklight, font size, and vibration settings. One of the biggest features is supporting additional music players.

Blacklight: You can now adjust its time-out duration, and intensity.
Font Size: Basically, you can now play with font sizes – be it in notifications, layouts, or other parts of Pebble.
Vibration: Users have complained that vibration was way too strong, and the company listened to the community out-roar. By default, it’s weaker than the previous default setting. Also, now you can adjust the vibration setting for notifications, alerts, calls, and so on.
Music/Android: Additional music players have been added to Pebble Time’s library, like Pandora, Spotify, Songza, and the company has improved how songs are displayed. The Android app now displays different play, and stop buttons.
Notifications: The best improvement is the addition of Dismiss All. Also, devs have worked on displaying notifications properly.

Bug fixes are present.
Improvements to the stability of Pebble Time.

Pebble Time’s Android app is witnessing improvements, and new features. You now have a search bar which you can use to track down saved apps, or watchfaces that reside in your My Pebble menu. Don’t need to worry anymore that your notification preferences will be set to default when a new firmware comes out – whatever you did in the previous update will be carried on to the next.

If you want to get the new update, you just need to go to Menu > Support > and select Update your Pebble.

If you don’t own a P-time smartwatch, but you’re seriously considering in doing so, you should know that the company has stated that their going to ship their devices by the end of August. We’re expecting to see them in stores a couple of weeks after.

Although, you can go to Best Buy, and acquire it from them today – they have some sort of partnership going on. Also, the company notes that although it’s available at Best Buy right now, Target will have the Pebble Time starting with the 17th of August.

Are you the proud owner of the P-time, or are you considering in buying one? If you do own one, are you thinking of updating it to 3.2? Tell us in the comments section below.

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