Light Start – Cortana promises, gold Gear S2 Classic, Pokemon Super Bowl, and a Selfie app

Cortana’s going to be reminding you to do those things you said you would

Your move, Siri. Microsoft have announced a couple of new features for their Cortana digital helper and one of those is the ability to analyse your meetings and point out conflicts, odd times and other things you might miss in a particularly busy week. But we’d throw that feature out if we only had to pick one because the other will save our bacon. Cortana will soon be able to scan your email and remind you of that thing you said you were going to do. She won’t automatically set a reminder based on your communications but Cortana will prompt you to create one so that you don’t forget those eggs or a small chicken for the weekend. We’re not sure why you’d want a small chicken but we’re not asking any questions. And nor will Cortana.

Source: Windows (YouTube)

Price projections for the gold Gear S2 Classic put it in at over R9,000

So you want a gold smartwatch but your family/bank account/insurance company will kill you if you drop $17,000 (R282,0000? Crap, really?) on a gold Apple Watch. What to do? You could grab a Gear S2 Classic from Samsung. It’s set to launch globally from this week (yesterday, in fact) and it’ll set you back around €480 for the gold one. In local terms, what with markups and our terribly friendly exchange rate – if you’re travelling to South Africa from a country that actually has money – you’ll be able to get that gold Gear S2 Classic for just over R9,000. Of course it’s not ever going to be as ostentatious as Apple’s contender. That one’s solid gold. Samsung’s offering is just gold plate over stainless steel.

Source: via Ars Technica

Pokémon turns 20 this year, here is their Super Bowl TV commercial

Wait a second, why would Nintendo want to broadcast a Pokemon commercial during the Super Bowl? Well, the series is 20 years old now (yes, really) so fans, assuming they were ten years old at the start, are in their 30s now. And judging by the number of people we know in their 30s who still play Pokemon, Nintendo’s on to a winner with this one. And for long-time fans this live-action commercial can be dissected for ages and you’ll just keep on turning up new info relating to the game series. That is, assuming you can get over how old it’s just made you feel.

Source: Nintendo (YouTube)

Microsoft makes their Selfie iOS app useful, lets you share to other platforms

Selfies aren’t hard, right? You don’t need a specific app just to take a photo of yourself, do you? Microsoft thinks you do, which is where we got Microsoft Selfie from. And the app has just gotten an update, which allows users to share their scientifically-taken shots with social media. They started out with what they call Intelligent Processing and something else called a Digital Face Clean, which makes you look prettier than you actually are. That’s not the clever bit though, the automatic cleanup hangs on to features that you might like, such as tattoos and facial hair. See? Intelligent selfie technology. Anywho, that’s why the company have waited for an update to add the ability to share these pics with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Now go on out there and do some science on yourself.

Source: Microsoft Selfie (iOS)