So, this week we had hotter-than-normal iPads, lots of tweets for Twitter’s birthday, the promise of a “premium suite” of apps for the Galaxy Note in the second quarter of this year, Shogun 2: Fall of The Samurai, new AC3 screenshots, Windows 8 will support “Retina” displays, and last but not least, a camera from MIT that can see around corners. Also, we love the Galaxy Nexus.
Good stuff for the week that was of March 25th, 2012.
This is Android 4.0. The first time I ever laid eyes on it in person, I was intrigued by how Android changed so much, so quickly. Only then did I realize that the Galaxy Nexus was built perfectly around it, for instance, having no touch capacitive buttons to perform functions; everything is done using the 720p HD, 4.65-inch Super AMOLED screen. Then it was soon realized that the 1.2GHz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM was more than adequate to keep the system running at full speed and smoothly transitioning with all the animations and effects seen in Ice Cream Sandwich. Then came the 10MBps+ 4G LTE speeds on Verizon. And then lastly, I soon found out that the cameras (both the front 1.3MP and 5 megapixel back-facing) were both built perfectly around the software, to the point where recording 1080p HD footage can be taken with speed, all the while taking photos while recording, thanks to Android 4.0.
If only all Android manufacturers could perfectly sync the software to the hardware, per the way Apple has for so many years. This is why I will say right off the bat, that the Galaxy Nexus is one of the best Android phones ever produced, and it deserves the 9.5/10 I’m bestowing upon it Read the full review after the break!
Great news, fellow assassin’s! Some new screenshots have been released for our Assassin Creed III hero, Connor. In this case, he’s killing redcoats during the American Revolutionary period, hiding in plain sight, and other stuff assassin’s are good at. Check out the source link for all the (beautiful) shots. An interesting note to make is that in this time period, camouflage was for cowards, which probably explains why Connor is still wearing the white assassin’s attire seen on Altair and Ezio, the previous stars of the Assassin’s Creed series.
Via: PC Gamer
Oh my. It’s Instagram for Android!
A sign-up page of all things! It’s not incredibly important, but if you sign-up with your email address on the popular photo-sharing service with 27 million users using the iOS app, then you will be granted a “first in line” privilege, either for a beta or for just as a alert for when the app is available. Check it out for yourself at the source link.
Since the United States Army has been trying to create their own smartphone for soldiers on the field, it is only mandatory that there be an app store with Army approved applications inside. Introducing, the U.S. Army Software Marketplace, a mobile website with links to approved iOS apps on the App Store. An Android version is in the works. The approved apps so far are 12 apps, including the Soldiers Blue Book (the initial training guide for all members of the Army), a benefits guide, and a social media handbook. On the flipside the army is looking into third-party submissions, and the marketplace is available to the public, as well.
Via: U.S. Army, The Software Marketplace
In the past few months (and then some), the Total War team has created multiple worthwhile DLCs for their best game yet, Shogun 2: Total War. It has become a history lesson for gamers and nearly a means of teaching for history professors on the Feudal Periods of Japan. Nearly all times of “feudal Japan” has been covered using the base game, or DLCs: the Gempei war, which allowed for the rise of the samurai class, the Sengoku Jidai (which is where the Tokugawa Shogunate claimed victory), and now lastly the fall of the samurai: enter the Americans and the Gatling gun. It is highly explosive and the most modern Total War game, to date. It’s available starting today on Steam, at $29.99. Best of all, due to its size, you do not need the base Shogun 2 game to play it, so Fall of The Samurai is a game all its own.
This — well, I did not expect this. In fact, no one has. Perhaps? Whatever.
Microsoft has made (or will make, rather) the upcoming Windows 8 Retina display ready, or at least ready for a screen that’s 2560 x 1440 resolution and as small as 10.1 inches. That translates to a deliciously detailed 291 pixels per-inch. Keep in mind however that graphical elements have to be meticulously scaled and detailed to fit the size, so what Microsoft has done is use 100 percent of available pixels for standard density displays, 140 for HD and 180 for quad-XGA panels. Best of all, there are SVG files as UI elements, meaning that density and resolution independence is pretty close for devs.
Want to know more? Check out the source link. Via: Building Windows 8
So, the first of the Tweetdeck updates arrive: a better Tweetdeck for Chrome, Windows, and Mac. The update brings inline media, better list management, a new “Edit & RT” in replacement of the “Quote” feature, new activity and interactions columns, and more. You can see all of this in play after the break as part of a video, or just download the app yourself, for free, of course — which is xcellent.
Via: Tweetdeck
The Samsung Galaxy Note over-the-air upgrade has been delayed till the second quarter of this year — for good reason. This new update will add the Premium Suite of apps, which are centered around the new S pen that the device comes with, which we reviewed earlier this year. The “GALAXY Note continues to delight customers all over the world with its incredible versatility and unique user experience. With the Premium Suite upgrade, we wanted to add features that enrich users’ Note experience even more, including the great advantages of Android 4.0 and innovative applications for S Pen,” said JK Shin, Samsung’s president of IT & Mobile Communications. “We are committed to providing extraordinary experiences for consumers, and we will continue to provide new features and upgrades to enrich our offering.”
So overall, the Galaxy Note is only getting better. Nice. Video after the break.
To begin with, this is an ingenious creation by the scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. With that note to the side, it is now time to proceed towards the creation: a camera capable of seeing around corners. How so? Its function is to construct a hidden object using scattered laser light, which bounces off walls and surfaces that are close to the obstructed object (in this case, something around a corner). “We are all familiar with sound echoes, but we can also exploit echoes of light,” said Ramesh Raskar, head of the Camera Culture Research Group at the MIT Media Lab. How the camera achieves this is by recording an image every two picoseconds, allowing the location of the object to me measured with extreme precision. An algorithm created by the team then processes the collected data and use it to construct an actual image of the object that is hidden — however this whole process takes an agonizing 10 minutes.
However!
The scientists are striving to trim the time to just 10 seconds, where they make the inevitable suggestion for a true applicable use of the camera — the military. Still, in my mind there are much more useful places for a camera that can see around corners, but I’ll save that observation for another article. Video after the break. Via: Digital Trends
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