Quick Note: LG's 4:3 Ratio Display Vu 3 Smartphone Gets Official

LG Vu 3 has a 5.2-inch 4:3 aspect ratio screen

LG has unveiled its latest big-screen smartphone called the Vu 3. This smartphone is notable because it uses a 5.2-inch 1280x960 resolution display with a 4:3 aspect ratio, while most smartphones today use a 16:9 aspect ratio. LG says that the 4:3 aspect ratio makes the device better suited to reading digital books and viewing websites.

The Vu3 sports a quad-core Snapdragon 800 and runs Android 4.2.2.  The device supports LTE-Advanced and has integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and features a 13MP rear camera.

LG also integrates its Knock On feature into the Vu 3 that allows users to wake the device from sleep with a double tap on the screen.

The phone is expected to launch in Korea starting on September 27 with availability with all three major Korean carriers. Pricing information is unannounced this time.

Source: fonearena

15 Awesome Web Services You Probably Didn’t Know About

Internet is bursting with amazing services. While Gmail, Facebook, Instagram don’t require any introduction, there are tons of other services which haven’t become so popular. No, cooking your dinner online hasn’t become reality just yet, but there are many other cool things that you could find useful in your everyday life. Here we have curated a list of some of our favorite ones.

Create LEGO figures of yourself

If you are Star Wars fan, then you probably already possess many LEGO characters. But, how about making a LEGO figure which resembles you!? Minifigs lets you morph your face to the LEGO characters. Additionally, you can also add any special message to the character if you want.

Turn your pictures into 3D sculpture

Have you ever wondered how your photos would look if instead of being 2 dimensioned they were in 3D? A web-service called Bumpy Photo does just that. It lets you add an extra dimension to your photos, by letting you customize the deepness of your pictures. Depending on the details of your picture, creating a 3D sculpture can cost you about $120.

Find when the next episode of your favorite show is airing

If you follow a lot of TV shows, it could become a tedious task to keep track of all your favorite shows. For example, when is the new episode of The Big Bang Theory airing? You missed one episode, and bam, your twitter and Facebook feed is filled with all the spoilers. To avoid such things from happening, you can visit this website called TV count down, which without any registration, or any charges tells you all information about your favorite shows.

Email your future self

Wouldn’t it be nice to send a message to your future self? Write down the things you want to accomplish in your life, or the things which are troubling you, and check back in a year or so to see how well you did. FutureMe is an incredible service that offers you this feature. And it doesn’t cost a dime. You can read more about it here.

Send fake emails

Whether you are trying to win an argument, or prank a friend, fake emails can come handy at times. Emkej Mailer is a popular email service that lets you send fake emails to others. The service is very simple to use and doesn’t require any registration.

Get Free Legal Documents

Hiring a lawyer, although is a better choice, but can cost you ample sum of money. If you’ve a limited budget, and you are not dealing with a very complicated case, Docracy, a fantastic web-service can save you lots of cash. You can easily get your legal document drafted, as well as sign your documents from within the service itself.

Download/View movies and TV series for free

You don’t actually have to rent or buy the DVDs of a classic movie. The Internet Archive hosts a large collection of movies that you can download from their website for free. Other than that, many publishers put the content of their shows on their YouTube channels. You won’t find everything that you are looking for, but you won’t leave empty handed either.

Learn almost anything for free

Many prestigious universities, including MIT, Harvard and Stanford, are putting the lectures and notes of the courses they offer on their website for free. MIT recently started a program named Free Creative Learning Class which offers plethora of courses varying from programming to psychology. My colleague Alex Serban wrote more about such services here. Although you shouldn’t bank your hopes to get any job using their certificates, but if you are up for some quality learning, you will absolutely love it.

Turn your quote into a masterpiece

ReciteThis is a simple web-service, which turns your quote into posters. Just visit the website, enter some text and click on Create button. Once you have done that, you will see your words put on a nice background. You can then download the image in high resolution if you want. The service is completely free to use and does not require any sign-up.

Discover new music

Some days you want to listen to good music, but none of the songs in your music library cut it. Mixest might help you in those days. It is a great site which starts playing random songs every time you visit it. You can be very assure that you haven’t heard that song before. It is a very intuitive way to discover new music.

Get the right size glasses

If you are planning to get your glasses from an online e-commerce website, then you might want to double check the frame size of the glass that you are purchasing. Problem with buying glasses from an online store is that you don’t get to know if the glasses will fit you properly or not. To do this, you can give Tesco Opticians a try. It is a web based service that will guide you on how to get the right size glasses for your eyes.

Get your Facebook report

The smart search engine, WolframAlpha offers to generate reports about your Facebook profile. Once you have given it access to look into your profile, the computational search engine will tell you some interesting stats about your Facebook activities. The number of posts you have made, number of images you have uploaded, number of likes your posts have received and similar things. You can use this service from this page.

Get all your questions answered

WolframAlpha is a powerful search engine which instead of returning web results to your queries, tries and analyzes what you are trying to search. This enables you to ask it questions in a human-friendly language, and it tells you the answer. So whether it is a scientific concept that you can’t find the explanation of, or any historical date you can’t seem to remember, odds are WolframAlpha knows it.

Identify celestial bodies

Ever wonder what is flying across the sky? It is very common to mistake a planet with some other celestial body. Thankfully, as you might have guessed, there is an app for that.

If you have an Android device, you can install SkEye, and pinpoint to that moving body and the app will instantly provide you all the information. iPhone and iPad users can try Night Sky 2 which does the same task.

Explore Mars

Speaking of celestial bodies, would you be interested in exploring our neighboring planet Mars?
You should try NASA’s Billion-Pixel View of Mars coverage which has been captured and sent by Curiosity Mars Rover. You can also try Google Mars.

Upgrade Some PlayStation 3 Games to PlayStation 4 Compatible for Cheap

The announcement of the new next-gen video gaming console PlayStation 4 thrilled many because of its awesome specifications and simplicity. This device is meant to be the successor of the beloved PlayStation 3 which was launched in the early 2005. In comparison with its predecessor, PS4 was developed to increase interactivity with various services and devices, among which we can mention Gaikai, PlayStation Vita and PlayStation App (a service which connects smartphones and tablets into a second screen).

The exciting PlayStation 4 does not require permanent connection to the Internet or regular network check-ins in order to function properly. Also, PS4 will be much appreciated for the fact that it does not limit the usage of second-hand games and it does not require any additional fee for playing them.

Whether the game is in a digital version or as a disc, the newest titles will not be cheap and buying a copy for your PS3 now alongside one for the PS4 at a later date can cause serious damage to your budget. Because of this, Sony is coming to help by offering a simpler way to play what you already bought for PS3, on the new PS4 for a cheaper price, by converting original PlayStation 3 games to the newest generation. The catch is that this trick works only for some games in the PlayStation Store and a small fee is applicable.
The new PlayStation 4 will be launched in North America on November 15^th and then in Europe and South & Central America, on the 29^th of November. In South Korea and Singapore, the device will be available in December, while the Japanese users have to wait the most, as the console will be available starting from February 2014.

An interesting buzz about the new console is that it will not be region-locked, so if you cannot wait until the PS4 will be available in your country, you can always buy it online from other countries where it will be already in stores. Unfortunately, we all have to wait a little bit until the new PS4 will be launched, but until then, you should not waste time and neglect the games that will be released for the PS3 and continue to purchase and enjoy them.

How to Upgrade PS3 games to PS4

There are two different ways of upgrading games from PS3 to PS4: using a disc-based and a digital version the title. Note that this offer is only available for the following titles (others will be shortly added when they enter the program):

• Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag
• Call of Duty: Ghosts
• Watch Dogs
• Battlefield 4

So, users who buy a PS3 Blu-ray disc of these games will receive a code that can be redeemed from PlayStation Store. When the PS4 game version is launched and bought, they have to insert the original PS3 disc into their new PS4 in order to be able to activate and play the game. That’s why it’s very important not to lose the original disc, because without it you cannot play the game anymore.
Every gamer who buys any of these games in their digital version will not have to redeem a code in order to be able to get the version for the PlayStation 4. It’s much simpler than you think, because after you purchase your PS4, you only need to access the PlayStation Store and look for the PS4 version of the desired game.
This great offer is available only for a limited period of time, so be quick about it, activate and buy the PS4 version for a stunning price of only $9.99. The deadlines for each game are: January 31st, 2014 (for Assassin’s Creed IV and Watch Dogs), March 28th (for Battlefield 4) and March 31st (for Call of Duty: Ghosts). So, in order to complete and certify that you can benefit from this program, follow the next step-by-step instructions.

For Disc-Based Games

If you are one of the users who still like to buy their games on a disc, apply the following guide to be sure that you don’t miss the chance to play one of these four amazing games on both PS3 and PS4 video gaming consoles:

1. Create an account or log into PlayStation Network using the account you already have from your PlayStation 3.
2. Browse the video gaming console’s home screen and select PlayStation Store.
3. Look after the “Redeem Codes” button, which can be found at the bottom of the screen.
4. Write in the code that was packed with the PS3 version of the game and press “Continue”.
5. When they ask for the Terms of Service, select “Confirm” and afterwards press “Continue”.
6. Now, the code redemption is finished and you have to proceed to the steps that imply your PS4 console.
7. On the new console, log into your SEN (Sony Entertainment Network) account. Note that it has to be the same account from which you redeemed the code.
8. From home screen, go to PlayStation Store and select it.
9. Search the game for which you applied and “Purchase” it in order to download the digital version of the same game, but for the next-gen console. The price of $9.99 will be deducted from your personal wallet.
10. Finally, when the download is completed, insert the PS3 disc whenever you want to play the game.

Digital Version Instructions

For the lucky guys who have bought the digital version of the game for their PS3, everything is much simpler and explained in the following instructions:

1. First of all, buy the digital version of the game for PS3 or pre-order it from PlayStation Store or Sony Entertainment Network Store.
2. Secondly, search for the same game on PlayStation Store from your PS4.
3. At this point you can buy the game or pre-order it in a digital version for the price of only $9.99.
4. Enjoy playing one of these exciting games on both PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 with minimal costs as soon as they are available.

Microsoft Has Plans For "Hundreds" More TV Shows After Halo

  (Source: Microsoft Studios)

TV shows are expected to be Xbox One exclusive, give console a boost

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) delivered a rather mild surprise when it announced that it had recruited Steven Spielberg to produce an upcoming exclusive TV show for the Xbox One based on the Halo series in which future humans battle alien invaders.

I. Forza Motorsports: The TV Series?

This of course wasn't the first video game franchise to see a turn to video.  But past efforts have tended to be either well after the fact (like Tekken and Alone in the Dark), were horribly campy (like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and The Super Mario Brothers), or were just plain inexplicably mediocre despite big name actors/budgets (e.g. Prince of Persia and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider).

But over the last couple weeks, Microsoft has delivered a far bigger surprise revealing that it is looking to become perhaps the biggest maker of video game television and movies in the industry.  Comments Microsoft Studios CVP Phil Spencer at the Tokyo Game Show, "[The joint Microsoft/Spielberg team has] literally hundreds of ideas that they are incubating right now.  We will have some new announcement for TV shows coming pretty soon."

According to Reuters, Microsoft refers to these other projects as "Nancy projects" a title which pays homage to CBS Corp.'s (CBS) former Television Studios President Nancy Tellem whom Microsoft hired a year ago as head of entertainment and digital media.

_{Microsoft doesn't seem overly concerned that in most cases video games moves have... well, stunk. [Image Source: Buena Vista Pictures]}

But of all Microsoft “experiments”, its gaming business has been by far the most profitable, particularly as it has expanded its game publishing efforts via its Microsoft Studios Holdings.  And increasing the software/media efforts related to its gaming business helps to offset and make worthwhile the money losing console business.

And Microsoft's TV efforts could go a long ways to differentiating its Xbox console.  In addition to its Halo and unannounced other game-based TV series which ooze hardcore nerd/gamer appeal, Microsoft will also cater to the mainstream partner with the National Football League and other partners to offer exclusive clips via the Xbox One and its online backbone, Xbox Live.

II. Dwindling Console Sales, Controversy Take a Toll on Xbox Expectations

However; the effort is not without risk.  Microsoft upgraded its console to pull even with arch-rival Sony Corp. (TYO:6758) on an offline-hardware basis.  As a result, it will likely lose money on every unit sold.  Microsoft's big bet is cornered on three key assumptions -- that a lot of people will buy its Xbox One console, which launches in 13 markets on Nov. 22, that a lot of people will buy Microsoft Studios games (like Halo, Forza Motorsports, and Zoo Tycoon), and that a lot of people will sign up for its $60 USD a year Xbox Live Gold membership.

The consoles sales goal is by no means a done deal.  Piper Jaffray Comp. analyst Michael Olson predicts that the Sony PlayStation 4 (PS4) and Xbox One will each sell about 3 million units -- a far cry from the booming sales of some past consoles.  Mobile gaming has taken its toll on traditional console gaming.  Microsoft arguably has the more compelling console in terms of interface and exclusive titles, but has been mired in controversy.

Some of Microsoft's most controversial stands (e.g. offering developers digital rights management code libraries to ban used games and requiring the console to be "always on") were reversed -- an admirable show of listening to customers.  But these controversies still have somewhat damaged the console's overall image.  And given Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) data sharing arrangements with U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) some remain concerned that the console's 1080p Kinect 2 camera -- which is always on when the console is powered up and internet active -- will be a privacy risk.  Microsoft's console is also more expensive; the Xbox One retails for $499 USD, while the PS4 retails for $399 USD.

As for the game sales goal, video game sales for consoles now only account for 33 percent of sales -- according to the NPD Group -- due to mobile games, social network games, and other niches stealing away some of traditional gaming's business.  Still that number is slightly misleading, as it doesn't factor in the digital downloads market (part of the remaining 67 percent), of which the Xbox has a substantial stake.

_{It's unclear whether Xbox Live Silver customers will be locked out of Microsoft Studios's TV shows.  Microsoft cripples certain console hardware features for customers who don't buy a "Gold" level membership.}

But speaking of digital downloads, Microsoft's efforts to push customers into its Xbox Live Gold model by locking them out of features on their console (DVR, etc.) if they stick with the free Live Silver level members is alienating some potential buyers.  Microsoft's approach seems pretty counterintuitive in that it actually allows non-paying users to play online games (which costs Microsoft money in serving fees) for free, which Sony only allows paying customers to do.  But Sony does not lock non-paying PlayStation Network customers out of features on their console; features that essentially have already been paid for with the cost of the console.

With respect to its TV push, one critical thing not yet made clear by Microsoft is whether Live Silver subscribers will be locked out of the free Halo show and other television content on the console.  It's very possible that they may be, given Microsoft's announcement of the channel guide and DVR locking.

In short, there's a lot of unknowns as the Xbox One approaches, but Microsoft is certainly not shying from taking a unique and ambitious direction with its television ambitions. Source: Bloomberg

Rockstar Offers New Details on GTA Online

Rockstar is working to add more servers to increase capacity

To say Grand Theft Auto V has been successful would be an understatement. The game eclipsed $800 million in sales within 24 hours, and racked up $1 billion in the first three days of availability. Now Rockstar Games is looking to give gamers even more courtesy of Grand Theft Auto Online.

GTA Online is set to launch next month and Rockstar is offering up some new details on the game. Rockstar says that GTA Online is something new for the company and will be a fully realized and living world for players that will grow to take shape over time.

More importantly, the developers say that the players will determine the ultimate shape of GTA Online.

 

Rockstar developers will request feedback from users on the types of missions to roll out and future content updates. Rockstar says that it plans a constant stream of new content, tweaks, and updates in the weeks and months ahead for GTA Online.

Rockstar also announced that the first few weeks it expects to be heavily focused on tuning the experience as it goes from internal testing to a live world for players to play.

Rockstar wrote, "The first couple of weeks we expect to be heavily focused on tuning the experience as it goes from internal testing to the reality of being played by tons of people in the real world so that all the usual teething problems for an online game are overcome. We hope it will all run incredibly smoothly, but please bear with us if it doesn't, and help us fix any and all problems!"

Rockstar also notes that it is working to add more servers and increase scale but gamers should expect some challenges the first few days GTA Online is available.
Source: Rockstar Games