Acer outs its smallest 4K UHD projector in Canada

If you’re on the market for a premium projector for home use, Acer has just launched in Canada the VL7860. They claim it’s the world’s smallest 4K UHD 3,000 lumens laser projector that comes equipped with a 120-inch 4K UHD resolution display with 8.3 megapixels on screen and 1,500,000:1 DynamicBlack contrast optimization. The compact projector is said to be HDR-compatible so it promises to show colours as they really are with better contrast, brightness, and richer details. It supports a wide colour gamut of 110 percent of the Rec. 709 colour space and is Rec. 2020 (also known as BT.2020) compatible to provide highly accurate, cinema-like colours. The VL7860 also comes with two built-in 5W speakers, 16.X zoom so you place it where you see fit, VGA and dual HDMI ports as well as an MHL charging port for smartphones and other devices. The VL7860 retails for $5,499 with limited one-year parts and labor warranty.

Android Messages might let you send SMS messages from the desktop soon

Android Police

Google has a whole suite of messaging apps but it hasn’t been able to come up with one solution that can let you message on all platforms in the same way iMessage does for iOS and Mac devices. But that might change soon. Android Police found in the latest update of Android Messages that desktop SMS messaging might be coming to its users in the future. It’s going to be a browser-based option that could work similarly to how iMessage will let users send out texts to Android-using friends from the iMac app. According to the report, this feature would be available on almost all major browsers like Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer.

Syncing will supposedly be an easy process and you’ll get notified every time you get a new message. Support for multiple computers is also there as well as the ability to check which computers have access to your Android Messages and being able to remove those that shouldn’t be part of that list. There is no word though if and when this feature is rolling out but we are keeping our eyes out for it.

Source: Lifehacker

Square Enix officially launches ‘Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition’ on mobile

If you want to play the reimagined Final Fantasy XV game released in late 2016 on mobile, you now get that chance. The Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition just officially launched on both Android and iOS. It takes an episodic approach to the Japanese role-playing game with chapters released throughout the year. The first chapter is free but the future chapters will cost you. You can buy all chapters as a bundle for $27.99 or you can get Chapters 2 to 4 for $1.39 and Chapters 5-10 for $5.49 each.

The story follows Noctis and his three companions (Prompto, Ignis, and Gladiolus) on a road trip-style, open-world adventure going across Eos. You get more or less the same experience but on a more portable scale. Plus, the art style switched over to this more cutesy, chibi approach.

Source: Android Authority

Uber and Waymo abruptly settles lawsuit

In a surprising turn of events, Uber and Waymo have agreed to settle a self-driving trade secrets lawsuit on the fifth day of the case going to trial. Uber agreed to pay out 0.3 percent of its equity, which with the company’s US$72 billion valuation, puts that at over $245 million in stock. The company has also promised to work with Waymo’s parent company Alphabet to make sure none of Google’s confidential data will be used for Uber’s self-driving program (both in the hardware and software side).

The case began over a year ago when Waymo filed a suit against Uber accusing one of its former engineers, Anthony Levandowski, of downloading around 9.7GB of data or around 14,000 files before abruptly resigning from the company and later creating his own company called Ottomotto, which was acquired by Uber a few months later.

Source: Ars Technica