Samsung’s Gear VR will play host to the NBA All-Star Game. Sarah Tew Basketball fans will soon have the opportunity to sit courtside at the NBA All-Star Game without having to travel to New York this weekend. The National Basketball Association said Friday it has partnered with BigLook360, a company that makes virtual-reality cameras, to …
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Mattel’s View
Want to play with a new View-Master? Ask mommy and daddy for a smartphone. Mattel is working with Google to reboot the classic View-Master toy as a child’s first portal into virtual reality. In this CNET Update, learn how it works and how Mattel is putting a new twist on collectable reels. It’s not the first time Mattel has incorporated …
Read More »Looking to elope? Scope out Vegas chapels via Google Street View
Saturday is Valentine’s Day, which could mean an uptick in visits to Las Vegas wedding chapels. But with so many of them to choose from, wouldn’t it be nice to see what they look like ahead of getting hitched? Google has released Street View images of several Las Vegas chapels, so soon-to-be-newlyweds can enjoy a casual morning at the hotel …
Read More »Google to shut down Helpouts on April 20
Google says its video tutorial service wasn’t growing fast enough. Screenshot by Donna Tam/CNET Google announced Friday it is shuttering Helpouts because the 1-year old video tutorial service isn’t growing as fast as the company wants. “The Helpouts community includes some engaged and loyal contributors, but unfortunately, it hasn’t grown at the pace we had expected,” reads a blog post …
Read More »Uber app in India lets friends and family track users
Uber Uber has unveiled more new passenger safety features for its taxi-hailing services in India, following reports earlier this week that the app was due to include a panic button for rider safety for its Indian user base. These new security features come as part of Uber’s pledge to increase quality and security of the taxi rides for passengers following …
Read More »Virgin Media plots £3B broadband upgrade, but rural areas could be left out
Virgin Media says its upgrade will bring an £8 billion boost to the UK economy. Andew Cowie/AFP/Getty Images Virgin Media is giving its network a boost, pumping £3 billion into upgrading its existing hardware — a plan that the network says will bring broadband speeds of 152Mbps to 4 million more UK homes. The provider’s strategy, called “Project Lightning”, will …
Read More »Firefox tiptoes toward a world without Adobe Flash
Flash logo Through a Firefox project called Shumway, Mozilla on Thursday took an important early step toward building a Web that works without Adobe Systems’ Flash Player. Flash spread widely more than a decade ago so website developers could embrace games, streaming video, animation, graphics and other features that were hard or impossible with a regular browser. Such browser plugins …
Read More »Three tips to get you started with Workflow 1.1
Workflow on an iPad. Jason Cipriani/CNET Workflow is one of those apps when you first start using it on your iOS device, you have a moment of questioning how it’s possible for such an app to exist on iOS. After using the app for the last few months, I still don’t know how it was allowed through the App Store. …
Read More »Mattel’s View
The new View-Master enables viewers to explore detailed images of the moon, Alcatraz, or even a land of dinosaurs. Ben Fox Rubin/CNET NEW YORK CITY — It’s been decades since Mattel’s View-Master was a must-have item for every kids’ toy box. But Mattel is hoping to reintroduce the toy stereoscope — first unveiled 75 years ago at the New York …
Read More »Samsung to nix bloatware in Galaxy S6 OS, report says
Samsung’s new software platform, TouchWiz, will be unveiled at Unpacked in March. Samsung Samsung will remove many of its own programs in the upcoming version of its TouchWiz user interface, a new report claims. The new version of Samsung’s TouchWiz will be stripped down to not include any Samsung-built applications, Sammobile is reporting, citing people who claim to have knowledge …
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