This week Mobile World Congress convened in Barcelona. While there were great announcements and product demos we’ve collected some of the most interesting ones.
Thermalphone – Predator Mode
Cat has built Flir’s standalone thermal camera into the body of the phone, alongside a regular smartphone camera. It allows the S60 to capture a live thermal image and measure surface temperatures, all while recording both stills and video.
LG also announced the LG 360 VR headset- with dual 1.88-inch 960x720 displays that connects to the LG G5 with a USB-C cable for processing and control. It will support YouTube 360 and Cardboard. LG seems to be dipping their toes into the VR field, having announced several products in the category.
LG 360 Cam for 360-degree video- a dual-sensor spherical camera that captures 16-megapixel stills or 2K video also with support for YouTube 360. LG 360 cam seems to be taking the 'Go Pro model' of creating an efficient relatively inexpensive camera able to get people recording quickly.
LG announced the Rolling Bot, a spherical robot that has a camera, mic, speakers, IR blaster and laser pointer and can be controlled remotely by a phone app.
Samsungs new S7 and S7 edge to come with a free Gear VR and $50 of VR content if pre-order, while supplies last.
Samsung Gear 360 spherical camera -The dual-lens 360-degree camera has a flat bottom to rest on surfaces and a microSD card slot that supports up to 128GB cards.
HTC Vive VR headset- will sell for $799 with preorders starting February 29th. Shipping starting early April. That price includes two hand-tracking controllers and two Lighthouse laser tracking boxes for headset tracking and for a limited time, two free games.
Welcome to episode 167 of Geek Bytes Podcast.
I’m Ramon Mejia and I’m Edgardo Acosta
Every podcast we bring you the roundup of the week’s best Geek and Tech news, then we discuss that news and anything else we’re interested in that week.
In Geek News this week, we’ll talk about video game news, Batman’s penis, PG-13 Deadpool, tons of superhero casting news, movie trailer showdown and more...
That’s it for the show
If you like the podcast and want to help support us you can find out all the ways to do so at geekbytespodcast.com/support
Thanks for watching and listening.
For the Geek Bytes Podcast I’m Ramon Mejia and I’m Edgar Acosta. Now Go Geek out about something.
(Music 9)
Music Credits
"Happy Bee", "Movement Proposition", "Theme for Harold (var.3) ", "Take the Lead"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
The good folks at Soundbooth Theater, the narrators for the hit LitRPG series Dungeon Crawler Carl, have released a stand alone song in the voice of Princess Donut from the same series.
Also, Pirateaba, author of the Wandering Inn series has a Kickstarter for a connected graphic novel for that story univers. Already funded at $38K.
Just a quick reminder that the graphic novel Kickstarter project for Tao Wong’s System Apocalypse is ending in a few days.
Mountaindale Press has announced that they will be at Dragon Con. Not only that, but they’ll be hosting a special meet and greet event.
Johnathan Brooks, author of a number of LitRPG Dungeon Core stories, has been working with a game development company to create a new game. Based on his Dungeon Crafting series
Tao Wong, Jay Boyce, Charles Dean, and Apollos Thorne talk about writing LitRPG/ Gamelit for an online panel for BrambleCon - The Intersection of Writing and Gaming
I wanted to announce that several LitRPG authors will be attending the Fantasy Book Fest APRIL 17-19, 2020 in Anaheim, CA. The schedule of authors and events is still being formed but it already includes writer and reader panels, including a LitRPG panel. LitRPG Authors attending include: James A. Hunter, Apollos Thorne, Domino Finn, and R.A. Mejia
MSE and Space Knight Indigogo campaign
Update: campain reached its $15,000 minimum in less than 24 hours. It's fully funded for ebooks, audiobook, and print copies. Though there are some stretch goals.
The campaign also has a different set of rewards so that those who just want an ebook copy can get theirs on MSE's website sooner.
Don’t forget that the GameLit Society is still doing their annual charity drive on GoFundMe for Shriners Hospital for Children. So far they’ve raised $1,000 of their $3,000 goal. Go donate if you want to give to a good cause.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/gamelit-society-philanthropy-pt-3
Soundbooth Theater had a very entertaining Facebook Live Stream celebrating the end of the year. They had on a ton of guests including some of your favorite LitRPG narrators and authors. Go check it out.
Mountaindale Press did a Facebook Live! interview with some of their authors to celebrate their one year anniversary as a publishing company.
Magic Dome Books, publishers of many of your favorite Russian LitRPG titles, did an author interview with Michael R. Miller the author of Battle Spire.
Michael Scott Earle has launched the kickstarter to fund the next novel he is publishing. It only took hours to reach the initial $15K goal to produce an ebook, audiobook, and signed physical copies of the whole series. As is, it has over $44K in support for the project, showing that MSE does not need Amazon to make money. The project has become one of the 'most backed' fiction projects on the platform. Although the $1,000 pledge has been snagged, there is still the $5,500 one that will get you a weekend to hangout with MSE.