MacRumors

Google today launched Project Tango, an experimental smartphone and developer kit that incorporates 3D sensors able to map indoor and outdoor environments. Designed as a 5-inch phone containing custom hardware and software, the first Project Tango prototype makes more than a quarter million 3D measurements each second, tracking three-dimensional motion to create a visual 3D map of the space around itself.

Google describes Project Tango primarily as a mapping tool, automatically capturing the world around each user to provide directions, dimensions, and environmental maps.

What if you could capture the dimensions of your home simply by walking around with your phone before you went furniture shopping? What if directions to a new location didn't stop at the street address? What if you never again found yourself lost in a new building? What if the visually-impaired could navigate unassisted in unfamiliar indoor places? What if you could search for a product and see where the exact shelf is located in a super-store?

The company also pictures Project Tango as the first step towards fully immersive augmented reality games that merge gameplay with real world locations.

Imagine playing hide-and-seek in your house with your favorite game character, or transforming the hallways into a tree-lined path. Imagine competing against a friend for control over territories in your home with your own miniature army, or hiding secret virtual treasures in physical places around the world?

According to TechCrunch, Project Tango utilizes a vision processor called the Myriad 1, from Movidius, which is incredibly power efficient compared to other 3D-sensing chips on the market. The power necessary for 3D chips to function has thus far been one of the major issues preventing the technology from being incorporated into a smartphone, but because it functions like a co-processor much like Apple's own M7 motion co-processor, it is able to draw less power.

Project Tango's three-dimensional mapping capabilities are similar to technology developed by PrimeSense, a company that Apple acquired last year. PrimeSense developed the technology used in Microsoft's original Kinect and went on to create motion-sensing mobile chips capable of scanning an environment in full 3D. PrimeSense imagined the technology could be used for interactive gaming, indoor mapping, and more, much like Project Tango.

It isn't clear how Apple plans to use PrimeSense's technology in future devices or whether it has plans to release a smartphone that supports a 3D chip, but Project Tango demonstrates some of the potential capabilities of 3D sensing built into mobile devices that Apple could replicate should it choose to go in that direction. Apple has expressed interest in 3D indoor mapping in the past, having acquired indoor mapping company WiFiSlam in early 2013.

Google is recruiting professional developers to create apps for Project Tango and wants work to begin as soon as March. The company is distributing 200 prototype dev kits, inviting developers to describe what they would build using the technology. Google plans to give out prototype kits for developers interested in navigation/mapping, single/multiplayer games that use physical space, and new algorithms that use processing sensor data.

Apple has completed the rollout of two-step verification in several new countries, reports 9to5Mac. As noted on Apple's website, these new locations include Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Spain. Reports from at least one German user suggests Germany already had two-step verification, but lacked the verification through SMS feature, which was enabled today.

Last May, Apple expanded its two-step verification system to several countries in North America, South America and Europe. This feature apparently was launched prematurely and disappeared shortly after it was enabled.

While it’s always possible the feature might disappear like last time, this time around things look more official with users having full SMS support through local carriers and Apple listing the new countries on its support sites. Apple also has a list of supported carriers for receiving SMS messages by country here that was just updated.

Two-step verification is an optional security feature that requires Apple users to verify their identity before making purchases or logging into their Apple ID account. This extra layer of protection requires users to enter a 4-digit verification code sent to a trusted device via Find My iPhone or SMS. Once enabled, this system replaces the standard security questions.

Apple introduced this security feature in March 2013 to users in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand.

The land rush on new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) continues this week, and Apple has once again staked its claim to some of new domains being made available to the public. The most relevant new gTLD for Apple is ".technology", and the company has moved to secure several variants related to its products:

- apple.technology
- ipad.technology
- iphone.technology
- mac.technology

This week's group is the just the latest batch involving hundreds of new gTLDs going live. Other recent domains secured by Apple include those in the .guru and .camera and .photography families.

As with the previously released gTLDs, Apple appears to have taken steps to block registration of other potential domains involving its trademarks, including some directly related to its business such as macbook.technology and other less related such as apple.construction.

While many of the new gTLDs coming online focus on industries and professions, another group includes geographic themes, and Apple has also signaled its interest in protecting relevant domains in these families. In what appears to be Apple's first move into this area, the company has registered applestore.berlin, listing the address of the flagship Kurfürstendamm store opened last year on its registration.

Back in December, Fleksy announced a toolkit to allow iOS developers to incorporate the company's popular predictive and gesture-based keyboard into their apps. The initial testing period involved a public launch in four third-party apps of varying types, with Fleksy noting that it would continue to expand the program and eventually open up its SDK to all interested developers.

Today, Fleksy is announcing that next step in its iOS development program, moving the SDK out of private beta and allowing all app developers to easily incorporate Fleksy as an alternative keyboard within their apps.

With its latest update, the Fleksy SDK is now completely free of charge, requires no sign up and allows any developer to implement it in minutes, with zero lines of code and without having to make any changes to their app at all. Switching between Fleksy and the iOS keyboard is also completely streamlined.

Fleksy is one of several alternative keyboard systems that have gained popularity on Android, but Apple's rules preventing systemwide replacement of the default keyboard have greatly slowed growth of such tools on iOS. As a workaround, Fleksy and other keyboard developers are turning to SDKs that will allow developers to add support for their keyboards on an app-by-app basis. SwiftKey is another such company that launched its own note-taking app several weeks ago and is looking to bring an SDK to select developers initially and all developers over time.

Fleksy offers automated word suggestions while the user types to help improve typing speed, while also incorporating a sophisticated autocorrect engine to help correct typing errors on the fly. Layered on top of those features is a gesture system that allows users to insert spaces and punctuation by swiping to the right and delete words by swiping to the left anywhere on the keyboard rather than having to use dedicated keys. Up and down swipes allow users to cycle through suggested words or undo automatic corrections.

While the Fleksy SDK is now open to all developers, the company has also been working with a number of developers beyond the initial group of four to integrate the Fleksy keyboard into their apps. Several of those are ready to go live today with Fleksy support, including You Doodle, Write for iPhone, Tap Forms Organizer and Secure Database, and Remoter VNC - Remote Desktop.

Fleksy is free for users and developers, and hundreds of developers have already inquired about bringing Fleksy to their apps. As a result, the Fleksy team is optimistic that adoption will grow rapidly given developer interest and the simple integration offered through the company's SDK.

Following a report earlier this week suggesting Apple had considered purchasing Tesla, Tesla CEO Elon Musk today confirmed in an interview with Bloomberg Television that his company "had conversations" with Apple. Musk went on to say that he could not comment on whether the conversations had revolved around any kind of acquisition, but he did confirm that at the current time, an acquisition of Tesla seems "very unlikely."

If one or more companies had approached us last year about such things there's no way we could really comment on that. We had conversations with Apple, I can't comment on whether those revolved around any kind of acquisition.

News of Apple's meeting with Tesla first came to light over the weekend, when the San Francisco Chronicle reported Musk had met with Adrian Perica, Apple's head of acquisitions, and possibly Apple CEO Tim Cook. While the site speculated the meeting pertained to a possible acquisition, other sources have since suggested Apple may have been meeting with Tesla over iOS device integration in the company's electric cars or about a potential battery deal between the two.

As noted by The Los Angeles Times, Musk last month announced plans for a massive lithium-ion battery plant, which will be constructed in partnership with "some other companies." Tesla is expected to make an announcement about the plant later this month, and it's possible Apple, which uses lithium-ion batteries for many of its portable devices, could be involved in that venture.

When asked whether Tesla was for sale, Musk told the interviewer that an acquisition was unlikely because the company needs to stay "super focused" on its goal of creating an affordable electric car, though he did not rule out the possibility of an acquisition entirely.

If there was a scenario where it seemed like it would be more likely that we would be able to create the mass market sort of affordable, compelling car then possibly it would make sense to entertain those discussions. I don't currently see any scenario that would improve that probability, so that's why I think it's very unlikely.

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently said the company is open to making large acquisitions if it makes sense, but he has also said that Apple will focus on the very few products that "deserve all our energy." Apple currently holds nearly $160 billion in cash while Tesla has a market cap of approximately $24 billion.

Facebook is buying the hugely popular WhatsApp for $16 billion according to a filing with the SEC. The purchase, $4 billion in cash plus $12 billion in Facebook shares and potential for an additional $3 billion in employee stock payouts, will see WhatsApp founder Jan Koum joining Facebook's board of directors.

WhatsApp Messenger is a hugely popular cross-platform messaging app that allows users to chat with individuals or groups, as well as sending files and pictures back and forth.

Back in December, the service bragged that it had 400 million active users, with 100 million of those added in the last four months of 2013. Back in April of 2013, it was rumored that Google was close to acquiring the company for $1 billion -- something WhatsApp denied. Today's sale price reflects the company's tremendous growth over the last several months.

According to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg:

WhatsApp will complement our existing chat and messaging services to provide new tools for our community. Facebook Messenger is widely used for chatting with your Facebook friends, and WhatsApp for communicating with all of your contacts and small groups of people. Since WhatsApp and Messenger serve such different and important uses, we will continue investing in both and making them each great products for everyone.

The service is one of many messaging services available on iOS and other mobile platforms, including Apple's own iMessage service integrated into iOS and OS X. Such services have become increasingly popular as users seek to avoid mobile carriers' SMS charges and expand their conversations to include devices not directly connected to cellular service. WhatsApp says that the Facebook and WhatsApp messaging apps will remain standalone for the foreseeable future, and WhatsApp will remain autonomous, operating independently of Facebook.

The company's app is currently the 35th most popular on the App Store. Facebook says WhatsApp's messaging volume is "approaching the entire global telecom SMS volume", roughly 7 trillion message a year. WhatsApp Messenger is a free download on the App Store. [Direct Link]

In April 2012, Facebook purchased Instagram for $1 billion.

GBA4iOS today introduced a 2.0 update for its popular Game Boy emulator for iOS, introducing a full iOS 7 redesign, iPad optimization, support for original and Game Boy Color games, and a built-in web browser for downloading ROMs.

More importantly, the software is now much easier to install, requiring neither a jailbroken device nor a work around to set the device clock to 2012. Prior to the 2.0 update, installing GBA4iOS without jailbreaking required an iPhone's date to be set to 2012. Though it doesn't require an initial date change, GBA4iOS 2.0 does carry a warning that the device clock may need to be set back to 2/19/14 if the app fails to open.

With GBA4iOS 2.0, gamers can play Game Boy Advanced, Game Boy Color, and original Gameboy ROMs directly on their iPads and iPhones, but the software is only compatible with devices running iOS 7. GBA4iOS 2.0 is distributed using an Apple Enterprise certificate, which are designed to allow companies to distribute iOS apps internally.

Downloading games for GBA4iOS previously required navigating outside of the app to find ROMs, but the newest version includes an in-app web browser that can be used to download games from any ROM website. GBA4iOS 2.0 also includes full support for cheats, accepting five different code formats covering everything from Game Genie to Action Replay.

The GBA4iOS update includes an array of controller skins for Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color games and it supports third party controller skins. It also offers full iOS 7 controller support, Dropbox integration, and "Event Distribution" to allow GBA4iOS unlock and distribute features that are not normally included within games.

While several emulators have snuck into the App Store via shell apps, they are always short-lived as Apple pulls the apps within hours or days of release. GBA4iOS is able to overcome Apple's restrictions as it is not installed via the App Store. Instead, GBA4iOS can be installed directly on an iOS device from the website, by tapping the download link on an iPad or iPhone.

Update: Apple has revoked the enterprise certificate that GBA4iOS used to install itself on iOS devices, which means installs now require setting a device date back to February 18, 2014 before downloading the software. After installation, the date on the device can be changed back to the present time.

Samsung has released two new anti-Apple advertisements highlighting shortcomings in Apple products to promote both its Galaxy Note 3 and the Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1.

In the first ad featuring the 5.7-inch Galaxy Note 3, Samsung depicts the phablet-sized smartphone next to the 4-inch iPhone 5s. Basketball star LeBron James is on the screen while a voiceover mocks the iPhone's screen size and quality, along with its lack of a stylus.

"Wait a second, shouldn't we enjoy this high-definition jam on a screen that's actually high definition? 5.7 inches of HD? Booyah! Or 4.0 inches of non-HD? LeBron's literally running away from this phone."

"And would you look at that? The Galaxy Note 3 comes with a handy little S-Pen. No S-Pen hiding in this other phone. Believe me, I've checked."

The second ad is a riff on Apple's popular iPad Air 'Pencil' spot that compares the ultra-thin tablet to a pencil. It starts off with a pencil, as Apple's ad did, but eventually reveals an "even thinner" Galaxy Tab Pro behind the iPad. Samsung's newest tablet measures in at 7.3mm thick while the iPad Air is 7.5mm thick.

"Wait a second, what's hiding behind that pencil? Ah, an iPad Air! Almost didn't see it there. And what's this, hiding behind the iPad? Ah, the even thinner Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1."

Along with the Galaxy Tab Pro’s thinner profile, Samsung also points out its screen quality and its ability to multitask, which has also been a favorite subject for Microsoft's anti-Apple ads. Samsung's Galaxy Tab Pro has a 1600 x 2560 resolution compared to the iPad Air's 1536 x 2048 resolution.

Samsung has a long history of mocking Apple products in its commercials and has famously promoted its Galaxy line of phones by making fun of iPhone fans who wait in long lines for hours.

Samsung is expected to release a new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S5, later this month, along with a new Galaxy Gear smart watch. Apple is expected to unveil both a larger iPhone and a smart watch later this year.

Apple announced today that it is expanding its iTunes Festival to the US for the first time. Five shows will be held from March 11-15 during the Austin City Limits Live event at the Moody Theater in Austin, Texas. The shows will serve as a part of the film and music-focused South by Southwest (SXSW) festivals which will be held in Austin from March 7-16, 2014.

The live event will feature recording artists like Coldplay, Imagine Dragons, Pitbull, Keith Urban, ZEDD and more. Performances will be available as a live or on demand stream via iTunes, the Apple TV or the iTunes Festival app for iOS devices.

"The iTunes Festival in London has become an incredible way for Apple to share its love of music with our customers," said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. "We're excited about the incredible lineup of artists performing and SXSW is the perfect place to debut the first iTunes Festival in the US."

Apple's iTunes Festival tickets are available for free and will be given out by lottery to SXSW attendees, who can enter to win by scanning their badge at a location to be determined. Winners are allowed to bring a guest, but that person must be a SXSW badge holder as well. Details on the ticket giveaway are available on SXSW's website.

The iTunes Festival is held each year in London, where more than 400 artists have performed for over 430,000 fans since it started in 2007.

Apple may be choosing TPK as a touch panel supplier for its rumored iWatch, says a report in China Times (Via Digitimes). The Taiwan-based company will supposedly begin mass production of flexible AMOLED panels for the iWatch in the second half of 2014.

The report said the iWatch will come equipped with a flexible AMOLED display and 3D protective glass. The rumors also speculated that the iWatch will use silver nanowire touch screen technology developed by TPK in conjunction with Japan-based Nissha Printing.

The rumor suggests Apple will use silver nanowire touch screen technology in the iWatch display. Current flat touch panels use indium tin oxide (ITO), which is brittle and not suitable for a flexible display. Silver nanowires, however, are nanometers thin and can be applied to a 3D curved glass surface, like a watch band in a solution-based, roll-to- printing technique. The silver wire matrix is transparent to the eye and conductive, making silver nanowires perfect for a flexible touchsreen display.

Last year, TPK signed a deal with Japanese firm Nissha Printing to start producing silver nanowire touchscreen displays. Production will ramp up in Q2 2014, with a manufacturing output of two million 6-inch touch panels per month.

TPK is among the world's top touch panel manufacturers by volume and has been supplying Apple with panels for several years. The Taiwanese company was one of the primary suppliers of the touchscreen for the original iPad and provided up to 80% of the panels for the iPhone 4S models.