Toyota and Oculus partner for VR driving simulator for teens

Hoping to make driving safer for the next generation, Toyota partners with Oculus to create a Toyota-branded driving simulator that will be used for Toyota’s TeenDrive365 program. It puts the teens inside a real yet stationary car and uses virtual reality technology to simulate actual driving. They will have to use the pedals properly and face distractions such as traffic noise, passengers, text messages, and radio noise.

It uses 360-degree head tracking for a more immersive experience and the Rift has a 100-degree field of view, which is beyond ones peripheral vision. It will also make use of RealSpace 3D audio to add depth to sound. They hope to make teens more comfortable with driving before they head out to the streets.

Source: Toyota | Via: SlashGear

Microsoft creates new budget Lumia

Microsoft isn’t looking to challenge the flagship smartphone market. And that is evident with the new budget Windows Phone from the company. The Lumia 435 will retail for around US$80 before tax. The specs are similar to the Lumia 530 but slightly better. It carries a 4-inch WVGA display, 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage. It has capacitive keys as well and yes, you even get full Office suite. Not a bad deal, if you ask us.

Source: Microsoft Devices | Via: Engadget

Xpire brings ‘disappearing’ posts to Twitter on Android

Having messages disappear after an amount of time isn’t exactly new. But that has usually been the arena of the likes of Snapchat. But there is an app that wants to bring that ephemeral quality to social media. Xpire has been available on iOS but now makes its way to Android. It’ll bring the “self-destructing” posts to Twitter first. It offers you the opportunity to put expiration dates on your social media posts and even track back to previous posts via a search feature to get rid of those, too.

While it might be weird to be bringing ephemeral sharing to social networks, Xpire is hoping to tap into the younger market that uses Snapchat. Teens like to use Facebook in different ways that reduce the risk of content permanence and any drama these might cause. They hope to pull in more users to engage with the app daily instead of using it for “social cleansing” of sorts as well as use it to have more control over the time you spent on these networks.

Source: TechCrunch | Download: Google Play Store (Free)

Evernote’s Scannable app helps you go paperless

Looking to declutter your life? Evernote is making it easier for you with a dedicated scanning app for iOS. Scannable works on iOS 8 devices or higher and you don’t need an Evernote account to use it (but that is an option). It speeds up scanning and digitizing and it doesn’t require you to store them on Evernote notebooks. You can export them elsewhere or save them in the camera roll. It can even scan business cards and import the details to LinkedIn, if you want it to. At the moment, there is no Android version of the app though.

Source: Gizmodo | Download: Apple iTunes App Store (Free)