Skype Translator Preview launches

Microsoft has just released their Skype Translator Preview for Windows 8.1, which uses some pretty incredible advances in machine learning to translate conversations in real time. Kind of like the first step toward a real, honest-to-goodness Babel fish from the The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, if you will. Over 40 languages will be supported, but the preview is including English-Spanish translations to start. Pretty quick turnaround from only having the tech demo in May. And I’ve got to admit, given what they show in the heartwarming video that’s included, it looks to already be quite impressive at this stage.

Workflow: Automator for iOS (Updated)

Workflow just came out for iOS, optimized for iPhone and iPad, and you should probably go and download it now.

What is it, you ask? Workflow is a new $2.99 app (for a limited time, as it will usually cost $4.99) that enables you to take actions and put them together in interesting ways with various options in order to generate your own workflows. If that sounds familiar, perhaps you’ve heard of OS X’s Automator?

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These workflows are brilliantly illustrated by a GIF-creating and sending tutorial that you go through when you first open the app. Additionally, the app has a gallery of featured, and extremely helpful, workflows that you can download and use (and use them as great examples of how to create your own). These include a few that I’ve already set up (with their own Home screen icons no less!), like Tip Calculator, Share Location, and Cross-Post.

I’m only 15 minutes into using the app, but I’m already in love. Can’t wait to see what I, and others around the web, can do with it! If you haven’t already, definitely go get it.

UPDATE: You should also check out Federico Viticci’s Workflow review, and scroll to the bottom to grab his excellent shared workflows.

WatchKit Unleashed

Yesterday, Apple made WatchKit available to developers, allowing the creation of iPhone apps that send actionable notifications, “Glances”, and apps to the Apple Watch.

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Apple has gone all out with the release of WatchKit, offering iOS 8.2 beta, Xcode 6.2 beta, the Apple Watch Human Interface Guidelines (HIG), a 28 minute video, ample documentation, and much more.

As usual, Frederico Viticci has done a great job of collecting information and reactions from around the web concerning the release of WatchKit, which you can see here.

Interesting nuggets of information include the size of the screens, 272×340 and 312×390, the naming and release of Apple’s own custom font for Apple Watch, dubbed San Francisco, and the promise that the ability to develop fully-native Apple Watch apps is coming “later next year”. I can wait to see what developers create between now and the Apple Watch launch next year!

New in iOS 8.1.1: More space for activities

A pleasant surprise in iOS 8.1.1, reported by Rene Ritchie at iMore:

iOS 8.1.1 not only provides bug fixes and performance improvements, especially for iPhone 4s and iPad 2, but it also comes with a nice surprise for all iPad owners — it returns about half a gigabyte of storage space.

After hearing about it from several readers last night, I tested it on a couple iPads in my possession, and in both cases post-update storage availability grew considerably. My iPad mini 3 it went from 7.5 GB remaining to 7.9 GB remaining. My iPad Air 2 went from 40.9 GB to 42.8 GB.

This is most especially welcome on all of those 16 GB iOS devices out there, including all of those newly shipping entry-level iPhones and iPads (which is a shame in and of itself, as noted by John Gruber and others). Once you start taking photos and videos and start installing apps, that is precious little space, so half a gigabyte can go a long way.

The Verge tours Apple’s durability-testing facilities

The incredible amount of access in The Verge’s tour of the labs where Apple tests the durability of its devices seems to indicate that Apple’s willing to go all-out against the current overblown media hellstorm that is “Bendgate”.

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I for one can’t wait for everyone to forget about this in a week or two.

Satya Nadella officially confirmed as next Microsoft CEO

It looks like Satya Nadella is officially in as Microsoft CEO, effective immediately. And it looks like Bill Gates is stepping down as Chairman to take a more modest “Technology Advisor” role. And Microsoft has a new page devoted to the new CEO, including some interesting interviews.

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Image courtesy Microsoft.

Nadella looks like he’s got a good head on his shoulders, and here’s hoping he takes Microsoft to some exciting new places now that he’s in charge.

Lenovo’s Global Rise Began With IBM PC Deal a Decade Ago

In lieu of Lenovo’s recent huge acquisitions, which in addition to Motorola also includes the purchase of IBM’s x86 server business for $2.3 billion, this is a good look back at Lenovo’s rise to become the PC manufacturer to beat. And more I think about it, the more I think that Lenovo may have the strategy, cost-savings and engineering expertise to challenge Samsung as an Android OEM. That is, if they decide to use Android…

Microsoft’s Next CEO Reportedly Will Be Its Cloud Boss Satya Nadella, Gates Could Be Replaced On Board

This is big news. Microsoft has been making some massive changes over the last several months without a successor to Steve Ballmer in place (like its re-org, purchasing Nokia, etc.), which is more than a little disconcerting, so the sooner they have a CEO nailed down, the better. And Nadella has been heading up one of the most successful units at Microsoft, so perhaps he’s a good candidate for the job. He’s certainly going to have his work cut out for him.

Lenovo buys Motorola from Google (at a huge discount)

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Image courtesy Motorola.

Although Google paid $12.5 billion for Motorola less than two years ago, today it was announced that Lenovo would be purchasing Motorola from Google for just under $3 billion. Although Google sold off Motorola’s cable box division for $2 billion some time ago and still retains its rights to Motorola’s less-than-stellar patents, that still adds up to a $7 billion loss of value in an incredibly short period of time. Ouch.

Going forward, it will be interesting to see if Lenovo can use this purchase to jump-start its entry into a smartphone market that has become a two-horse race:

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Image courtesy Asymco.

The First Decent iWatch Concept

This great-looking iWatch concept from Todd Hamilton is the first out of many mock-ups I’ve seen that seems like a real product that I’d actually want to use. Not that any shipping product from Cupertino will actually look or work like this, but the amount of polish and thought put into this is impressive.

Everything You’re Thinking About Nintendo Is Totally Wrong

Everything You’re Thinking About Nintendo Is Totally Wrong

A great article from Wired’s Chris Kohler, pushing against the increasingly-popular sentiment that Nintendo will need to develop their games for existing smartphone platforms in order to stay relevant.

Nintendo Confirms Wii U Has Flopped, Slashes Sales Forecast By ~70%

Ouch. Tough times for Nintendo right now. I only hope that they can pull themselves out of this difficult position. I love their games, and I have a deep appreciation of, and affection for, the company and what they stand for in the gaming industry.

Update: MG Siegler’s take. MG has been a bear on Nintendo for a while, but he’s absolutely right: there is little good that can be made of this news.

CES 2014: the Good, the Bad, and the Gimmicks

The Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, rolled through Las Vegas last week, exhibiting thousands of new devices, accessories and services of every ilk to trade show goers and the tech media. Absent several of the biggest tech behemoths, Microsoft, Google and Apple (big surprise there!), what breakthrough products did we see this year? Let’s have a brief look at some standouts from this year, good, bad, and meh.

The Good

Image courtesy The Verge.
Image courtesy The Verge.

PlayStation Now. Take Sony’s wealth of PlayStation titles and combine it with the high-quality cloud-based streaming technology that Sony gained when it purchased Gaikai and you get PlayStation Now. PlayStation Now promises to enable the instant streaming of a variety of games that wouldn’t have otherwise been possible to play (and with the bulk of processing and rendering being done on Sony’s servers rather than on the device itself), and then streamed to the PS4, PS3, PS Vita, Sony Bravia TVs, etc. If this scales well, Sony has just solved the PS4 compatibility issues and have opened up a ton of new devices to purchase and play PlayStation games.

Image courtesy Mashable.
Image courtesy Mashable.

Oculus Rift (Crystal Cove Prototype). The Rift, which was introduced at last year’s CES, is the first Virtual Reality headset that promises to live up to the expectations set forth in decades of science fiction and consumer technology flops.  This year, the company is packing millions in funding, gaming legend John Carmack, and a slick new prototype, codenamed “Crystal Cove”. I can’t wait to check one of these things out once they come to market.

Netflix 4K Streaming. As best reported by a feature on The Verge, Netflix announced that it will be filming all its future exclusive content in next generation Ultra-HD 4K resolution, starting with House of Cards Season 2, and that this content and more will be available on new 4K TVs starting immediately. This allows them to take a huge leap out in front of cable and satellite broadcast companies, who are years out from providing 4K content in homes, and also step out in front of its main streaming rivals, Amazon and Hulu.

Image courtesy Sony.
Image courtesy Sony.

Sony Z1 Compact. The same powerful, waterproof Android phone as Sony’s Z1, but in a slimmer, stylish package and solving the biggest problem of its predecessor by incorporating a beautiful IPS display. It’s nice to see the old Sony coming back (crosses fingers).

The Bad

The Samsung Keynote. Nothing really impressive to announce, and wouldn’t have been particularly notable one way or the other. But then, Michael Bay. I mean, just watch:

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The Gimmicks

Image courtesy Engadget.

Image courtesy Engadget.

Curved TVs. Show me any benefit whatsoever and I will change my tune, but as of now I just don’t see the point. And it’s going to really need a reason, in my humble opinion, to justify the obscene costs to consumers over the next few years. (As in, a 55″ curved OLED TV already on the market from Samsung just dropped to the low, low price of $9K.)

Image courtesy Phandroid.
Image courtesy Phandroid.

Big-ass curved phones. Guys. Seriously? Again, I just don’t understand the benefit here.

LG’s New webOS-Based TV Platform

LG has announced a new webOS-based smart TV platform which is, by all accounts, super impressive in terms of its UI design and level of attention to detail. Which is both an incredible feat in its own right, for taking an outdated, underrated OS that everyone had assumed to be dead and make it a viable platform for the living room, and also really surprising to be coming from a company that often excels at hardware but tends to make software with a lot of rough edges. I’ll be interested to see how this plays out, and how it compares to the experience of current smart TVs and to using a set top box like an Apple TV or Roku.

Image courtesy The Verge.

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