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Predict and win with Champions League Predictor
The first set of matches in this year's UEFA Champions League competition are underway across Europe. Now you can keep on top of all the action and by predicting the outcome of the upcoming games earn the crown as the top predictor by using the new app Champions League Predictor. This free universal app requires iOS 6.0 or later. The Champions League features all the top club teams of Europe including Barcelona and Real Madrid from Spain, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund and English sides Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City. With Champions League Predictor you can follow all the games and news updates plus utilize your soccer knowledge and insight to predict the outcomes of the matches. Each user,once they are registered, receives a bankroll of 900 units. You can also earn an additional 500 tokens by reviewing the app. They you enter your prediction for the final score and the game result. Each correct score and result earns you one point and that translates to 100 units. Users can use the units to pay for available downloads inside the app. Champions League Predictor also features a list of stories about the teams competing in the competition and some of the special players such as Ronaldo from Real Madrid, Lionel Messi of Barcelona, and Diego Costa of Chelsea. These stories feature not only their efforts in the Champions League but also how they are doing with their respective teams in their home leagues such as the English Premier League, Serie A in Italy and La Liga in Spain. The first round of matches are the Group Stages and then the top two teams in each group advance to the knockout stage. Finally the winners advance and the top two teams meet in the Champions League final to be held this year in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin on June 6th. UEFA will crown its champion and you could be the top predictor amongst all the users of this app. As you are successful with your match and score predictions you will rise in the ranks and could end up on top of the list if you can use your knowledge in picking winners. You will find other apps that duplicate much of what is included in Champions League Predictor such as fixtures, scores, and news feeds. This app does offer some downloads such as team wallpapers and ringtones for your favorite team competing in this year's event. The new wrinkle in Champions League Predictor is the the competition it offers by making correct predictions. So you can have some fun and earn bragging rights along with staying on top of the competition.
EA inks exclusive deal with Barcelona for FIFA, PES gets Argentinian teams
When you think about soccer, FC Barcelona is one of the teams that likely comes to mind, especially because its forward, Lionel Messi, is arguably the best player in the world and co-cover athlete for FIFA 14. EA Sports certainly recognized this when it announced this morning that it settled on a three-year exclusive agreement to become the "official video game partner" of the soccer club. With the partnership in place, EA captured 3D head scans of 17 Barcelona players for use in FIFA 14. Meanwhile, Konami recently announced an agreement to bring 20 soccer teams from the Argentinian Football Association to Pro Evolution Soccer 2014. The license isn't on an exclusive basis according to Konami's announcement. The list of 20 AFA teams to be officially licensed (featuring correct kits, logos and team colors) for the game can be found after the break. Local Argentinian Fox Sports announcers Mariano Closs and Fernando Niembro will also be included in the game.
'60 Minutes' shows how Gaudi's Sagrada Familia inches toward completion, with help from some aeronautical software
Barcelona's Sagrada Familia has been a labor of love. Still unfinished over 130 years since construction started, Antoni Gaudi's designs have been given a boost through advanced software more typically used in aeronautical projects. CBS' 60 Minutes took a look at the recent development of the huge church, a building where every detail of its facade attempts to detail the story of the bible. While the architect had crafted elaborate plaster models of the finished designs, these were unfortunately destroyed during the Spanish Civil War. Building continued, but slowed after the second facade was finished, as the construction workers and designers had no idea how to follow the original plans for the rest of the building. This was where architect Mark Burrey and others were brought in to reverse engineer Gaudi's models, which were now piles of shards. Using advanced design software typically used in auto and airplane design, they were able to figure our how to model the advanced shapes and surfaces that Gaudi's avant garde plans demanded and building continued. You can watch the full story of the Sagrada Familia's continued development after the break -- with no extraterrestrial interference.
The Weekly Roundup for 02.18.2013
You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 7 days -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
GE, Urban Green Energy set up first integrated, wind-powered EV charging station (video)
GE and Urban Green Energy might not be the first to install a wind-powered EV charging station, but the two may be the best prepared to take the concept to a grander scale. The partnership just installed the first Sanya Skypump just outside of Barcelona to serve corporate and government drivers with truly clean energy at levels that meet their typically heftier demands. It's billed as one of the first properly integrated wind-powered EV chargers, and it's undoubtedly one of the more elegant: one of UGE's 4K wind turbine towers catches energy from the breeze above, while a GE Durastation tucked neatly at the bottom provides high-voltage charging for EV drivers undoubtedly eager to get moving once again. Don't worry if you don't speak enough Catalan to charge up at the initial location, either, as plans are underway to bring Skypumps to malls and universities across Australia and the US before 2012 is over. The only catch is the frown you'll likely get if you try to plug in a personal car for a top-up -- let's hope the attention swings towards completely green power sources for commuters in the near future.
Daily Update for July 16, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Barcelona Apple Store construction sign has unique Gaudi-esque logo (Updated)
While Apple's retail outlets housed in malls or shopping centers haven't needed much exterior tweaking, the freestanding stores generally get a more sophisticated architectural treatment to make sure they fit in with the other buildings nearby. This is particularly true of the stores in European cities, where the outlets are often housed in historical buildings. AppleInsider points out a construction sign at the new Apple Store that's arriving soon in Barcelona, Spain that's taking design cues from Spanish Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi, with a multi-colored stained glass trencadís mosaic Apple logo catching the eyes of passersby. The new store is located on Passeig de Gràcia in Barcelona, near Casa Batlló and Casa Milà, two famous buildings by the architect best known for the Sagrada Familia Basilica. Gaudi was well known for using stained glass trencadís mosaic in his structures, and a sign at the construction site for the new store says that it will be "custom made to fit Barcelona." It's not clear if the stained-glass mosaic logo is part of the final store design, but at least while the construction sign remains, Gaudi's legacy continues in the shape of an Apple logo. The store is the second in Barcelona, and Apple has signed a 10-year lease for the building for US$5.1 million annually. Update: ipordelante.com has a nice gallery of the new logo and mosaics, including several close-ups.
LG Optimus Vu launches in Korea, gets priced
LG's 5-inch smartphone has finally arrived -- at least over in Korea. While 4:3 ratio display raised a few eyebrows during its debut at MWC, the IPS display, lightweight frame and stylus has us chasing after a review model to give it the full run-down. Anyone in LG's homeland can beat us to the punch -- it's now on sale priced just under the Galaxy Note, a device that's been around for a few months. Expect to pay 990,000 won ($890) for a carrier-free version, but importers should 'note' that they won't be able to take advantage of that built-in TV tuner. We're still sniffing out details on prices and launch dates for the US. Hopefully, the international model will arrive with a rubberdium stylus -- we just want to know what rubberdium is.
Join us for Microsoft's Windows 8 press conference tomorrow at 9am EST!
If you're Microsoft and in the process of overhauling Windows so that it's equally at home on PCs and tablets, it would make sense to unveil a semi-final version at the world's premier wireless show. That's exactly what's going to happen tomorrow, when the company's executive team takes the stage here in Barcelona to show off all the changes it's made to Win8 since we got hands-on with the Developer Preview five months ago. Though we still won't know tomorrow what the final version will look like, we'll have a much firmer idea, as this will be the first version available to the general Windows-using populace. So what does Redmond have up its sleeve? Will the Windows Store open for business? A first look at some native touch-friendly apps? And what's to become of the Start button? Bookmark this page and come back tomorrow at 9am EST (3:30pm local time), when we'll be firing off up-to-the-minute updates. See you then! February 29, 2012 9:00 AM EST
Toyota and Samsung turn your smartphone into a second display for your ride
Toyota and Samsung are pairing up to get the latter's smartphones to work perfectly with the former's vehicles. The duo will launch Samsung Mobile Car Application to sync your Android device to the in-vehicle-infotainment (IVI) systems of modern cars. You'll be able to use voice control and improve the accuracy of your GPS by hooking it up to mobile internet. At the minute it's just an announcement, we won't see any products entering the market until the second quarter of the year. They just wanted to tease, those lovable scamps.
HTC to launch "Dragon" series smartphone in mainland China, expand to international markets in the future
HTC may have just announced its highfalutin One family of smartphones in Barcelona, but it's still the year of the Dragon back home -- and the Taiwanese outfit has the slabs to prove it. Meet the "Dragon" series, a trio of 4-inch Android handsets, each sporting a 5 megapixel camera, a 1GHz single-core processor and Beats Audio, all wrapped up in an Ice Cream Sandwich slathered in Sense 4.0A. Although the Dragon series seems a bit like the HTC One V -- albeit with a larger screen -- the outfit says it won't be packing the HTC ImageChip that hopes to give the One series' cameras a wicked performance boost. Sadly, the "Dragon" moniker is a temporary handle, and the three phones are only coming to mainland China. HTC says there are plans to expand the family in the future for international distribution, but for now the handsets are only coming to China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile.
We're live from Mobile World Congress 2012!
It may be the dead of winter, but you wouldn't know that in Barcelona. The sun's shining bright on Fira, the Spanish city's main exhibition center, as construction crews work furiously (read: gather on staircases for seemingly day-long lunch breaks) to prepare for Mobile World Congress. We've arrived in the Catalonian capital to bring you the latest and greatest from el mundo de la telefonia movil, beginning with tomorrow's manufacturer previews. For now, grab a glass of sangria and enjoy el fin de semana -- the fun begins at dawn.Protip: Use our "mwc2012" tag to see all of this week's Mobile World Congress news and hand-ons!
ASUS MWC teaser video 'Twice the Detail' hints at higher-res tablet display
What's not to love about a short video insinuating something marvelous may be coming soon -- especially if it means a hi-res screen on a tablet, à la that purported Retina Display we saw a few days back. We have to give ASUS credit for this one, as it's teasing us with a clip titled "Twice the Detail, Twice the Fun." The vid's lead actors are a plethora of colorful marbles and a beige box that's very reminiscent of the form factor we're used to seeing on slates. And, let's not forget to mention the quick cameo by the famed Google search bar, a weather widget and a few other walk-in icons like YouTube's own. Could it be a case of the "Mo Pixels, Mo Problems Detail?" It may be a teaser for that Transformer Prime TF700T we saw carrying a 1920 x 1200 LCD at CES, but then again, it might not. Either way, we'll find out for sure when we arrive in Barcelona for MWC. In the meantime, take a virtual jump past the break to check out the full 17-second clip.
LG Optimus Vu officially revealed ahead of MWC with stylus, 1.5GHz CPU (Updated)
Similar to its pre-CES reveals, LG just couldn't wait for Mobile World Congress to get underway on the 27th before showing off its new Optimus Vu handset. These new pics offer a much clearer look at its 4x3 aspect ratio, 1024x768 res, stylus-friendly 5-inch IPS LCD display, while the official specs confirm rumors it would pack a 1.5GHz dual core CPU, 8MP camera, LTE, 2080mAh battery and Android 2.3 in a slim 8.5mm thick frame. An upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich is promised within three months of its launch, currently scheduled for March on Korean carriers SK Telecom and LG+. Check the gallery for a few more glamour shots of this new Galaxy Note competitor, and see if wider truly is better.Update: You'll find a few more official pictures in the gallery below and the English PR with details on its "QuickClip" hotkey for one-button screenshots and memos and the "Rubberdium" stylus after the break, plus a quick size comparison vs. the Note, Galaxy S II Global and iPhone 4S.
Microsoft celebrating leap year right by launching Windows 8 Consumer Preview at MWC
Perhaps celebrating a push toward the mobile space with its traditionally desktop-bound OS -- or maybe just doing its best to further confuse the similar naming conventions with its forthcoming smartphone operating system -- Microsoft today sent out invites for a February 29th Mobile World Congress event that will see the launch of its Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Details are scarce about the two-hour event, but you'd better believe that we'll be there in Barcelona with bells on.
Comcast shows off its new 'Barcelona' HD guide upgrade
We've already gotten a large eyeful of Comcast's next-gen Xcalibur guide that's on the way next year with social networking tie ins and apps, but until that arrives, what can we hope for on the existing Scientific Atlanta, Cisco, and Motorola cable boxes? Sr. Director of Video Product Development Ted Hodgins has the answer, dropping in a link to the company's new Barcelona guide that it is already delivering to Anyroom DVR customers in Florida now, and will roll out in more markets before the end of the year. Like the upgraded guides we've seen for FiOS and TiVo, this iteration is built for HDTVs, with 16x9 graphics and far more listings information than was previously available on one screen. Other new features include the option to filter listings down to HD, premium, kids, movies, or sports content, easy jumping between days and saved searches. When we first laid eyes on another version of the software nearly four years ago we were impressed by its slick looks, but while it's still a major upgrade over the current decade-old cable box interfaces, in 2011 it takes more than a simple facelift to impress us. Hit the gallery for a few screenshots or click the source link below to meet the new guide before it rolls out in your area and see if its enough to hold you over for the time being. [Thanks, cypherstream] %Gallery-140085%
Time Out offering free iPhone city travel guides until May 2
Time Out is offering a selection of its popular city guides for iPhone for free until May 2. Cities the guides cover include Melborne, London, Paris, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Sydney and Zagreb. Each guide allows you to navigate a city's tourist spots, nightlife and restaurants easily. As with all Time Out guides, they are written by locals so that you're sure to get the best information available. Grab the guides while they're free. Normal pricing is US$4.99 per app. You can download them all here. Thanks to reader Greg for the tip.
Kinect hack turns tourists into 3D souvenirs (video)
As souvenirs go, a miniature replica of yourself -- striking a pose of your choosing on Barcelona's La Rambla street -- is a far sight more original than a bullfights-and-senoritas snow globe. This past January, the hilariously titled BlablabLAB enlisted three Kinects and a RapMan 3.1 to snap passersby and render them into personalized tchotchkes, in a project called Be Your Own Souvenir. Subjects stood atop a small platform, mimicking the human statues on La Rambla, as the Kinects captured their likeness in full 360-degree glory. The resulting images were then processed as a mesh reconstruction, saved as a G-code file, and then fed through a 3D printer -- and voila, out popped the tiny statuettes. If you're a fan of flashy editing and Kinect-based street experiments, check out the video after the break.
Engadget Mobile Podcast 077: Mobile World Congress - 02.19.2011
Mobile World Congress felt like a whole darn lifetime. Or did it feel like it was gone in the blink of an eye? Somewhere between the two, probably. Anyway! We take time to reflect on it, figure out what our faves were, and wrap up some unfinished business with the help of Joanna Stern. It's like that song "No Sleep Til Brooklyn," but more like "No Sleep Til After Barcelona," dig?Hosts: Chris Ziegler, Myriam Joire (tnkgrl)Guests: Vlad Savov, Joanna SternProducer: Trent WolbeMusic: Daestro - Light Powered (Ghostly International)00:01:20 - Huawei IDEOS X3 hands-on (video)00:06:42 - Acer Liquid mt hands-on (video)00:15:34 - Motorola Atrix 4G pegged for February 21st pre-order delivery00:26:05 - NVIDIA announces quad-core Kal-El SOC, promises it in tablets by August (video)00:31:45 - Motorola: 28 percent of 2010 revenue came from Verizon00:39:05 - Motorola Droid X 2 leaks, more details emerge00:50:00 - Samsung Epic 4G officially signed up for Froyo starting February 21st01:00:27 - The Engadget Interview: Microsoft's Aaron Woodman talks Windows Phone 7 and Nokia01:09:53 - Adéu, Barcelona: Mobile World Congress 2011 is overHear the podcastSubscribe to the podcast[iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes[RSS MP3] Add the Engadget Mobile Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically[RSS AAC] Add the Engadget Mobile Podcast feed (in enhanced AAC) to your RSS aggregator[Zune] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in the Zune MarketplaceDownload the podcastLISTEN (MP3)LISTEN (AAC)Contact the podcastpodcast (at) engadgetmobile (dot) com.Follow us on Twitter@tnkgrl @engadgetmobile @zpower @vladsavov @joannastern
We're live at Mobile World Congress 2011!
Que parles català? Que parles smartphones? The former question we pose to ourselves on the ground, relegated to making wild hand gestures when asking for directions. The latter question, well... ready or not, we're about to inundate your retinal receptors with all the mobile news that's fit to print, post, transmit, download, and address in a stamped envelope delivered on horseback. The Engadget crew has touched down in gorgeous Barcelona, Spain, and is gearing up for a week covering Mobile World Congress, starting tomorrow with a trifecta of afternoon events from the likes of Sony Ericsson, Samsung, and Nokia. Stay tuned to the "MWC2011" tag for all your coverage needs, or just keep it locked on Engadget -- trust us, you won't be able to miss it.
