Microsoft and artist Mel Chin partner to bring Mixed Reality into art

What will New York’s Time Square look like if climate change remains unchecked? Artist Mel Chin, together with Microsoft, Time Square Arts, No Longer Empty, and Queens Museum, sought to answer this question with Mixed Reality experience Unmoored and Wake. Unmoored shows a submerged Times Square in a future where the ice caps have melted and the oceans continue to rise. You can see this submerged area through a Mixed Reality experience using Microsoft HoloLens or via augmented reality through their mobile phones. Meanwhile, Wake is a sixty-foot animatronic installation you can interact with that “evokes the hull of a 19^th century shipwreck crossed with skeletal remains of a marine mammal.”

Chin’s works will be on display at the Broadway Plaza between 46^th Street and 47^th Street as part of the multi-location Mel Chin: All Over the Place exhibition. You can experience and explore Unmoored using the Microsoft HoloLens until July 13^th or use mobile devices until the exhibit’s end on September 5^th.

Apple updated MacBook Pro line with a focus on pro-level performance and features

On the heels of reports that Apple is planning on updating and releasing a whole slew of products come September, we receive news that the MacBook Pro line gets a revamp with more power and performance targeting pro-level users.

As Apple puts it, "The new MacBook Pro models with Touch Bar feature 8th-generation Intel Core processors, with 6-core on the 15-inch model for up to 70 percent faster performance and quad-core on the 13-inch model for up to two times faster performance — ideal for manipulating large data sets, performing complex simulations, creating multi-track audio projects or doing advanced image processing or film editing."

Starting at $2,399 CAD and $3,199 CAD respectively, the updated 13-inch MacBook Pro models with Touch Bar and 15-inch MacBook Pro models with Touch Bar are available today through Apple.com/ca and in select Apple retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers later this week.

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Hisense shows off its 100-inch Laser Ultra-HD TV in time for the World Cup semifinals

Hisense has brought their impressive 100-inch Ultra HD Laser TV to Canada and showed it off along with other products that are coming to Canada. This monolithic TV and its companion Laser Projector bring 4K UHD images even in less than ideally lit conditions (like the hotel where the demo was taking place, which was bathed in summer brightness despite the blinds being drawn).

Hisense, who is a sponsor of the 2018 World Cup (but who backed the non-participating Team USA) is looking to seize the moment with a range of compelling TVs priced just under the more popular Korean stalwarts that dominate the high-end TV market. The 100-inch Laser TV is the centrepiece, proof that a new player (albeit, one that's appropriated some of Sharp and Toshiba's TV IP), can make a splash in North America.

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AirPlay 2 now available, ask Siri to play music on your Sonos smart speakers

Sonos has taken pains to ensure that it's smart speaker line up can work with various partners. The Sonos One and Sonos Beam already work with Amazon Alexa out of the box.

Now that Apple's AirPlay 2 standard has been made available, users of iPhones and iPads can also use their Sonos speakers.

I've tested AirPlay 2 on some Sonos speakers by setting up the Sonos app on my iPhone. Suddenly I see some of my recent Sonos speakers appearing as AirPlay 2 compatible. This allows me to quickly route audio from my iPad or iPhone to any of these nearby smart speakers.

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