Author: Zach Walton

In late February, Google launched the Chromebook Pixel to reviews praising the hardware, but criticizing its $1,300 price tag and lack of software. Still, the Pixel certainly has a market, and some may be waiting for the LTE version of Google’s new flagship Chromebook to launch. The good news is that you won’t have to wait much longer.

On the Chromebook Pixel product page, Google now says that the Pixel is expected to ship by April 8. The LTE Chromebook Pixel comes in at $1,449, or $149 more than the Wi-Fi Chromebook Pixel, but the added LTE capability may be worth it to the consumer that desires more mobility out of their consumer electronics.

Before you dive headfirst into the LTE Pixel, though, you should probably be aware of what you’re getting into. For starters, the LTE Pixel exclusively uses Verizon’s LTE network. Those who purchase it will get 100 MB a month for the first two years. After that, you’ll have to start paying normal LTE network fees.

If you want more data, you’ll have to purchase a data plan with Verizon. Gigaom reports that Verizon will be selling Pixel LTE data by the gigabyte with 1GB a month costing $20, 3GB a month costing $35 and 5GB a month costing $50. If you want unlimited data for a day, that will cost $9.99. Gigaom also confirmed with Verizon that those already on a data sharing plan with the wireless carrier can add the Pixel to their existing plan for $10 more a month.

At the moment, the Pixel is tied to Verizon. It will be interesting, however, to see if Google starts offering it on other carriers in the future. If T-Mobile can build out its 4G LTE network even more, I could see some people flocking to the carrier for its unlimited data plans.

Earlier this month, a rumor suggested that we’d be seeing the iPhone 5S launch in August. Other rumors have backed the claim up, but an analyst has come forward with speculation that we could be seeing the iPhone 5S even sooner.

In a recent investors note, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said that Apple will likely launch the iPhone 5S in late June. He also predicts that Apple will sell 4 million units before the end of the month. As for total iPhone sales, he expects those to be around 30 million by the end of the June quarter.

Beyond his speculation of an earlier release date, Munster doesn’t really offer much in the way of new information in regards to the iPhone 5S. He regurgitates previous rumors that state the new iPhone will feature updated specs and whatever the next version of iOS brings to the table. He also suspects that Apple will incorporate NFC into the iPhone 5S.

With all this talk about the iPhone 5S, it’s easy to forget that Apple may be launching a cheaper iPhone this year as well. A report from earlier this year suggested that the device would meld the designs of the iPod Touch and iPod Classic for a plastic chassis iPhone that would significantly reduce manufacturing costs. Munster predicts that we’ll be seeing this cheaper iPhone at some point in September, and that it will cost $250. Don’t expect it to see it in the U.S., though, as the phone is reportedly targeted exclusively at emerging markets like China and South America.

Outside of phones, Munster drops some new speculation about the Apple TV and the rumored iWatch. He suspects that the oft-rumored Apple TV will finally be announced later this year with an iWatch announcement coming soon after.

Like always, you should take anything analysts say with a grain of salt. They are only providing guidance to investors, and can be wrong. That being said, a June launch for the iPhone 5S would help Apple better combat the impending launch of the Galaxy S 4 and other top-tier Android handsets launching in the next few months.

[h/t: CNET]

3D printers are usually thrust into the spotlight only when something controversial happens. It makes it easy to forget how the technology is improving established industries all around the world.

Stratasys has the story of Collcap Packaging, and how the UK-based company is using 3D printers to prototype the latest packaging for the cosmetics you use everyday:

Collcap Packing in the UK is using revolutionary 3D printing technology to prototype cosmetics packaging for their many international perfumery and cosmetics suppliers. Using the Stratasys Objet30 Pro 3D printer, Collcap’s designers are able to turn 3D CAD designs into accurate prototypes using a choice of 7 different materials ranging from blue, gray, white and black to clear transparency, high temperature resistance and polypropylene-like.

The transparent material (Objet VeroClear) is particularly useful in simulating glass and PMMA. 3D printing allows Collcap to place precise transparent replicas in the hands of their customers only a few short hours after their initial design. Once the chosen 3D printed models are approved the designs are sent to glass cutting and then final manufacturing.

In 2011, the Supreme Court smacked down a proposed California law that would have fined retailers that sold M-rated games to children. Before that ruling, other states had tried to pass similar laws. Even after the Supreme Court ruling, other states are still trying to pass video game-related legislation. A semi-annual study suggests such legislation isn’t needed.

Since 2000, the FTC has conducted an undercover shopper survey. The goal is to have kids try to buy mature entertainment (like R-rated films or M-rated games), and see how many are turned away. Early on, the video game industry had a bad track record as few stores enforced games ratings, but video game retailers started to comply after the Entertainment Software Ratings Board established the ESRB Retail Council in 2005.

These efforts have paid off as the video game industry has the highest level of compliance among all retailers with only 13 percent of underage teenagers being able to buy M-rated games from stores. Other industries, like music and movies, sell explicit content CDs and R-rated movie tickets to 47 and 24 percent of underage teenagers respectively.

Going by retailer, the study found that Walmart had the worst compliance with game ratings by selling M-rated games to 25 percent of underage teenagers. Target had the best compliance with zero percent of teenagers being able to purchase M-rated games at the retailer.

It would be easy to say the study proves something, but it really only suggests that game ratings are effective. At the very least, the game industry is more effective at self-policing than other industries, but that could be due to the fact that other industries are never put under the same amount of public scrutiny that the game industry is subjected to.

Regardless, the games industry is doing a good job of keeping mature games out of the hands of minors. Now if only parents could stop buying mature-rated titles for their children. It gets a little tiresome hearing parents say the industry is rotting their child’s morals when they were the ones who neglected to notice the M-rating and content descriptors on the back of the box.

[h/t: The Hill]

3D printed guns were viewed as more or less a curiosity when they first started to gain mainstream exposure last year. It wasn’t until the tragedies at Aurora and Sandy Hook that 3D printed firearms became a full blown controversy with gun control advocates calling for the renewal of the Undetectable Firearms Act, and opponents, namely Defense Distributed, pushing the boundaries of 3D printed weaponry.

It’s this latter party – Defense Distributed – that’s at the center of a recent documentary from Vice Magazine’s Motherboard. Cody Wilson, head of the non-profit organization, talks about Defense Distributed, his views on gun control and where 3D printers are headed.

You will either hate Wilson, or think he’s the only person standing in the way of tyranny . Either way, this is one of the best films you can watch about the 3D printed firearm revolution as seen through the eyes of one of its most outspoken proponents.

Mozilla announced a while back that it would start selling Firefox OS Developer Preview phones sometime in February. That obviously didn’t happen, and there’s no mention of when the phones will be widely available to developers. Until then, you’re best chance to get one is at one of Mozilla’s recently announced workshops.

Mozilla announced today that it will be hosting a number of Firefox OS App Workshops starting in April. The first will take place on April 20 in Madrid, Spain; the second on May 18 in Bogotá, Colombia; and the third on June 1 in Warsaw, Poland. Mozilla says that it plans to have more workshops in more locations later on in the year.

So, what will those attending the workshops receive? Mozilla says it will be offering the usual free swag, like t-shirts, and a free meal to all attendees, but the real treat is that all those in attendance will receive a Firefox OS Developer Preview phone.

All Mozilla asks is that those wanting to attend have “solid ideas and strong Web development skills.” In other words, it’s looking for developers who have built apps using open Web development platforms like PhoneGap, Chrome, webOS, BlackBerry Webworks, etc.

Those attending can also look forward to working one-on-one Mozilla’s own Firefox OS development team to create new apps for Firefox OS or port an existing app to the HTML5-centric mobile OS.

If you wish to attend, you’ll have to apply for a spot at one of the events. Mozilla says they’ll be approving applications on a first-come, first-served basis.

After the disappointment that was The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, series fans will have to place their hopes on the second season of Telltale’s excellent adventure series. While fans wait, Telltale will be bringing the first season to a new platform.

IGN is reporting that The Walking Dead will be on the PlayStation Vita before season two of the acclaimed adventure series hits consoles and PC. This isn’t the first portable version of the title as the adventure series came to the iPad last year, but this is the first time we’ve seen the series on a dedicated gaming handheld.

Speaking to IGN, PlayStation’s Director of Product Planning and Platform Software Innovation Don Mesa says that The Walking Dead is a perfect fit for the Vita:

“Again, a good example is with The Walking Dead. We think that the emotion and the immersive experiences you’re going to get there, wherever you’re sitting, if you’re in your living room and playing on your Vita or sitting at a café or at the bus stop and playing this, you get that shock or fright. I think that’s going to be important. That’s what we want to deliver as you’re playing.”

It’s not known what changes will be made to the Vita version of the title, but it’s probably safe to assume that it will feature many of the same touch controls found in the iPad version.

Despite having a less than stellar holiday season, Nook is still soldiering on in its attempts to combat Amazon’s Kindle dynasty. It’s latest move may just help bring more developers to its side.

Nook announced today that in-app purchasing will soon be a reality on Kindle HD and HD+ apps. The Barnes & Noble subsidiary will be working with Fortumo to provide developers with all the tools needed to implement in-app purchasing in apps while also providing developers with real-time insights on revenue.

“We are thrilled to bring in-app purchasing to Nook with Fortumo for our community of developers so they can foster a profitable relationship with their customers, while also providing our Nook customers with a more in-depth app experience and an even wider selection of popular apps,” said Claudia Romanini, VP of Nook Apps, Nook Media, LLC. “We look forward to adding thousands of more apps that feature in-app purchasing over the coming weeks and months to expand Nook’s already wide array of digital content offerings.”

This latest addition to the Nook development environment brings the Nook HD up to par with Amazon’s Kindle Fire and other Android tablets that have offered in-app purchasing for the past year. It’s also an important addition to the Nook development environment as it encourages more developers to bring apps to the platform. As we all know, any hardware is only as good as its apps, and the Nook definitely needs more apps, especially revenue heavy games, to survive in the highly competitive tablet market.

In-app purchasing will be available to developers starting in the first half of April. For more details on how to start offering in-app purchasing in Nook apps, check out the Nook developer portal.

Snakes, and their total absence of limbs, make them some of the most terrifying creatures on the planet. Not to mention the variety of ways snakes can kill us. Why then must science create a robotic version of Satan’s avatar?

The Biorobotics Lab at Carnegie Mellon University has been hard at work on what they call a modular snake robot. Why would they create such a thing? Here’s how they explain it:

Snake robots can use their many internal degrees of freedom to thread through tightly packed volumes accessing locations that people and machinery otherwise cannot use. Moreover, these highly articulated devices can coordinate their internal degrees of freedom to perform a variety of locomotion capabilities that go beyond the capabilities of conventional wheeled and the recently developed legged robots. The true power of these devices is that they are versatile, achieving behaviors not limited to crawling, climbing, and swimming.

That actually sounds pretty useful. I’m sure a number of industries, including defense, could do some pretty amazing things with a robot that can move in and out of tight spaces. So why is this particularly robot so terrifying? Just watch this:

As you can see, our robot snake friend here can immediately constrict around a object after being thrown at it. Sure, it looks cool at first, until you realize that somebody (or some robot) may one day throw this thing at your neck. It’s hard enough already to fight off a Boa Constrictor. Just imagine how hard it would be to fight off a robot snake whose sole directive is snuffing out the life you hold dear.

[h/t: Wired]

During Sony’s big PS4 reveal show, Blizzard popped up on stage to announce that it was returning to console development. The prolific developer announced that it would be porting Diablo III to the PS3 and PS4, thus crushing my hopes of ever seeing a return of The Lost Vikings.

Casting my own bitterness aside, I recognize that Diablo III coming exclusively to Sony’s platform is a big deal. As such, there will be a lot of scrutiny applied to the project as many PC players didn’t exactly have high praise for the title. The game was already suspected of being built around consoles, however, so console players lacking a PC gamer’s superiority complex may get a kick out of it.

In other Blizzard news, the developers crushed the dreams of Warcraft fans everywhere by announcing a trading card game instead of a proper installment of the venerated real-time strategy series.

Earlier this week, Google introduced the world to the Realtime API for Google Drive. The new API allows developers to integrate the real time collaboration seen in Google Drive documents into apps. It opens up all new possibilities in apps like code builders and photo editors by allowing multiple users to interact with the app at once.

If that sounds exciting to you, you’ll definitely want to check out Google’s latest Realtime API tutorial:

During this session we’ll show how to build a complete JavaScript application that uses the Google Drive Realtime API to sync changes in a text document between two HTML elements.

The Galaxy S III was Samsung’s flagship device last year, and as such, carried a flagship device price tag. For those who wanted the S III experience minus the price, Samsung released the Galaxy S III Mini late last year. A recent leak suggests that Samsung will be doing it again for the Galaxy S 4.

SamMobile got the scoop on the Galaxy S 4 Mini after spotting a few images of the device on @ErmEchkiN’s Twitter feed. Much like its predecessor, the Galaxy S 4 Mini will presumably be a smaller S 4 with paired down specs so it comes in at a cheaper price.

In the below image, you can see the Galaxy S 4 Mini on the far right compared to the Galaxy S 4 and the Galaxy S III:

So what kind of specs can we expect out of the device? The current rumors suggest that it will have a 4.3 inch display and a 1.66GHz dual-core CPU. There’s no word yet on the other specs. The device will be running Android 4.2.2 though. It will also come in single-SIM and dual-SIM formats for all you carrier hoppers and world travelers.

The current rumors state that we can expect to see the Galaxy S 4 Mini in stores in either June or July. The Galaxy S 4 is expected to hit stores sometime during the second quarter so there hopefully won’t be much time between the launch of the Galaxy S 4 and S 4 Mini. A few months later, Samsung will reportedly unveil the Galaxy Note III in September.

It seems that Samsung will be staying busy in 2013. It will be interesting to see if the company will be involved in any more Nexus projects with Google as well after its Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 10 were so well received by consumers.

[h/t: Droid Life]

The smart home is still a few years away as companies are now just dabbling in the idea of a smart fridge or a smart washing machine. Even so, Google is preparing for this future if its latest Glass patent application is any indication.

In a patent filed on September 21, 2011, Google outlines how Glass could be used to control appliances within the home, like a washing machine or refrigerator.

A wearable computing device includes a head-mounted display (HMD) that provides a field of view in which at least a portion of the environment of the wearable computing device is viewable. The HMD is operable to display images superimposed over the field of view. When the wearable computing device determines that a target device is within its environment, the wearable computing device obtains target device information related to the target device. The target device information may include information that defines a virtual control interface for controlling the target device and an identification of a defined area of the target device on which the virtual control image is to be provided. The wearable computing device controls the HMD to display the virtual control image as an image superimposed over the defined area of the target device in the field of view.

In layman terms, Google’s patent would basically allow Glass to bring up a menu whenever you look at an object that can be controlled via Glass. The menu would be laid over the item in question to bring an augmented reality flair to the experience. From there, the user would be able to control the object in question with either a touchpad, voice command or gesture.

Like most patent applications, this is just one possible idea out of many for Google Glass. I wouldn’t be surprised to see something like this come to Glass in the future, but we’re probably going to see simpler apps starting out. We’ll have to wait for the smart house of the future, and hopefully not Disney’s Smart House, to come along before stuff like this becomes more common.

[h/t: Engadget]

For years, fans of the Warcraft franchise have pestered Blizzard for a new entry in the real-time strategy series. After nine years of World of Warcraft, Blizzard is poised to deliver a non-MMO title in the Warcraft franchise, but it’s not exactly what fans are expecting.

Blizzard announced today at PAX East that its new Warcraft game will be titled Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. It’s a free-to-play collectible card game for PC, Mac and iPad. The game will be supported by the sale of booster packs for players to expand their digital card collection.

If you want to see more behind the scenes stuff, check out this making of video:

For the longest time, Zynga and Facebook were like two peas in a pod. That all started to unwind last year as Zynga moved to its own platform – Zynga.com. The two were still connected, however, as Zynga required players to use Facebook login on its own site. Now that last connection holding them together has been severed.

In an update on the company blog, Zynga says that it will no longer require users to have a Facebook account to play games on Zynga.com:

Starting next week, when you visit Zynga.com you will see a new streamlined signup that lets you create your own account just for playing games. We also wanted to make sure that existing Zynga.com players continue to have the best experience possible so you don’t have to start from scratch. All players will have the option to connect with Facebook and keep your game friends and game progress, while deciding what you share with your gaming community.

Zynga will retain all the social features on Zynga.com that were brought over from Facebook. Social Stream, Fast Load and Online Presence will now work within the confines of Zynga.com for those who don’t want to share their Facebook information with the site.

The social games maker is also putting out a new call for developers to join Zynga.com as a partner. Doing so will allow the developer to bring their games to Zynga’s guaranteed gamer audience instead of the hit-or-miss audience present on Facebook.

Now, all of this doesn’t mean that Zynga is completely severing ties with Facebook. To do so would be incredibly foolish, but Facebook as a games platform is starting to show signs of weakness. Most casual players are moving to mobile, and Zynga is betting on those who still play games on the Web want the kind of dedicated experience that can’t be found on Facebook.

It’s going to be interesting to see what role Zynga.com plays as the company attempts to make a profit this year. The move to mobile has definitely reduced its reliance on the Web, but a Web presence dedicated to just games could be immensely profitable for Zynga if its plays its cards right.

[h/t: TechCrunch]

If Panic Room taught me anything – it’s that burglaries are scary things. Men with guns trying to ransack my home are scary enough, but it becomes even scarier when said burglar breaks out the colorful squirt guns filled with semen.

A very unlucky man encountered such a scenario in January after a couple of burglars, including 21-year-old Eric Miller, broke into a house looking for one of the people who lived there. Their target wasn’t present, but they decided to make an example of the roommate sleeping on the couch.

The men reportedly held the unlucky roommate at knifepoint as they beat and pistol-whipped him. After the beating, Miller reportedly pulled out a squirt gun filled with semen and sprayed it on his face. After the heinous crime was committed, Miller said “Now you’re like the rest of my (expletives), covered in semen.”

It’s not said what kind of squirt gun was used, but I like to think it was this one:

After all of this, Miller turned himself in to police. He was convicted with first-degree burglary, but not before the judge considered tacking on a sexual motivation charge. It was the prosecutor’s opinion that Miller didn’t get any sexual gratification out of it. Miller will spend 18 months behind bars.

[The Bellingham Herald via Geekosystem]