Category: Tech

Tech

Siri has snappy retorts for ‘OK, Glass’

I’ve always been a fan of Siri’s sarcastic wit, and now that Google Glass is on the verge of encroaching on its space as an intelligent assistant, it’s ready to drop some snark on you if you so much as even hint that it is Glass. The Verge showed a bunch of the silly responses to “OK, Glass” this morning, ranging from “I’m not Glass. And I’m just fine with that” to “I think that Glass is half-empty.” Contrary to The Verge’s claim that iOS 7 adds more comments to the mix, exhaustive testing of Siri’s wit was unable to prove that the upcoming …

Tech

Why Instagram wants to straighten your photos

Instagram has been adding new features to its app to help users create better photos. It’s no longer enough for it to be just another photo-sharing social network — we’ve moved past that. But in order for it to scale, Instagram needs to add new tools and features to not only enhance the quality of images shared, but also to maintain the appeal of its service. On Monday, the Facebook-owned company offered up some insights into what it’s doing. In a blog post, software engineer Alex Restrepo shared some thoughts on why Instagram’s straightening tool came into being. As it turns out, finding ways to auto-straighten photos had been something the company had discussed for a while…

Tech

The PAX Prime 2013 Guide to PlayStation Indies

Hello indie game fans! I’m part of our Developer Relations team that has been working hard to bring a whole mess of rad indie games to our platforms; you may have seen some of our work last week at Gamescom where we announced games like Rogue Legacy and N++ coming to PS4, or the eight indie titles we had on stage at our E3 press conference back in June. Indie games and PAX (the Penny Arcade Expo) have always gone hand in hand, from the PAX10 to the always-amazing IndieMegaBooth; a lot of indies get their start from the word-of-mouth that buzzes around PAX, and we’re always on…

Tech

Verizon Moto X launches August 29

One week after the Motorola Moto X debuted on AT&T, the first Motorola smartphone built from start to finish during the Google era will go on sale at Verizon. The official Verizon Wireless Twitter account has posted that Verizon plans to debut the Moto X online beginning Thursday, August 29, for $199.99 on a two-year agreement. The phone will appear in stores weeks later. The Moto X on Verizon lacks the ability to customize the exterior at the moment, but the phone will be sold in white or black until Verizon joins the Moto Maker ranks at an undisclosed time later this year. Be sure to read the Moto X review to help decide …

Tech

Why does live-action fantasy fail at the movies?

Apart from Harry Potter, Twilight and the Tolkien adaptations, live-action fantasy movies always seem to tank these days. Latest case in point: Mortal Instruments, which underperformed massively, taking in only about $14 million on a $60 million budget. Why are fantasy movies cursed?Read more…

Tech

Moto X for Verizon officially available online August 29th, at stores in the coming weeks

If you’ve been eyeing a Motorola device on Verizon without the Droid branding, the Moto X is ultimately your best (and only) choice — but when exactly will it be available to the masses? According to Verizon’s official Twitter account, this Thursday, August 29th will be the day you can grab it online for $200 on-contract. As for stores, the company isn’t willing to give a specific date just yet, so all we’ve been told is that we can expect it in the coming weeks. Still, this will come as good news for Big Red fans who have been patiently awaiting their turn, even if it means early adopters have to settle for a…

Tech

Intel’s 3D camera technology detects emotions and eyes, gives Kinect some competition

We know that Intel sees 3D cameras as the future of computing, and the company’s Anil Nanduri just provided a few hints of what that future may involve. He tells Network World that the depth-sensing technology can recognize emotions, such as happy smiles. It can also track your gaze; a camera can detect when readers are stumped by unfamiliar words in a book, for example. The technology’s shape detection is accurate enough that it can even scan objects for 3D printing. We won’t get a true sample of the technology’s potential until Creative ships its Senz3D camera before the end of the current quarter. Nonetheless, it’s already evident that Microsoft’s next-generation Kinect for…

Tech

Verizon confirms August 29th release date for Moto X

Verizon might have been ridiculously late to the party with the HTC One, but it will apparently make sure the same thing doesn’t happen with Motorola’s new hero phone. The carrier on Monday confirmed on its Twitter account that Motorola’s new Moto X smartphone will be available online beginning this Thursday, August 29th, starting at $199.99 with a two-year contract. The phone will not immediately be available in Verizon Wireless stores, however, and the carrier would only say that Motorola’s new smartphone will hit store shelves “in the coming weeks.” The Motorola Moto X first launched on AT&T last week and in our review, we called it the best mass-market Android phone we had ever used.

Tech

Amazon and Microsoft, beware—VMware cloud is more ambitious than we thought

vCloud Hybrid Service integrates with on-premises VMware deployments. VMware VMware today announced that vCloud Hybrid Service, its first public infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud, will become generally available in September. That’s no surprise, as we already knew it was slated to go live this quarter. What is surprising is just how extensive the cloud will be. When first announced, vCloud Hybrid Service was described as infrastructure-as-a-service that integrates directly with VMware environments. Customers running lots of applications in-house on VMware infrastructure can use the cloud to expand their capacity without buying new hardware and…

Tech

Sony Honami surfaces in a series of hands-on images

Given the frequency of Honami related leaks there is probably little surprise in that another has surfaced. This latest is a handful of live-images showing the handset in white. They are offering a clear look at the front and back of the handset as well as the top and bottom. In fact, there appears to be just one angle missing in this latest leak — an shot of the right side. Needless to say, these images all seem to match up with the previous leaks. But again, given the frequency of leaks that is not all that surprising. Interestingly enough, the shot of the back shows…

Tech

“thereisnofatebutwhat­wemake”—Turbo-charged cracking comes to long passwords

Dan Goodin For the first time, the freely available password cracker ocl-Hashcat-plus is able to tackle passcodes with as many as 55 characters. It’s an improvement that comes as more and more people are relying on long passcodes and phrases to protect their website accounts and other online assets. Until now, ocl-Hashcat-plus, the Hashcat version that can use dozens of graphics cards to simultaneously crack huge numbers of cryptographic hashes, has limited guesses to 15 or fewer characters. (oclHashcat-lite and Hashcat have supported longer passwords, but these programs frequently take much longer to work.) Released over the…