Let's Talk Tech
Is it time to boycott Disney? We can complain about micro-transactions, paywall characters, cool down clocks, and now slot machine loot boxes, but these game mechanics make way too much money for any developer to ignore. If the video game industry can’t police itself on fleecing customers, and introducing gambling to kids, then politicians will need to get involved. I do not want that to happen…
Disney is bringing their streaming movie service to Google Play.
Starting today you can connect your Disney Movies Anywhere account to your Google account, and your films will be available through Play on any of your Android devices. This works for all Disney, Pixar, and Marvel films, and it works in both directions, so fret not if you purchased your films through Google Play, they’ll now also show up in your Anywhere account too.
To celebrate the new partnership Disney is giving away free copies of Wreck-It Ralph to people who sign up! So go get them folks!
This is pretty trick.
So, if you run your finger across your phone or tablet, what are you likely to feel? Right, pretty much nothing but a smooth surface. Almost all of our interactions with modern tech require a heavy visual component. As we can’t feel where we are on the screen, we need to see where we are on the screen. As our screens are made out of glass (and soon more will be made out of sapphire) it’s fairly unlikely we’ll be able to make morphing screens commercially viable any time soon.
What if we didn’t need to shape shift the screen though?
A team at Disney is working on a method of tactile feed back which works on vibration. We’re all used to very basic haptic feedback. You hit a key on your virtual keyboard and a tiny buzz from the vibrator in your phone let’s you know something has happened. These researchers are taking that to another level.
Scanning an image or a video, contours and edges are given values. As a finger is run across the image on the screen, those values correspond to more and less powerful vibrations. Those tiny pulses tied to image data essentially feed tactile info to our brains, and we think we’re touching actual edges, bumps, and contours.
This information can even be delivered in real time via a device with camera, allowing users to touch a live video feed. There are any number of potential applications from aid to the sight impaired, to improving feedback for touchscreens in automobiles, to adding new dimensions to video game play. It’s fascinating research.
Check out the video from Disney below. SCIENCE!
(via BBC)
And before Android no less.
If you have a hankering for providing friendly gators more water to bathe themselves with, Disney has just the app for you!
But seriously, I found the first Where’s My Water, and the spin off Where’s My Perry, to be addictive puzzle games nearly on the same level as that first time you picked up Angry Birds. I just installed the sequel, and I’m guessing I’ll kill my Lumia 1020‘s battery at least once this weekend from playing it.
Get it while it’s hot! Then douse water on it!
Where’s My Water 2 (WP8 App Store)