Tag Archive for: Google

Google Maps AR

Google Maps AR

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We came across the below tweet earlier on the week and we are very very impressed! Who needs Google Glasses or Apple Glasses when you have got your phone and AR! Say hello to Google Maps AR! It’s now looking like it’s starting to roll it out slowly to some users

https://twitter.com/ow/status/1106211516217470977

Google announced this feature in May of 2018 at it’s annual I/O developer conference. At the time it was called the AR Visual Positioning System. Which provided a layer of augmented reality over reality. Just raise your phone in front of your eyes and you are given directions of where to go. Whereas if you were to put your phone down it will revert back to the traditional map view.

It doesn’t look like something I’d use all the time and Rachel Inman the AR lead for the project told the Wall Street Journal that it’s not meant to be used as a primary navigation tool. Rather intended to be put to use when looking for a difficult to find specific road.

(Mashable)

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Google Stadia: Netflix of Gaming?

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Google have announced an unveiled a brand new gaming platform. Which is very different to what Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are offering right now. It’s called Stadia and the games will be streamed to you via an internet browser. Which are said to be better than console quality! Stadia is said to work on existing desktops, laptops, tv’s and phones, said Phil Harrison VP and general manager of Google. Even the least powerful of PC’s can run Stadia!

The tech giant also revealed a controller for Stadia. It looks much like a regular console controller. Though it also has a Google Assistant button and a capture button to capture gaming and directly put it on YouTube.

Google Stadia Controllers

ID Software announced that Doom Eternal will be one of the first games on launch. Which will be in 2019 in the US, Canada, UK and Europe. Exactly when that is in 2019 is unknown. No pricing was announced either.

Stadia: How?

How can even smartphones, TV’s and not so powerful PC’s play these top end games? Well, because the games run elsewhere on Google’s own high end hardware. You connect to it via the internet, the hardware then does all the hard work and sends you a video feed of what you are playing back to you. Essentially.

However, other services such as ‘OnLive’ which tried this back in the day (2010-2015) and Nvidia’s GeForce Now where some have encountered lag. They suffered due to the difficulty of offering high end games via an internet connection. But the question remains is it their end or is it the consumers own internet?

Lag: A delay between an action being performed on a controller or keyboard and the action being replicated on screen.

Google have said that the controller will connect to the internet directly. Which will then communicate with their servers which will reduce the amount of lag that players may encounter.

Impressively (if they pull this off) Google will be able to offer games at 4K at 60FPS and up to 8K 120FPS in the future. (Who needs 8K?!?) The Stadia is also insanely powerful with a GPU of 10.7 GPU teraflops while Xbox One X the worlds most powerful console has 6 GPU teraflops and the PS4 pro has 4.2 GPU teraflops. Basically, it’s very very good.

(BBC)

Google Stadia: We have some questions.

All very impressive indeed although we have some questions:

  • Are the games like Netflix: Pay to play many games for 1 subscription fee
  • Or we have to buy our own games?
  • Can we download our games to play them offline?
  • How does multiplayer work?
  • Are the multiplayer lobbies/parties
  • Is there protection from hacking?
  • What happens when the internet goes down?
  • How will my games me kept secure
  • How many games are available?
  • Will all the AAA games be available at launch
  • Will the footage be flagged for copyright from Stadia’s own capture system from YouTube’s Copyright flagging software?

But most of all, how laggy will it be? People’s internet will need to be able to cope with the game, if there’s the slightest bit of lag it will put gamers off. Coupled with multiplayer games, if there’s double the lag, people will not want to use the service.

It’s an interesting time to be a gamer certainly as Microsoft have their cloud service in the works too with ‘Xcloud’ so is this the way gaming is heading or will it supplement good ol’ physical disks or downloads.

Best Mobile Camera

iPhone vs @SamsungUK Galaxy S10+ Vs @HuaweiMobileUK Mate 20 Pro Vs @GoogleUK Pixel Vs @HTC_UK One Plus 6T – which camera wins?

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Google Pixel 3 XL revealed?

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Google Pixel 3 XL has seemingly been revealed! As it was left in the back of a Lyft!

Metro are reporting that the driver of the Lyft is a reader of Android Police. A technology website. He is a user of the Pixel 2 XL and immediately noticed that it was different than it!

The thing that was most noticeable to him was the notch. It is completely different! As he had seen it on a number of previous Pixel 3 XL leaks prior. Plus the conspicuous Google Logo on the back of the device would lead him to believe it was a Google Pixel 3 XL.

Google Pixel 3 XL

The driver chose not to have a look within the phone. Yet decided to take pictures of the unknown device instead. Consequently sending them to Android Police. Metro are too reporting that the device was returned to it’s rightful owner.

Google Pixel 3 XL

Maybe we will know more come October 4th at Google’s Pixel event.

However, Metro are reporting that the device will have a 2,960 x 1,440 pixel resolution and run Android 9.

(Metro)

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Might and Magic: Elemental Guardians

Might and Magic: Elemental Guardians

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Might and Magic: Elemental Guardians is an RPG game that is a lot of fun, when we say a lot of fun we mean alot of fun! Now I have never been a big fan of turn based RPG games myself, but I’ve always given them a go, and I’m glad that I gave Might and Magic: Elemental Guardians a go!

Why?

Addictive RPG!

As I cannot put it down, I’m always on it now! I almost missed my train earlier because I was too busy fighting the enemies and upgrading my little creatures! The aim of Might and Magic: Elemental Guardians is to battle your way through  the various lands and elements to claim victory and rule over the land once more. You are tasked with taking hold of up to 4 creatures of your choosing, whilst utilising the mystic powers of your hero to help them along the way. Once you have chosen your creatures you are then tasked with choosing which magic that your character is responsible for. Furthermore, those House Magic choices are either Materia, Chimera or Anima. With each of them giving you an extra edge against your opponent be that extra attack speed, extra defence or even taking away an enemies ability. So, for example, making them more vulnerable to attacks!

Character Progression

Each character is able to be ranked up and leveled up, however, choose wisely as ranking up requires you to sacrifice other members of your team! Consequently this is where the replayability of this game comes into play, if you want to keep all of your strongest creatures. The task would be to rank up your least favourite creatures and then use them to rank up your favoured battle creatures! It’s a bit of a pain but, it allows you to keep playing for much longer! Each creature is able to hold up to 6 glyphs which allow you to increase the abilities of your creatures, so much like other RPG games you have to be tactical in what you upgrade as to best achieve success!

Furthermore with many games these days there are various tasks that you have to complete to earn achievements. Yet, this is where Might and Magic: Elemental Guardians separates itself from the pack. The achievements that you unlock unlock special tokens and other various magic elements to help you either upgrade your creatures or help them along the way to evolve into bigger better creatures! Yet, the evolving is a marathon more than a sprint as it takes A LOT to evolve them. Hence why this game is for the long haul and not for a quick 10minute play. Well you can play for 1o minutes but that 10minutes may turn into an hour. As I’ve found out more than once this week!

Might and Magic is out now! Please see below for more information and a link to download the game!

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Game Info

Enter the world of Might & Magic: Elemental Guardians – a fast-paced strategy RPG based on the medieval fantasy realm of Might & Magic.
Journey through enchanted lands, collecting fierce and fantastic elemental creatures, and evolve a team of mighty warriors to summon to battle on the path to victory.

ENROLL IN THE ACADEMY OF MAGIC
• Create, customize and level up your own hero
• Choose a House of Magic: Materia, Chimera or Anima
• Use the mystic powers of your House to triumph in the arena

SUMMON A LEGENDARY TEAM
• Discover and collect hundreds of fantastic beasts and iconic creatures
• Watch their evolution from cute companions to legendary war allies
• Equip your team with arcane Glyphs to enhance their abilities

TRAIN & BATTLE
• Level up your creatures to unlock their true might
• Compete in the PvP Arena to rise up the league leaderboards
• Participate in Live Events to win epic prizes and rare items
• Ally with your friends in Guilds for mighty team adventures

LEAD YOUR TEAM TO VICTORY
• Face fierce opponents in fast and strategic RPG battles
• Use the elements of Fire, Water, Air and Earth tactically to gain the advantage
• Cast epic spells and use magical abilities of different elements

BECOME A HERO OF LEGENDS
• Journey through the fabled fantasy realms of Might & Magic
• Complete diverse daily quests and earn special rewards
• Enjoy beautiful graphics and unique creature designs

This app contains In-App Purchases which allow you to buy in-game currency. In-game currency can also be collected by playing the game without requiring any purchase. [Apple/Ubisoft]

To download Might and Magic Elemental Guardians please click here Apple / Android

Smart Speaker

Alexa Vs Siri Vs Google Home

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Google Home Vs Apple Homepod Vs Amazon Alexa

#Siri Vs #Alexa Vs #GoogleAssistantWho has the best personality?…..only one way to find out… take it away Marcus Bronzy…For more sick stuff like this sign up to our mailing list here howtokillanhour.com/news

Posted by How To Kill an Hour on Wednesday, 11 April 2018

 

With the release of Apple’s Homepod, we set out to find out the best smart speaker available to you today. However, we didn’t just want to know which speaker was the best in terms of features. We wanted to do know which one had the best personality! Can they give us the information we want, in the speed that we want it and in the way that doesn’t bore us?! We pitted them against one another. Check out the video above to learn more!

So, we took all 3 of the speakers from the big tech companies (Amazon, Apple, Google) and pitted Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant against one another. It was a fair test, we sat all three in front of us and asked them a range of questions. Each of them asked the same question, one after each other, to gauge the best response.

However, we weren’t just looking for if the speaker as actually able to answer the question. That’s just one part of the test. The main thing we’re looking for is, can the speaker answer our question with the most amount of information. While remaining concise?

Alexa Vs Siri Vs Google Home: Comedy

Furthermore we aren’t boring here at How To Kill An Hour, so we also decided to throw in some funny questions to see how much fun the AI’s can be on these smart speakers! Plus we asked some of the AI’s easter egg questions. Can you guess which ones they were?

Do you have a smart speaker? What’s your preference and why?! Let us know by getting in touch via our socials: @howtokillanhour across all social media platforms! (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram)

Purchase:

Amazon Echo
Google Home
Apple Homepod: 

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project maven

Project Maven

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Google have announced that they have a part in ‘Project Maven’. A project in which as Gizmodo are reporting, ‘helping the Pentagon build AI for drones’ CRAZY NEWS!

The project began in 2017 as a pilot program to simply speed up the United States military’s implementation of the most up to date technology of artificial intelligence.

It’s a relatively cheap programme too! Project Maven is said to cost less than $70M in it’s first year. Focusing solely on integrating machine learning in it’s drones. Why would the Pentagon want to invest in improving AI in drones? To improve it’s intelligence when it comes to targeting drone strikes.

Project Maven: Peace

Google released a statement on Tuesday of last week, claiming it’s part in Project Maven. Stating that it’s involvement in the project was simply a peaceful one. Stating that Project Maven was “Specifically scoped to be for non-offensive purposes.”

Since then many sectors of Google itself have called upon it’s CEO to pull them out of the project. With the Verge reporting that 3,100 employees have signed a letter urging the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, to re-evaluate it’s involvement. Stating that Google should not be in ‘the business of war’ – With Diane Green head of Google’s cloud operations also emphasizing Google’s peaceful stance. Stating that their tech will not be used to fly drones, nor will it launch any weapons.

Details on what Google are actually doing working on Project Maven aren’t very clear. A Google spokesperson did confirm to the Verge that they have given the department of defence access to software (TensorFlow) that is used to help machine learning apps understand contents of photos.

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here! 

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Siri

Apple looking to make Siri better!

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As we have discussed on the show previously, the most impressive AI helpers are those from Amazon and Google. With Alexa and Google Assistant respectively. However, if you may recall that it was Apple who first introduced us to an AI that can help you in your day to day lives. Siri, was the first out of the gate. Yet, she is lagging behind her rivals when it comes to intelligence. Both Alexa and Google Assisstant can recall a lot more information and specific information. Siri on the other hand, sometimes can’t even answer basic questions. Only answering what you want if you ask her something in a very specific manner. She’s just not as good as her counterparts. With the release of Homepod, the lack of intelligence in Siri is even more obvious. Yet it’s vitally important to get this correctly, now more than ever, because of Homepod’s battle with Alexa and Google Home. That’s not to say that Siri isn’t intelligent, she can answer questions, she just isn’t good enough.

Siri Hiring

So to battle this, the guys over at Thinknum have noticed that Apple have been on a Siri hiring spree. Hiring as much as 161 different positions to help improve Siri. There’s been a steady increase in Siri related job positions since the summer of 2016, however, there’s been a surge, since February of 2018. The positions are for engineers. Engineers that are geared towards helping Siri answer her weaknesses in answering simple general questions. Other positions that are available are for Siri’s Proactive Intelligence. This is basically Siri’s ability to anticipate the type of info that you may need. A further two other positions are for SiriKit developer framework and speech generation. While it may be some time before we see any improvement on a consumer level, this definitely shows Apple’s intent when it comes to AI.

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!

google console

A new gamer in town? The Google Console?

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So, the Google console. Sounds incredible. In theory.  As, according to a report from The Information, word on the street is that Google want to get in to the gaming industry. Yet, not in a way you would think either.

The giant tech company are looking at investing in a streaming service like Nvidia’s GeForce Now. (A service where your computer is merely a monitor and a keyboard. All the processing power is done remotely. All you need is a good internet connection) It’s codenamed “Yeti” and apparently Google have been hard at work on it for two years. There’s even hardware to go alongside the software allegedly. Most notably the product could tie in to Google’s Chromecast and nabbing Phili Harrison (ex-Microsoft/Sony Gaming division)  last month as a VP of hardware. Therefore could point in the direction of a hardware based product too.

So, there is no official word of it just yet and it’s all rumour at the moment. While cool and fun, it would be interesting to see if Google did go down the streaming route. But is gaming heading in this direction? All major gaming companies are sticking with regular old physical copies. Even downloadable copies are stored locally. However this begs the question. Is streaming even any good yet?

Google Console: Streaming Problems

Which brings us on to the internet. Lag. Lag is a killer. For most gamers, Lag is what infuriates them the most. So much so that it could be Google console’s biggest hurdle. Lag from what your seeing on screen. Lag from pressing a button to that relaying to the server and back to you again. Just regular old lag. Consequently those milliseconds could be the difference between life and death. Quite literally for the lifespan of this potential product. However, if Google can get it to almost instant (it will never be instant, just so small, we won’t even recognise it) then Google console may just be a hit. But this depends on the majority of gamer’s internet connections of course.

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!

Episode 270 Wiping Standing Up?

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