Author: Stuff writer

The latest tidbit unearthed in the slow (official) trickle of news and updates coming from the Star Wars: Episode VII film set is a rather significant one: a first look at the new version of the iconic X-Wing fighter. In the latest clip to promote the Star Wars-themed Force for Change initiative for UNICEF, Episode VII director J.J. Abrams pleads for viewers to support the charity and have a chance to win a visit to the film set, not to mention a private screening before its release in December 2015. And as the camera pulls back, we get our debut…

We’re pretty sure that Samsung is working on a “Prime” premium edition of the Galaxy S5 smartphone – and now it transpires that it may well be doing the same with the upcoming Galaxy Note 4 phablet. According to Korean site ET News, the Galaxy Note 4 Prime will have a couple of hardware features to set it apart from the vanilla version. Firstly, it’ll have a stronger – and probably better-looking – metal body packed with fancy materials including aluminium, stainless steel and magnesium. Which totally makes sense in a premium edition of a normally-plastic device. More interestingly, there…

Oculus VR is reportedly building its own motion controls to complement the upcoming Oculus Rift headset, set to be released in September of this year. CNet is reporting that the company have been using some of the money (from the Facebook purchase) to create more product prototypes, particularly motion control. “People familiar with the development process” claim that Oculus is working on controllers that will track hand and body movements, making for a more immersive experience. Several companies have developed motion controllers that work with the VR headset, such as PrioVR; a few have even taken to outside funding channels…

The antenna on-the-go goTenna is a 6-inch-long baton that connects to your Bluetooth-enabled smartphone and facilitates interaction with other goTenna-connected smartphones. Okay, let’s get serious. It propagates on an extremely low-band frequency which science tells us means it’s very long (stop it) range and navigates easily around obstacles. We swear, that’s the last innuendo. Daniela Perdomo, goTenna’s CEO and co-founder, says its range is only limited by the horizon: signals can go as far as 14km in open environments. The range decreases with increasing obstacles, but she claims signals can extend to four miles in forested areas and one mile in…

Nissan believes it will have self-driving cars on the road as early as 2020. CEO Carlos Ghosn made the lofty pledge in a speech to the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan – though he also admitted that the technology isn’t currently where it needs to be. And Nissan wants to get there first, even if other carmakers and Google are also in the race. The Japanese carmaker isn’t keen on entering a partnership with Google, which makes sense: After all, if the Nexus smartphone and tablet situation is any indicator, such partnerships usually end up with Google getting the branding…

Researchers at MIT have discovered a way to harvest an electrical charge from water droplets – and the principle could form the basis for future gadget chargers. As water condenses (think dewdrops) it can be made to jump from one specially-treated surface to a copper plate, gaining a tiny electrical charge in the process. The charge may be small, but by building a special device consisting of interleaved metal plates (any conductive metal will work, so it could be made from aluminium, much cheaper than copper) enough energy could be harnessed to charge a mobile phone or other device. You’ll…

We love the LG G3 (read our review to see precisely why) but there’s no denying that it’s a seriously large smartphone. Its screen is 5.5in, which would nudge it squarely into phablet territory in many people’s books. But don’t fret, you poor small-handed folk, because LG has kept you in its thoughts. The company has just announced the LG G3 Beat, a (slightly) more compact edition of the G3 – and there are a few nips and tucks that trim the price too. The G3 Beat has a 5in 1280 x 720 screen (a big change from the G3’s…

Amazon appears to be in the process of testing a monthly subscription service offering unfettered access to audiobooks. Think Spotify or Netflix, but for literature rather than music or movies. Dubbed Kindle Unlimited, the existence of the service was revealed via some test pages spotted by users of the Kindle message board. Many of the pages have been taken down but remain in Google’s cache, and they reveal quite a bit. One page in the cache boasts of “over 600,000 titles and thousands of audiobooks”, available on “any device”, and a subscription fee of $9.99 per month. Another page, still…

Almost 15 years since Honda revealed Asimo (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility, in case you were wondering), the robot’s latest upgrades have seen it gain an array of new abilities, along with an eerie, permanent smirk. And no wonder it’s smiling. Asimo’s physical improvements include new legs that laugh in the face of uneven terrain, walk backwards, hop and jump, and even run at speeds of 9km per hour. Asimo’s hands, which now have 13 degrees of freedom, have also been redesigned, enabling the robot to hold and manipulate objects (preferably not our fragile skulls) without crushing or dropping them…

BlackBerry sure took its sweet time fully embracing touch displays in recent years, and now looks to be the last in the pack in the mobile space to implement a voice-activated assistant feature in its OS. The BlackBerry Assistant will debut in BlackBerry 10.3 on the BlackBerry Passport—the company’s very large phablet with a 1440×1440 square screen and condensed physical keyboard—and deliver an array of voice commands to use to access features and tweak settings. A post on the company’s Inside BlackBerry blog today details its use, with social media marketing lead Donny Halliwell expectedly praising its accuracy and usefulness.…