With the launch of the PlayStation 4 now only two days away , Sony has rolled out an update to the game console’s companion mobile apps on iOS and Android today.
Besides turning your mobile device with the app into second screen controllers for supported games, the Playstation app also emphasizes a lot on social interaction. You can see what your friends are playing, compare trophies, and chat with your friends. It also sends notifications, game alerts and invitations, and lets you use your mobile device as an on-screen keyboard for your PS4.
Buying games for your PS4 also becomes more convenient with the app — all you have to do is browse the PlayStation store, pick up the games you want, then push them to your PS4 system so you can play immediately when you get home.
➤ Playstation App | iOS | Google Play
Thumbnail image via Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
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The Stylus Cap combines the best of a Sharpie and a stylus
Over the past few months I’ve been using a super simple little tool to scribble ideas down on my iPad and on paper. It’s called the Stylus Cap from More|Real and it’s one of the niftiest ideas I’ve come across lately.
Basically it’s an aluminum cap that fits on the end of a bog standard Sharpie. If you’re a designer or scribbler then you know just how vital the Sharpie is to mocking up designs and generally getting ideas out of your head and onto some butcher paper. The Stylus Cap replaces your regular cap on a stock Sharpie to let you continue to scribble right on the iPad.
The fit and finish is perfect. The cap even has a similar bezel to a regular Sharpie cap at the open end, allowing for easy one-handed removal. The tip is soft, but has some give, letting you brush or smush it against your screen for fatter lines if you’ve got a responsive app.
I use it with Paper mostly, but others like Penultimate work just fine as well. Since I got my review unit the company has tweaked the design slightly, making them lighter and the tip firmer, but I never had a problem with them in the first place.
If you’re a sketcher looking for a unique combo stylus for paper and tablet brainstorming, the Stylus Cap is worth a peek. It’s a tad pricey at $25 but feels and works like quality. And you can also get them for Bic and Fineliner if those are more your speed. The first-gen versions are only $15 too if you’re not concerned about weight.
Stylus Caps at More|Real
The BBC unveils an experimental ‘Perceptive Radio’ that offers personalized content
The BBC has developed an experimental piece of hardware called the Perceptive Radio, that adjusts the content it plays based on a wide range of circumstances, such as location, time, a user’s proximity to the device and background noise in the environment in which it’s being used..
The device was unveiled today at the Thinking Digital conference in Gateshead, UK and builds upon the Perceptive Media project that the BBC announced last year .
Perceptive Media adjusts content for each audience member based on their specific circumstances. The only demo content announced so far is a radio play that adjusts the location in which it’s set, the weather and other factors depending on where and when it’s listened to.
The radio shown off today includes a light sensor, proximity sensor and a microphone that can influence the content it plays. The proximity sensor is currently used to adjust the audio mix of the radio play, adding or removing background sound effects depending on how close a listener is to the device.
The BBC’s Ian Forrester has been working on the Perceptive Radio project at the Future Media & Technology department in Salford, UK. He said today that the radio set will soon be tested in homes to see how it can be applied in real-world scenarios. One content idea that Forrester suggested for the device, which streams audio over a WiFi connection, is a ‘karaoke drama’, which could incorporate audience engagement via the microphone. He added that an accelerometer had been discussed as a possible additional sensor to influence content based on whether or not the device was moving. ( Update: It’s worth noting that the Perceptive Radio was a collaboration between the BBC, Mudlark , MCQN and Deferred Procrastination ).
Personalized advertising is one compelling possibility for future commercial uses of Perceptive Media. Imagine a TV ad that tweaks its messaging based on your Facebook Likes, for example. Despite the BBC’s non-commercial status, that’s certainly a possibility – the Perceptive Radio design will soon be open-sourced, and most of the Perceptive Media source code is already freely available on GitHub .