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Google's AI can replicate your photos in the style of iconic paintings
There are loads of apps out there that use filters to turn your photos into works of art. You can give your selfie a delicate watercolor feel, for example, or ramp up the colors and composition to create a frenzied portrait of your pet. Now, thanks to Google, you can give your pics a makeover in the style of your favorite artist.
TAG Heuer's latest smartwatches start at $1,800
Most smartwatches look like smart watches. For some people, that's perfectly fine. Others, though, prefer a more sophisticated look. The third generation of TAG Heuer's Connected series merges the fitness and productivity features of Google's Wear OS with a design that might be mistaken for a classic chronograph at first glance. But there's a big price to pay for the upscale looks -- these are still luxury watches after all.
Apple refreshes Pages, Numbers and Keynote with new styles and functions
Today, Apple's suite of productivity apps, iWork, is being refreshed. The company announced updates to Pages, Numbers and Keynote across both Mac and iOS. Thanks to the changes, all of the apps will now let users stylize their text by filling it in with gradients or images and using new outline styles. Face detection will help better position photos, and you'll be able to place images, shapes and equations in text boxes so they move with text.
Amazon appears to be expanding its Prime Wardrobe service
Last June, Amazon announced a clothes-by-mail service so Prime customers could try out new apparel without committing to buying it ahead of time. The service has been in beta ever since, but TechCrunch reports that it has now reached more customers. A number of people have tweeted that they have received an invitation to try Prime Wardrobe and an Amazon employee tweeted that the service had officially launched -- though that tweet has since been deleted. Additionally, the Twitter account for the University of California, Irvine's Prime Student Brand Ambassadors encouraged students to try out Prime Wardrobe in a tweet posted yesterday.
Gucci's latest fashion is a retro sci-fi mashup
While some designers look to the future of fashion and tech, Gucci is going back to what 1960s and '70s Hollywood thought the future would be. For its Gucci and Beyond Winter Instagram campaign, the fashion house showed off some colorful, kaleidoscopic fashions on a Star Trek bridge and transporter room, with Forbidden Planet's robot thrown in for good measure. There's also a daffy video (below) that captures all the sci-fi tropes, including a shaky, tilting Star Trek camera, a lurking Creature from the Black Lagoon and a giant cat on a rear-projection screen.
Bose goes premium with its outdoor-ready Revolve speakers
You might see Bluetooth speakers as a commodity item, but Bose is having none of that with its premium, pricey SoundLink Revolve and Revolve Plus models. Much like the Vizio Cast, they output music from 360 degrees, so they sound the same to anyone in the vicinity. At the same time, Bose has eschewed typical plastic materials for a fancy "single-piece aluminum enclosure" that's resistant to spills, rain and splashes with an IPX4 rating.
Amazon's first live show is QVC for the YouTube generation
Now that Amazon has its own private fashion labels, it's launching its its first ever live TV show called Style Code Live. Hosted by a trio of reality and fashion show personalities, the show looks like a youth take on QVC's home shopping channel. The hosts and their guests will offer fashion and makeup advice, while viewers will be able to buy the corresponding products from a carousel under the video player. "We're live, interactive, and covering the latest trends in fashion and beauty each weeknight -- with guest experts, celebrities, and viewer tips," producer Terrence Noonan told Variety.
The Moto X Style is big, gorgeous and (of course) highly customizable
The Moto X is alive and well in 2015. The latest iteration of the highly customizable flagship, dubbed the Moto X Style, has a giant 5.7-inch Quad HD screen with the tiniest of bezels. It also has a six-core Snapdragon 808 processor, 3GB of RAM, front facing stereo speakers, a 21-megapixel camera and "TurboPower" quick charging technology. But what you really care about is those lovely customizable elements, like the back plate and metallic accents. Those luxurious leather and wood pieces you love are back, of course. But there's also a new silicone finish for the rear of the device that has a "soft feel" and a "warm look." Though, we're reserving judgment until we get to grope it ourselves.
Samsung's thing for (faux) leather continues with the ATIV Book 9 Style
Samsung's clearly been listening to Venus in Furs a lot recently, which explains why it's gone a bit crazy on the faux-leather all of a sudden. After covering both the Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy Tab Pro and Chromebook 2 in the stuff, the company has now sought to do the same to a member of its Windows notebook family. Having taken the recently refreshed ATIV Book 9 that we found at CES, this new model gains the fetish-friendly backing and, erm, not much else. We spent a few seconds with an engineering sample of this unit, and felt compelled to share our impressions with you.
Flickr's redesign continues with a new style for embedding pics on other websites
The new look of Flickr is ready to surface in other spots on the web, now that Yahoo's photo site has rolled out a new style for embedded photos. Enabled by default if you're using the preview UI, the new embed code pulls in extra data like title and the owner's username as an overlay, plus interaction so viewers can scroll through more photos easily (an actual embed follows after the break). Also key for Flickr and its users, it can measure the reach and viewing statistics for its photos when they're used elsewhere. Probably most important, the new style compares well with other social networking / media posting services like Instagram and Google+, although some users are already complaining about having Flickr's watermark slapped on their photos. For now, the old embeds are still available, but we'll see if that changes when the site's preview experience becomes the default style.
Age of Conan sneaks a peek at some (selectively) stylish crafting
Age of Conan is already unchained according to its subtitle, but players are still restrained in certain ways. You can't just craft an item with your chosen stats and have it look like whatever you want, can you? Of course not! At least, not until the major crafting revision goes live, and the latest game director's letter shows off how players will be able to do exactly that. The letter previews the new crafting interface, which along with ingredients allows players to select a style for the crafted product. New styles are unlocked via completing missions and certain achievements. The system also allows for adding new visuals as endgame drops or from the cash store, giving players more flexible options about how to look. Take a loot at the full letter for more details, as well as discussion about the next major content update and the possibility of porting elements over from The Secret World.
Report: G4 spared an Esquire Network makeover
NBC Universal has announced video games cable channel G4 will no longer be converted into the Esquire Network. An exclusive report on The Hollywood Reporter calls out NBC Universal's Style channel as the unlucky recipient of an Esquire makeover, which will see the now female-focused channel shifting its focus toward mature men. As a result of this news, G4 will continue to operate as-is for the foreseeable future. The announcement to convert G4 into the Esquire Network came in February, when NBC Universal called out an April 22 re-branding. A week prior to that planned launch, NBC Universal pushed back the launch of the Esquire Network to an unspecified date.
Wordpress for iOS gets a new user interface
The Wordpress app for iOS has been updated again, and it features a brand-new interface for browsing, writing and editing posts on the popular blogging platform. As you can see above, the new interface apes Facebook's "side menu" (as have a few other big apps lately), and the update also fixes some other bugs, and adds some performance improvements in regards to emoticons and notifications in general. Wordpress for iOS is an open-source project, and thus you can download it straight from the App Store any time for free.
The Soapbox: No game is cooler
I don't think I'm ever going to understand why some people have what seems to be an outright phobia about bright colors. There are people who look down on WildStar and World of Warcraft and Free Realms because the games are colorful, stylized, and uniquely designed. I can't understand it, but I can accept it, even if I disagree with the premise. We've all got our own tastes. What I can't accept is people who try to argue that as a result, another game is somehow inherently better than these games because it's "not as cartoony." This is something that crops up time and again in MMO fandom, this sort of never-ending back-and-forth over how one game is cooler than others because of reasons. Here's the skinny, people: Your game is not cooler than anyone else's video game. Your playstyle is not cooler. Your choices in story are not cooler. And if you're trying to play games based on which game is the coolest, you are officially doing this wrong.
February 26th sees the inclusion of trading post previews for Guild Wars 2
Guild Wars 2 gives you a fair amount of control over the appearance of your character's armor and weapons, but it's still heartrending to spend a bunch of money on the trading post only to find out that you've bought a Merciless Jacket of Searing Ugliness. But fret not, fashion-minded players! Starting with the game's next major patch on February 26th, you will be able to preview armor on your characters straight from the trading post! Are there other features in the patch? Well, technically, yeah. I mean, you can choose your daily achievements instead of having to fulfill an arbitrary set, which will work nicely with the existing Laurels rewards. And there's new team vs. team matchups in PvP, guild missions in PvE, and further elaboration of the large meta-storyline started back in January. There's even a new PvP map. But who cares about any of that? The important part is previewing items off the trading post. [Thanks to Jesse for the tip!]
The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar style
There's no two ways about it: The way that WildStar looks is just plain going to turn some people off. And while I'm hesitant to say those people are wrong, exactly, I think they're missing the mark something fierce. When the game's first trailer hit, the look was what immediately attracted me to the game. Not that it had a whole lot of competition; back then, we knew the name, we'd seen a couple of vague concepts, and we had a wonderfully animated trailer. Picking the last item out of those three was almost just choosing the more substantial option. But I won't lie -- I loved the visual style, and when it became clear that the game was bearing that out all the way along, that just made me pleased as could be. Some aren't as fond of it, that's for sure. But I can think of some good reasons for the game to look how it does and at least one major flaw in the arguments against the look. I might be wrong, but heck, I'd be doing a disservice not to speak my mind on the subject.
The Daily Grind: Do you leave cloaks and hats toggled on or off?
I might just be thinking this because I recently watched Zoolander, but style is so very important to us gamers. We don't just want to kick butt; we want to kick butt and look incredible while we do it. And in my experience, style can be made and shattered depending on the accessories. Hats and cloaks are two visual options that many MMOs allow us to toggle on and off. Some folks like 'em; some detest them. For me, I almost never like cloaks (they hide the rest of the body and armor), and I'll wear a hat only if it completes an ensemble or doesn't fully cover up the hair. But that's just me, and I want to hear about you. Do you toggle your hats and cloaks on or off, and why? This is what we'll discuss over breakfast scones. Pass the jam, please. Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Pocket Planes gets a trailer, looks great
I first saw Pocket Planes, Nimblebit's next freemium title, running at GDC earlier this year. Being a huge fan of both Pocket Frogs and Tiny Tower, I can't wait to see it in action on my iPhone and iPad. Unfortunately, the game's not out yet (it's still "coming soon"), but Nimblebit has released a trailer below, so you can at least see what the game is like and how it plays. The game uses the same 8-bit aesthetic and characters as Tiny Tower, but instead of building floors in a building, you're growing an empire of airplanes, flying them around the world for fun and profit. You'll need to build up both planes and airports, and different types of planes fly at different speeds and have different fuel capacities, which can limit how far they can travel. The game looks really fun. It's a little more complicated than Tiny Tower, but shouldn't be any less addictive. As soon as it's on the App Store, we'll let you know.
Those suave Google glasses are now patent-protected
Google has successfully patented the "ornamental design" of its augmented reality eyewear. To you, me and Aunty Dee they might look almost like regular Ray-Bans, but there's a lot of secret technology concealed within those sleek lines and Google evidently wants to prevent others from copying their appearance. After all, if people started faking Project Glass, it'd be impossible to tell if we're being properly scanned or merely checked out.
Ask Massively: Always on the wrong weekends edition
So for those of you wondering, the move went quite well. The expected problems occurred at times of minimal inconvenience, and we almost completely finished unpacking at the new place in one weekend. But we still have to finish up at the old apartment, so of course the first beta for The Secret World is scheduled to be this weekend when we're slotted to head down there. Just like how Guild Wars 2 scheduled a beta weekend for our last pre-move weekend. So that's awesome. This week's Ask Massively does not discuss this particular state of awesome. Instead, it discusses the deferred awesomeness of switching combat styles on the fly and what games feature something similar. If you've got a question you'd like to see answered in a future installment of the column, leave it in the comments below or send it to ask@massively.com. Questions may be edited slightly for brevity and/or clarity.
