Try Oculus at Best Buy

Today Oculus announced details of their plan to let users try out the Oculus Rift in Best Buy stores starting May 7th. Initially in 48 Best Buys, you’ll get to try demos like Oculus Dreamdeck, The Climb, and in the coming weeks, you’ll be able to explore the beautiful alien world of Farland.

There will also be a small number of Oculus Rifts to purchase at Best Buy and Amazon stores on May 7th. You don’t have to get angry if you’re still on that 3 month pre-order waiting list though. Oculus says you can opt to buy one of these Rifts in store at Best Buy and you’ll still get to keep your pre-order bonuses, just let them know so they won’t charge you again.

You can schedule your Rift demo with Oculus Live at Best Buy locations up to a month in advance. Guess they’re expecting quiet the rush.

Newt Returns in Alien 5

The Nerdist reports that Director Neill Blomkamp dropped some new concept art from Alien 5, featuring a badass, grown-up version of Newt, the young girl who survived the events of Aliens alongside Ripley. Newt and Corporal Hicks were revealed to have died when Alien 3 started. However, it looks like Blomkamp is going to ignore the story lines from Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection.

To us, this corrects one of the biggest flaws of Aliens 3. Newt was the gem of Aliens. 

Netflix ordered Punisher series

Entertainment Weekly has reported that Marvel has ordered a spin-off starring vigilante character introduced in Daredevil season 2.

Jon Bernthal will reprise his role as vengeful military veteran Frank Castle, who brings his own lethal form of justice to Hell’s Kitchen.

Writer and executive producer Steve Lightfoot will serve as showrunner.

Marvel’s The Punisher marks the sixth series ordered as part of the collaboration between Netflix and Marvel Television

SignAloud translation gloves

Two students from the University of Washington, Navid Azodi and Thomas Pryor, have created lightweight gloves that can translate sign language instantly.

The SignAloud glove prototype recognizes hand gesture and placements matching them to the correct American Sign Language word or phrase. Sensors throughout the glove pick up the placement and motion data of the hands which is sent to a computer via Bluetooth. The computer analyzes the data, searching for a correlation in its database, and if it recognizes a gesture, then the ASL translation is played through a speaker. This student project has since won the Lemelson-MIT Undergraduate Student Prize and $10,000.

Doctor Who’s New Companion

The BBC announced this week that Pearl Mackie has been named as the new Doctor Who companion alongside Peter Capaldi's Time Lord.

Mackie, 28, replaces Jenna Coleman, whose character Clara Oswald left the show in 2015.

Filming for the next series of the long-running science fiction show will start this year but air in 2017.

Nathan Fillion Joins Guardians Of The Galaxy As Wonder Man

While it’s been known for quite some time that the legendary Nathan Fillion will be make at least a small cameo on the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, recent photos from the set give some direct insight into just who he’ll be playing.

Several posters and a marquee reference Simon Williams, a character also known as Wonder Man within the Marvel canon. In the comics Wonder Man is a chemically altered superhuman rival to Tony Stark, due to his similar heritage as the child of a munitions industrialist. He’s been an Avenger and was involved in the Civil War plotline of the comics as well.

Nintendo pushes new Console to 2017

With flagging WiiU sales everyone suspected that Nintendo was working on a new console. Turns out everyone is correct, just not for this year.

TechCrunch reports that in the company’s latest financial forecasts, Nintendo formally announced that it “is currently developing a gaming platform codenamed ‘NX’ with a brand-new concept. NX will be launched in March 2017 globally.”

Along with that announcement came word that the next Legend of Zelda game will be a launch title for the NX while simultaneously being released for the Wii U in March 2017. No other details about the NX or its launch titles have been officially released.

Bioo Lite markets PHONE-OSYNTHES

A Barcelona-based company, Arkyne Technologies, wants to use a single plant to charge your phone.

The company’s product, a pot called the Bioo Lite, uses the energy generated by photosynthesis to charge smartphones. Bacteria in the pot breaks up the compounds, releasing electrons that travel along nanowires. The resulting electricity powers a typical USB port, where you can plug in your phone or tablet cable.

Arkyne Technologies claims the pot allows up to three charges per day at about the same speed the USB port on your computer would charge your phone. Bioo Lite will only work while the plant is alive, so taking care of the plant is crucial. If you kill your little green friend, you’ll have to replace it with a new one.

The pot is available for an early bird special of roughly $112 on Indiegogo. The company already surpassed its goal of raising nearly $17,000 and is estimated to begin shipping as early as December 2016. Like other Indiegogo campaigns, back at your own risk.

Apple sales down Stock drops

This week Apple reported their quarterly earnings. They posted quarterly revenue of $50.6 billion and quarterly net income of $10.5 billion, or $1.90 per diluted share.

These results compare to last year’s numbers of revenue of $58 billion and net income of $13.6 billion, or $2.33 per diluted share.

Many point to the loss of income from the drop in iPhone sales. Sales were down for the first time. They were 51.2 million, down 16%.

Apple stock dropped over 8.3% after the announcement.

http://techcrunch.com/gallery/everything-you-need-to-know-about-apples-second-quarter-results/

Rita Repulsa First Look

Entertainment Weekly brings us our first look at Elizabeth Banks as Rita Repulsa in the new Power Rangers movie!

http://www.people.com/article/elizabeth-banks-power-rangers-movie-rita-repulsa-first-look

Syfy orders Superman Prequel show

David S. Goyer’s long-gestating Superman prequel Krypton is a go at Syfy. After developing the project for more than a year Syfy has ordered a pilot episode.

Based on DC Comics characters created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Krypton is set two generations before the destruction of the legendary Man of Steel’s home planet. It follows Superman’s grandfather — whose House of El was ostracized and shamed — as he fights to redeem his family’s honor and save his beloved world from chaos.

Spider-Man Loses Keaton gains Downey

Deadline reports that Sony Pictures’ reboot of Spider-Man will include Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr., as it ramps up ahead of production ahead of a July 2017 release date. But the news today comes as Michael Keaton, who was being courted to play the villain in the pic, has fallen out of early talks and won’t be a part of the project. Keaton was previously in talks to play the villain in the movie, hypothetically as the Vulture.

Apple Transparency Report

This week Apple released a Transparency Report on requests from law enforcement. National Security Requests jumped from the 750-999 category to the up to the 1250 - 1,499 category. China requested the most number of accounts at 6,724, 53% of which were disclosed. The US was second with requests for 5,192 accounts 82% of which were disclosed. The most requests for help with devices came from Germany at 11,989, 52% where some data was disclosed.

The report is one of the few ways Apple is allowed to report on government requests for customer data.

http://thenextweb.com/apple/2016/04/19/apple-transparency-report-reveals-four-fold-increase-secret-us-government-orders/

Magic Leap sneak peek

Wired got an amazing sneak peek at what’s been happening at Magic Leap, the augmented reality company. While most of their work has been kept under wraps, we do know that the company has already secured over a billion dollars in funding from people like Peter Jackson and Andreessen Horowitz.

Along with the article in Wired, Magic Leap released a video showing off some of what their product can do. The company says the new video was "shot directly through Magic Leap technology," and contains no special effects or compositing. In it, you can see Minority Report-style notifications and graphics floating in mid-air, a 3D view of Mount Everest and a school of jellyfish swimming through the room.

Nanotubes..Transform!

You may already be familiar with the idea of robots putting themselves together if you’ve seen Transformers or the T-1000. However, researchers at Rice University have taken steps to make that a reality.

Recently, Rice University released a video that shows carbon nanotubes in a dish assemble themselves into a nanowire in seconds under the influence of a custom-built Tesla coil created by scientists at Rice University.

It’s a phenomenon called “Teslaphoresis” and it may pave the way for fascinating applications of nanotechnology.

The team led by Rice research scientist Paul Cherukuri sees its invention as setting a path toward the assembly of matter from the bottom up on nano and macro scales.

Amazon Monthly

Endgadget reports that Amazon introduced a $10.99/month payment option for Prime and a separate $8.99/month plan for just Prime Video in the US. Amazon UK already offers Prime Video separately for £5.99/month but no monthly Prime option.

The Verge notes Amazon started offering Sprint customers a monthly Prime option last month.

Cheater Detecting Mattress

Sleep tracking is nothing new, but one company wants to track when your mattress is being used, especially if you're not home.

A Spanish-based mattress company Durmet is touting its new Smarttress mattress with what it calls a Lover Detection System, which sends alerts to your smartphone if a partner may be cheating. Considering the mattress costs over $1000 (US), the money may be better spent on a couple’s therapist. 

Walmart expands its curbside grocery pickup

While still trying to compete with grocery delivery services like Amazon Fresh and Instacart, Walmart decided to let the delivery come to them.

Today, the retailer is announced an expansion of a grocery pickup service to a number of new markets, as well as a doubling of store pickup locations in several of its larger, established markets. This makes sense since Walmart already has a already established presence in most communities. A Walmart store was said to be located within 5 miles of 70 percent of the U.S. population.

Newly added markets include Kansas City; Boise, Idaho; Richmond and Virginia Beach, Virginia; Austin, Texas; Provo, Utah; Daphne, Alabama; and Charleston, South Carolina. Meanwhile, the doubling of pick up locations is taking places in markets like Dallas, Houston and Atlanta, the company says.

Customers are able to shop online throughout the week, adding items to their cart. Or they can create a quick order via the Walmart mobile app. When their cart is full, they can pick a time slot for their pickup then park in designated spaces at their local store. Orders placed by 10 AM can be picked up same day.

Batfleck to Direct Batman Solo film

While there had been speculation for weeks from his friend Kevin Smith, this week Warner Bros. chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujihara confirmed that the studio is moving forward with a standalone Batman movie, which Ben Affleck will both star in and direct.

The news was announced at CinemaCon, the annual convention for movie theater operators and retailers in Las Vegas. Tsujihara spoke of the success of Batman v Superman, which is set to cross $800 million worldwide, and how it kicked off the feature film arm of the DC Extended Universe.

Men In Black/21 Jump Street Crossover Named

While the movie cross over between 21 Jump Street and Men in Black seems like one of the weirder proposals it finally got an official title. This week at Las Vegas at CinemaCon 2016, Sony announced the name of the movie will be MIB 23. Not the most creative title but maybe seeing Jonah Hill shooting Aliens in the near future will make up for that.