It’s nighttime in America and it’s Friday to boot. We should be out on the streets painting the town red. But instead, we’re sitting down, cracking a few cans open and talking with our best mates about a new Mate.

As Huawei takes over the scene for the week with a couple of luminescent phones, Evan Blass and Alcatel remind us that Windows can be a fun platform if it tried. Will it try? We may come up with an answer or we may just pass onto the unrelenting carrier wars, flip phones for modernity, Kickstarters, Indiegogos and a kick in the pants for us to go go GO!

It’s the weekend and this is episode 225 of the Pocketnow Weekly.

Watch the live video broadcast from 11:00pm Eastern on November 4th (click here for your local time), or check out the high-quality audio version right here.

For folks watching live, you can comment and ask questions by using the #PNWeekly hashtag on Twitter during the broadcast. For folks watching later, you can shoot your listener emails to podcast [AT] pocketnow [DOT] com for a shot at getting your question read aloud on the air the following week!

Pocketnow Weekly 225

Recording Date

November 4, 2016

Host

Jules Wang

Juan Bagnell

Sponsor

This week’s episode of the Pocketnow Weekly Podcast is made possible by:

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How’s it goin’, Mate?

(00:02:55)

Following on from the Huawei P9, the Mate 9 makes its debut in Munich, Germany. Our Juan Carlos Bagnell was there to handle the Leica-endorsed, dual-camera goods — particularly with that fancy schmancy €1,400 Porsche Design version — while Jaime Rivera and Adam Z. Lein put some light onto the Huawei Fit tracker.

News

surface-phone-evleaks

26:26 | This Windows phone is more than just a concept

32:09 | The Alcatel Idol 4s with Windows 10: where it’s at and where it won’t be

35:37 | Where’s Microsoft at with Windows 10 Mobile?

42:44 | Lenovo Phab 2 Pro finally makes it to the dance floor

51:52 | ZTE flips a phone here, Samsung flips a phone there

57:59 | Apple dongles dangle for a discount as a jungle protests

1:05:37 | Blood on the water between T-Mo and Verizon

1:14:39 | We completely speculate that Foxconn and Sharp are moving to the US

1:19:07 | Maybe Xiaomi is coming here, too?

1:23:08 | Crowdfunding Corner: 360° video-recording glasses and an eye-tracking VR headset

1:33:35 | Mobile beats desktop internet usage for first time ever

Nightcap

galaxy-note-7-costume-sw

Yep. That’s a Southwest Airlines attendant. Dressed as a Galaxy Note 7.

The post Hot Takes on the Huawei Mate 9 and more… after dark | #PNWeekly 225 appeared first on Pocketnow.

Those who desire to immerse themselves in virtual reality space end up only bearing witness to what goes on around them when they’re just sitting there. It usually takes a button, a controller, a quasi-visible physical detachment from the environment to interact and engage with the world they’re in.

But what if you could exert your presence in your environment just by looking? Staring? Gazing into the characters you’re talking to? It’s a concept posed by Fove as it kicks up pre-orders for its new, stereo eye-tracking virtual reality headset, the Fove 0.

The Japanese-American startup was co-founded by a former game producer at Sony and a VR developer who worked together from a collaboration lab at the University of Tokyo. The lab allowed for them to reach hardware manufacturers for partnerships to grab low-latency pupil sensors, infrared position trackers and proper helmet components.

fove-0-hero-technology-mobile

On the device, which masses up to 540 grams, the OLED display has resolution of 2560 x 1440 and runs at 70fps natively with a 100° field of view. The headset requires I/O of an HDMI 1.4 port, a USB 3.0 port and two USB 2.0 ports. A bare spec computer needs to run with an Intel Core i5-4590 coupled to an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 or an AMD R9 290 with 8GB of RAM and run Windows 8.1 or later in its 64-bit form.

The software behind it, though, is what really takes the cake. The eye-tracking allows users to point out and select interface elements without the need for tactile hardware. The headset also takes advantage of foveated processing to maximize efficiency in graphics rendering based on where the user is looking at.

The Fove 0 supports games on Unity, Unreal and Xenko engines from the SteamVR and OSVR platforms.

Pre-orders for the device are on for $599 or $549 if reserved before November 9. Shipping begins early next year. There was a Kickstarter campaign before general availability, though, so those who backed the project will hope to get their perks by the end of the year.

The post Eye-tracking VR headset Fove 0 pre-orders activated appeared first on Pocketnow.

Mobiles365

Mobile, Cellphone and Smartphone News

Fove 0

Hot Takes on the Huawei Mate 9 and more… after dark | #PNWeekly 225