Light Start – GoPro drone delay, NX cartridges, mobile Netflix, and Intel drone upgrades
Brett Venter
GoPro’s having a tough year, and its also had to delay its drone to year-end
You have to feel for GoPro, in a business sense. It reported its financial results for the past year and the news isn’t great. The company has continued its losses, posting a revenue loss of 49.5% according to The Verge. It’s also swung from a $22 million profit last year to a loss of $121 million. And, if you were super-excited to see the company’s new Karma drone, you’re going to have to ask for one for Christmas. The drone has also been delayed. GoPro’s no doubt still got a few tricks up its sleeve, though, so we’ll have to reserve further judgment until its drone and the upcoming Omni 360-degree camera arrive. In the meantime, here’s a GoPro in space.
Nintendo’s NX console might be switching back to cartridges
We know that the Nintendo NX console will be launching some time in 2017 and we know that the Wii U and the NX will have games released for both platforms for a while. But that’s about all we know. We have some suspicions though, and there’s a whole new one now. The Nintendo NX could, possibly, make use of cartridges as opposed to optical media, according to a report from Screen Critics. A Nintendo supplier, Macronix, might have spilled the beans by revealing that the company has bought a massive load of the ROM chips that Macronix specialises in. Their purpose is to create game cartridges and they’re using a new fabrication process for Ninty’s order. Since the 3DS doesn’t use these carts (that we know of), the idea is that the Nintendo NX might be experimenting with the storage media. Especially since the new ROM chips are said to have a 32GB capacity, far more advanced than those the 3DS uses (8GB).
Netflix’s mobile app updates, lets you set your quality and data usage terms
If you’re an insatiable Netflix user, you’ll be pleased to note that you can now take it with you on your mobile and watch at your leisure, knowing just how much data you’re going to be using for that ‘I-should-really-be-working’ binge. Netflix has made changes to the mobile app for both Android and iOS which lets users set specific conditions on your quality and data usage, rather than just let Netflix do all the thinking. Users can set streaming to only work over Wi-Fi and also which video quality to use for cellular data usage. Setting it to Low will get you about four hours of video per GB, setting it to High will cut that down to one hour per GB. Now, if only mobile data wasn’t quite so expensive…
Intel have taken their Drone 100 show, last (and first) seen in Germany, on the road. They’ve travelled to Palm Springs in the States, we assume because there’s little wind, but before they were able to lift off 100 different drones — all controlled by the same operator — they had to get special permission from the FAA. Drone swarms are not really a thing in the US, no matter how many video games want you to think otherwise. Intel is getting better at controlling these things though, so it should come as no surprise that the company wants to scale up at some point, from controlling 100 drones at once to controlling 1,000. And that it’d like to do over stadiums at night. Should look mighty impressive. Or scary, depending on how many guns are mounted on each drone.
