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VR at the Tate Modern's Modigliani exhibition is no gimmick
In recent years, HTC has partnered with several museums to cultivate VR as a tool for art and learning. New projects are always in the works, and recently the company launched the Vive Arts program, reaffirming its commitment to working with developers and cultural institutions to further explore VR as an artistic and educational medium. The first installation under the Vive Arts banner has now opened at London's Tate Modern gallery as part of a new exhibition celebrating late-19th/early-20th-century Italian painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani. And to its credit, the VR portion of this retrospective is no gimmick.
Uber partners with AT&T to bring preloaded apps to your new phone
Uber's growing like a weed, and it's about to get a lot more exposure for people who may not have tried or heard about the ridesharing service. CEO Travis Kalanick announced a strategic partnership with AT&T on stage at Code Conference. Uber drivers will use phones running on AT&T's network, but more importantly, the company's app -- which consumers use to call for a ride and track the cars -- will be preloaded on an unspecified number of devices on the carrier. There's no word on the financial obligations, nor did we hear when this transition will take place. If you haven't used Uber before, be prepared to get to know the service a little better, whether you like it or not.
Dropbox joins arms with Sony Ericsson and Softbank, looks to expand elsewhere
By Dropbox's own numbers, its base has grown from five million to 25 million users in the last year, and now claims paying customers in 175 countries. Not content with this explosion, however, the company is establishing partnerships in the mobile arena to kick its growth into hyperdrive. Sony Ericsson is the first willing participant, and several of its phones (including the Arc and Play) will ship preloaded with the software throughout ten European countries. On the mobile carrier side, Tokyo-based Softbank will soon include the blue box on a handful of its Android devices, and Verizon is being courted by Dropbox, too -- nothing definite between these two, however. Good first steps, but if the company really wants to get rolling, it might want to pair up with a phone that has world domination in mind. Just a thought.
HTC Sense's new map pre-caching demoed on video
If you were paying attention during HTC's keynote earlier this morning, you'll have noted Peter Chou dropped a big old promise on us all: no more waiting for maps to load when zooming or scrolling. Pre-cached maps are one of the headline new features in the upgraded Sense that accompanies the Desire HD and Desire Z's announcement today, so we naturally had to go have a peek for ourselves. Requiring no internet connection, the Desire HD on hand sauntered through the streets of Sao Paulo and it was true that there were none of the aggravating grey squares of doom that we've grown used to when panning around. What isn't true, however, is HTC's claim that there's no waiting to be done. Responsiveness on these maps is far from perfect and patience will still need to be exercised. Notably, HTC said that you'll be able to download city maps free of charge, but navigation and other additional services will cost you. A final note is merited for the use of the phone's digital compass to rotate the map with you -- so that the map adjusts itself to whatever direction you point the phone. A very classy little inclusion. Eric Lin was on hand to answer the question of when this new Sense might trickle down to the classic Desire or other handsets in HTC's portfolio. Well, his answer was a non-answer: no roadmap or schedule has been set and HTC isn't ruling anything out just yet.
World of Warcraft hard drive by Transcend
I swear I came up with this idea yesterday -- my hard drive has been having problems with World of Warcraft, and the thought occurred to me to buy an external USB hard drive and get WoW and all of my addons loaded on it. That way, I could not only avoid the errors on my current hard drive, but I could also take my installation with me whereever I went. I wasn't sure it would work (and after a few repairs and a reinstallation, I appear to have WoW working again), so I haven't followed it up.But a company called Transcend was way ahead of me. In Asia, they're selling a hard drive preloaded with a working Wrath installation on it. So all you need to do to play Warcraft on any computer with a USB hookup is plug in and run. You'd likely have to adjust the graphics settings depending on which computer you plugged into, but it's a great idea. Available sizes run from 160gb to 500gb, so I'd assume as well that you can use the rest of the drive as normal.It looks official as well, but you never know -- it could be the The9, the company that runs Warcraft in Asia, has approved it, or Transcend could just be doing this on their own. Either way, this wouldn't be too hard to make yourself here in the states -- buy an HD, install WoW, and there you go.
