April Fools' Day is nearly upon us and now's your chance to get caught up on the last bit of serious news before the internet gets crazy. First up, we review Apple's refreshed MacBook Pro with Retina display and find out if the Force Touch trackpad is everything we've hoped and dreamed. Meanwhile, Microsoft announces the Surface 3 running Windows 8.1 and Google comes up with a new way to put Chrome OS on your television. Head past the break for the details on these stories and more.
MacBook Pro with Retina display review (13-inch, 2015)
Nope, it's not the new MacBook. That review will need to wait until next month. What we have here is the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. For all intents and purposes, it's the same one we last tested in late 2013, except for one important thing: It swaps out the old trackpad in favor of a pressure-sensitive "Force Touch" pad that responds differently depending on how hard you bear down on it.
Microsoft's new Surface 3 tablet runs full Windows, not RT
How many times have we said that the Surface would be great, if not for its OS? The truth is, the Surface RT and Surface 2 were lovely, well-crafted things, with great screens, solid build quality and long battery life. We just wished they could run the full gamut of desktop programs, in part to make up for a limited selection of Windows Store apps. Well, it seems Microsoft has finally reversed course. The company just unveiled the Surface 3 and, as rumored, it comes loaded with full Windows 8.1.
Google puts Chrome OS on your TV with its own HDMI stick
Google has unveiled a whole new type of Chrome device, and it's one that can fit in your pocket. It's called the Chromebit, and it's essentially a Chromebook crammed in a dongle. This tiny little package contains a Rockchip 3288 SoC, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of eMMC memory, a USB 2.0 port, WiFi 802.11 ac support, Bluetooth 4.0, a Smart Ready controller and an ARM Mali 760 quad-core GPU.
'Un Chien Andalou' inspires a surreal indie game from Russian devs
In 1929, famed artist Salvador Dalí and filmmaker Luis Buñuel awoke from a night of strange dreams, Buñuel recalling the image of a razor blade cloud slicing through the moon as if it were an eyeball, and Dalí describing a human hand covered in ants. They turned these images into a silent, surrealist short film called Un Chien Andalou, which opens on a woman with one eye held open, a cloud cutting across the moon and a blade slicing through the eye of a dead calf. The hand, crawling with ants, also makes an appearance. The film has no plot, but it's rife with emotive and disturbing imagery.
Dyson's new bladeless fan is also a powerful air filter
Dyson really hates dirt, to the point that it's now come up with a new bladeless fan that can also filter out ultra fine airborne particles - including viruses, bacteria and pollens - that are as tiny as 0.1 microns. The aptly-named Pure Cool (AM11) closely resembles Dyson's other fan towers, with the notable difference being the cylindrical glass HEPA filter around the base. After 450 prototypes, the company claims that this filter removes 99.95 percent of ultra fine particles, and it's good for up to 4,382 hours or about six months of continuous use.
Star Wars villains get a moody re-imagining by Square Enix
Square Enix, the games maker that gave us the Final Fantasy series (alongside plenty of other games), also has a sideline in fancy high-end action figures. Its latest collection tackles the Star Wars universe, well, the darker side of said universe. Alongside Darth Vader (which was teased late last year), Play Arts Kai (the brand Square Enix releases them under) has revealed two more additions: a particularly stoic-looking Stormtrooper and Boba Fett.
Google Maps turned your streets into Pac-Man today
Your streets can be an iconic arcade game right now. Google Maps has a Pac-Man option just in time for April Fool's Day. With the click of a button, your streets will be dotted with yellow pellets and the four famous ghosts. New York City, with its perpendicular streets, is perfect for Pac-Man's maze. I zipped around the block for a few minutes, until I ran into Pinky outside Webster Hall. Even though everyone's streets probably won't convert into a Pac-Man-like grid, Google might be getting better at gags after years of trying and failing.
Filed under: Misc
0 comments:
Post a Comment