They might be three versions of the DroidLenovo’s launching in an upcoming event in June. Evan Blass (aka evleaks), well-known source of device leaks, has posted the photo on Twitter, and people seem to have anointed the black-and-bronze model as the Beyoncé of this trio. While the image only shows the Motorola and the Droid logos, the phone will likely have Verizon’s branding somewhere, since the line’s exclusive to the carrier.
Blass also tweeted out an image of three swappable backplates calledMotoMods, which could be compatible with the upcoming handset. He said the three backplates have different features: one has a projector, another has JBL speakers and the third one has a Hasselblad camera. Those backplates will definitely make the phone more interesting than comparable competitors, but we won’t know for sure until the company launches them on June 9th.
*Verizon has acquired AOL, Engadget’s parent company. However, Engadget maintains full editorial control, and Verizon will have to pry it from our cold, dead hands.
The Microsoft Flagship Store Sydney is pleased to announce an exciting digital colouring competition taking place exclusively in-store over the long weekend!
Inviting everyone across all ages to come in and try their hand at putting pen to screen, the competition will see participants bringing their favourite LEGO characters to life on Microsoft Surface devices, using Surface Pens.
Turning the Surface device screens into a canvas to unleash their creativity on, the Surface Pen allows users to write and draw as naturally as pen on paper, allowing competitors to re-imagine the much-loved LEGO characters in their own unique way.
The most outstanding entry stands to win a Surface Book, an Xbox One 1TB Kinect Bundle and a LEGO Dimensions Starter Kit.
Five runner-up prizes are also up for grabs, which include LEGO Dimensions Merchandise Gift Packs and LEGO Dimensions Starter Kits.
Whether you’re 7 or 70, we invite you to come down and try your hand at the digital colouring competition. All children need to be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
Though we have always assumed Samsung will provide Android Marshmallow updates for all Galaxy A (2016) devices, there was no concrete evidence pointing in that direction. Now, certifications provide just that. Over at the Wi-Fi Alliance, Samsung had several regional versions of the Galaxy A5 (2016) and Galaxy A7 (2016) certified running Android 6.0 Marshmallow, giving us a first glimpse of the existence of the upcoming update.
Other than the certification for the 2016 generation of the A5 and A7, no other Galaxy A devices have been spotted running Android Marshmallow so far. However, we do expect to see the A3 (2016) and A9 in the waiting line soon as well. As far as predictions about the actual rollout of the Marshmallow update for the Galaxy A (2016) devices are concerned, we can’t provide you with any concrete date. Sometimes, updates start weeks after renewed Wi-Fi certifications are published, but knowing Samsung it could easily take longer than that. Still, at least we now have concrete proof that the update coming.
It’s that time of the year again… The temperature is dropping and the days are getting shorter.
Often that means riding home after dark. And while the cooler weather and darker evenings might mean rugging up, it’s certainly no reason to ditch the bike.
As long as you remain visible with bike lights, you’re good to go.
Besides being common sense, lights on bikes when riding at night is also a legal requirement. Riders must have a white light at the front and a red light at the rear.
Reflective clothing, backpack covers, strips and sashes are also good to consider.
If you’re riding on a shared path, consider angling your front light downward so you don’t blind approaching pedestrians.
Our Share the Path team will be out-and-about at various locations across the inner city over the darker months giving away lights to people who need them. These are supplementary lights and should not be your only bike lights.
We reported a few days ago that Gear S2 iOS support is likely to arrive via an update later this month. It was back in December last year when we exclusively confirmed that Samsung has started working on a Gear Manager app for iOS and in January this year Samsung officially confirmed that the Gear S2 will get iOS support in 2016.
Verizon has updated its support page for the Gear S2 to show that an update will be arriving for the smartwatch tomorrow which will bring a fix for a random clock freeze as well as support for iOS and Marshmallow. Software version R730VVRU1BPC1 is what Verizon will release for the Gear S2 and it will enable the smartwatch to be paired with iPhones running iOS 8.4 or later. It remains to be seen if this particular update widely rolls out tomorrow or if Verizon is breaking from tradition and is actually being rather quick about releasing updates.
Pirrama Park has been recognised as one of the world’s best parks after receiving a prestigious Green Flag Award recognising exemplary parks and green spaces across the globe.
The Green Flag Award recognises great parks for their usability and community value. The award is the international hallmark of a quality park or green space.
Lord Mayor Clover Mayor said it was the City’s fourth Green Flag Award, following past winners Sydney Park, Redfern Park and Hyde Park.
“Pirrama Park has quickly become one of our most popular parks, attracting visitors from all over Sydney,” the Lord Mayor said.
“The harbourside views are simply stunning. This award proves what we’ve always known, the park’s facilities and experiences are first class.”
“Pirrama Park is a great spot for kids with play equipment for all ages and abilities including water and adventure play, sandpits and a wheelchair-friendly spinner.”
“It takes a lot of hard work behind the scenes to make beautiful public spaces and keep them clean and welcoming for thousands of visitors every day. This award is great recognition of the hard work and professionalism of our teams who work around the clock to give us beautiful green spaces for all the community to enjoy.”
The City of Sydney imported the purpose-built, accessible spinner from Germany last year following requests from Pyrmont residents for inclusive playground equipment. The spinner can accommodate children of all abilities and multiple wheelchairs.
Meaning ‘rocking stone’ in the Gadigal language, Pirrama Park is set in 1.8 hectares of Pyrmont harbourside land. It won an Australian Institute of Landscape Architects award in 2012 for its design, including sustainable features such as solar panels, rainwater capture and re-use, energy efficient lighting and timber decking made from recycled materials.
The park’s award winning design, developed by consultants Aspect Sydney, Hill Thalis, CAB Consulting, Connell Wagner and TLB Engineers, also celebrates Pyrmont’s history.
The naming of the park recognises the First Australians, who called the area Pirrama. The name is recorded in maps and journals of First Fleet naval officers who documented Sydney Harbour and is one of the few traditional Indigenous names directly attributed to a particular locality in our area.
The City’s 400-plus parks cover an area of more than 191 hectares and include 93 playgrounds with equipment for all children of all ages, sports facilities, green spaces and off-leash areas for dogs.
In 2014, the City of Sydney’s parks were ranked top across NSW in an independent state-wide park user survey.
The DIY (Do-It-Yourself) revolution is no longer limited to the world of arts and crafts. From cars to clothes and even smart device user interfaces, the DIY method can be applied to just about anything you care to mention. It is often a perfect means of adding a touch of your own personality to something.
In response to this trend, Samsung has developed the Gear Watch Designer—a program that allows you to make your own unique watch face. It is easy to use and requires neither expert knowledge nor coding skills.
Five of the Gear Watch Designer’s key developers explained more about what makes the program “tick.”
The Gear Watch Designer is home to designer-friendly tools and functions, many of which resemble those used in Photoshop and Flash programs.
DIY Watch Faces Made Easy with the Gear Watch Designer
Previously, non-developer Gear S2 users were not able to personalize watch faces based on their unique preferences, much less share their designs with others.
But the introduction of the Gear Watch designer has changed that.
“In the beginning, we intended to create the Gear Watch Designer as a utility program to help developers. But as we progressed, the general consensus was that it would be better to make a designer-oriented program,” said Young Jae Min, Senior Designer of the UX team.
As a result, the team developed the Gear Watch Designer to allow designers to better express themselves, even if they lacked development expertise.
The Gear S2 maximizes customization, so that users can directly configure its hardware or software, and edit functions according to their tastes. And the Gear Watch Designer only enhances these customization features yet further.
With the program, you can easily add and arrange calendar, heart rate or daily fitness information directly to the watch face, for example.
You can also fully express yourself by customizing the index, hour hand, minute hand and second hand in the colors and styles just as you desire, all the while checking to ensure the designs function properly as you edit them.
It has only been a short few months since the Gear Watch Designer was launched as a beta version, in December last year on the Samsung Developers website. However, a number of users have already since shared their own unique watch face creations with the Gear Watch Designer’s online community.
“In the beginning, we intended to make the program simple. However, over the course of its development, it has become more complex as the team has diversified its ideas,” said Moo Chang Kim, Senior Engineer of the Tizen R&D Team.
This rather unique development process, in which the team constantly and collectively brainstorms and shares ideas, has allowed the Gear Watch Designer to advance consistently and in a multitude of ways.
“It has been interesting to gradually expand this project by incorporating our ideas,” explained Hyung Jo Yoon, Senior Engineer of the Tizen R&D Team. “It was a refreshing and novel experience to be able to share ideas between multiple departments in pursuit of a single goal.”
Sample watch faces made with the Gear Watch Designer.
Boundless Creative Potential
While anyone can use the Gear Watch Designer to make their own watch face, graphic designers in particular can let their creativity run wild by using their own images as part of the program. As such, the team focused on making the Gear Watch Designer as user-friendly as possible so that designers could use it with great ease.
However, as the developers were not all designers themselves, they explain that they found it difficult to find flaws and limitations in the program before they actually launched the beta version.
“We actively encouraged designers to start use the program when it reached the 60-70 percent completion mark,” explained Sang Min Jung, Senior Engineer of the Tizen R&D Team. “We then proceeded to hold contests internally, through which we were able to improve the tool based on employee feedback.”
Thanks to feedback and regular inter-departmental brainstorming sessions, the Gear Watch Designer soon developed into a more complete experience.
As a result, the program now boasts a number of familiar tools specifically aimed at designers, such as animation functions and graphic interfaces. Even more useful functions will be added in the future in the form of updates.
Both experienced graphic designers and keen amateurs can use the Gear Watch Designer with ease, a fact that has led to more and more people sharing their watch face designs online. In fact, some of the most popular of the paid watch faces available were created using the Gear Watch Designer.
“The Gear Watch Designer has allowed for some significant developments, allowing designers to directly create an end product without the help of developers,” said Sang Hyun Park, Principal Designer of the UX design. “As a UX designer, it’s rewarding to design for the product itself. It’s also very meaningful to be able to create tools that encourage other designers in different fields to create their own designs.”
On March 11, Samsung hosted a workshop at the California College of Arts, UCLA, focusing on watch face design using the Gear Watch Designer. Around 30 design students participated in the event, creating their own unique watch faces using the program.
Design students at the California College of Arts, UCLA participate in a Gear Watch Designer workshop.
The team will also showcase the program’s various functions at the Samsung Developer Conference (SDC), to be held from April 26 to 28 in San Francisco, California.
The Gear Watch Designer team (from left to right): Senior Designer Young Jae Min, Principle Designer Sang Hyun Park, Senior Engineers Moo Chang Kim and Hyung Jo Yoon and Engineer Sang Min Jung.
after a less than successful Hero4 Session launch, a slump in share price, and a swelling product line that confused some customers. To rectify that, the company is pruning back its camera range to just thee models (again): The Hero4 Session, Silver and Black. GoPro CEO Nick Woodman also confirmed the next camera will be the “the most connected and convenient GoPro ever made. Hero5.” Not a Hero4+ or new Hero4 Session. The entry-level Hero line is being axed in April, the Hero5 will arrive “later this year,” Woodman said during the company’s latest earnings call.
Woodman also explained how GoPro will release an “entirely new” video editing experience that will enable users to make “strikingly good” video edits in minutes. A problem that GoPro (and others) have been eager to resolve for some time. GoPro’s awards program, for example, is an attempt to incentivise users to upload and share better GoPro videos on their social networks. These tools will make that easier. Both the new cameras and the software will come ready for forthcoming cloud services, with GoPro’s desktop content management application being slated for release in March.
Right now
the GoPro line-up includes three “Hero” models, the Hero, Hero+ and Hero+ LCD. These cameras were meant as cheaper options for those looking to get a GoPro without the premium cost. For some, it made choosing the right camera confusing. In particular when the Hero4 Session launched, as it cost the same as the Hero4 Silver ($399), but with a much more limited feature set. GoPro would later slash the price of the Session to $199 (half the original asking price). Now it will replace the Hero line as the entry-level model.
Woodman already confirmed to Engadget that the company is planning to continue with the Session model, or at least its smaller, square form factor during an interview at CES. Woodman’s comment that the Hero5 will be “connected and convenient” will come as a teas to those waiting for the next camera. Though what “connected” actually means is open to interpretation. It’s likely that simpler controls like the Session, and tight integration with the mobile, desktop, and cloud tools will be key, rather than a boos in resolution or camera quality. Though 4K in a Session-sized camera is also likely.
In previous years
GoPro introduced the Hero3+ and Hero+ models as more modest upgrades similar to how Apple launches “S” models every other year. But, with no Hero4+, it looks like we might see the lines between the Session and the Black and Silver become less pronounced. At least for now, if you were in the market for the cheaper Hero models, there’s a good chance a bargain could be on the way.
Say whatever you want about Windows 10 Mobile, but the folks over at T-Mobile reckon there’s still a demand for this relatively niche player, which is why it’s partnered with Alcatel OneTouch to deliver something “affordably priced” to begin with. In fact, if you recall the $139 Android-powered Fierce XL from a couple of months ago, it’s basically that but running on Windows 10 with all the Office and Cortana goodies; and oddly enough, it’s keeping the same name.
Spec-wise, you still get a 5.5-inch 720p display, Qualcomm’s quad-core 1.1GHz Snapdragon 210 chipset, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, microSD expansion of up to 32GB, a 2,500 mAh battery, Cat 4 LTE and VoLTE. As for cameras, it’s 8 megapixels on the back and 2 megapixels on the front. There’s no word on the actual pricing just yet, but this new Fierce XL will be hitting T-Mobile stores in the coming weeks.
Celebrating the festive season often includes the grand tradition of sharing a feast with family and friends.
For seafood lovers, a platter of ocean fare making its way to the table is one of the things that makes Christmas celebrations so great. But with the world’s fish supplies in decline due to overfishing, purchasing and consuming, we need to consume seafood responsibly.
As GoodFish BadFish founder Oliver Edwards puts it: “Sustainable seafood is about eating seafood today, tomorrow and into the future. It’s about ensuring the ongoing vitality of the marine environment, the species that call it home, and the communities it supports.”
So what can you do to ensure there’s plenty of fish left in the sea for all those future Christmas celebrations?
1. Do your research before you start your shopping
Download theSustainable Seafood app by the Australian Marine Conservation Society or visit GoodFish BadFish to help you make better purchasing decisions. These sources inform you about poor farming and fishing methods used for specific species of fish. Poor fishing practices can jeopardise native sea life and other fauna, destroy coastal environments, including coral, and mismanage waste to the detriment of surrounding environments.
2. Buy Australian
Make sure you know which country the fish you’ve got your eye on is sourced from. We can be proud to say there are some of the best managed fisheries in the world on our own home turf. While there’s still work to be done to ensure our practices are truly sustainable, information about Australian fishing practices is usually easier to access.
3. Consider the real cost
Some seafood used to be very expensive to buy, making it a luxury item. The cost of some items has gone down so what does that mean you’re buying and supporting? There’s a direct correlation between the price of the seafood and how responsibly it’s been farmed or fished. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
4. Speak up
When you’re browsing and asked if you need any assistance, voice your checklist and make it clear you’re not just shopping based on price. Don’t be afraid to ask if the species you’re looking to buy is overfished and how it was caught or farmed. Also ask if it’s a deep-sea, slow growing or long lived species. These types of fish are the most endangered and their decline has a large impact on the deep sea ecosystem. Tell your fishmonger you want to make decision based on sustainable practices so they understand consumers want these products.
5. Switch the fish
Just because your recipe calls for prawns, swordfish or flake doesn’t mean it’s the only type of species that can star in your dish. Swap one for another with this guide for better fish choices that will taste similar and make your meal complete.
6. Eat from fin to tail
Anyone for fish head curry? In many cultures, parts of the seafood we consider inedible are feature ingredients and star in their own special dishes. Heads, shells, legs and tails – keep them all and experiment with different recipes. Make the most of parts of the fish you wouldn’t normally cook or freeze discarded shells to use as a stock for future soups, risottos or pastas.
