Apple Just Launched Its First New App in Years — and It Can Transform the Way You Plan Travel

guardianpub on December 14, 2022

Available as of Dec. 13, with the latest iOS, Freeform is a blank canvas that you can use as a vision board to plan future trips.

Apple has launched a new tool that can help you plan your travels — and it all starts as a blank canvas. Launched at 1 p.m. ET on Dec. 13, 2022, with the latest iOS update on iPhone, iPad, and desktop, the Freeform app is an infinite whiteboard that allows users to pull in content across various sources, including websites, photos, videos, and files.

In short, it’s a digital travel inspiration board, or a vacation mood board, if you will.

The boards live in iCloud, so that you can jump in and out of them on any device whenever a thought strikes. But they can also be shared with multiple users collaborating on the same board, so they can be a constant works in progress as you figure out the details of your dream getaway with your travel mates.

Not sure if you should stay at a resort or a vacation rental? Make a pros and cons list and let everyone add their thoughts. Overwhelmed by all the things to do in a city? Block them all out with stickies and visualize your day-to-day itinerary. Juggling various restaurant choices from all your guests? Have them all share links to their picks, then choose the ones with the best reviews.

When you open up Freeform, all you see is a gigantic blank canvas. The icons across the top then provide you with the elements needed to let your creativity flow. On desktop, the first icon is Stickies, which can be color-coded, but also have alignment guides to keep your boards neat and tidy. The next element are shapes, with a library of more than 700 graphics, including a category of places (with images ranging from globes to specific landmarks like Rome’s Colosseum and New York City’s Statue of Liberty) and transportation (with planes, bridges, tall ships, and even a rocket ship — if you’re ready to blast off).

The final three icons hit all the basics: one to insert text boxes; another for photos, videos, and web links; and the final one for files. But the beauty is the ease of each one. Text boxes can easily be dragged out to adjust the size (similar to Instagram Stories). Photos and videos can be clicked to magnify into high-fidelity versions, while the preview cards of web links immediately take you to the site. And if it’s a file — for instance, a PDF of a restaurant menu or a tour itinerary — it will open right to the file.

On iPad, Freeform becomes even more of a real-life vision board as users can write and draw directly on the boards with an Apple Pencil, making it almost like a digital scrapbook. Files from Apple’s Notes and Reminders apps can also be inserted seamlessly onto the canvas. And perhaps one of the most impressive functions is that tangible items can be scanned and placed right onto the board with the phone’s camera in a single step.

The beauty of Freeform is that even though it’s perfect for travel planning, it’s also adaptable to many other projects, whether it’s a plotting out the workflow for a professional project, brainstorming ideas for that screenplay you’ve always dreamed of, or even just playing games like Hangman with pals from across the country.

“Freeform opens up endless possibilities for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users to visually collaborate,” said Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of worldwide product marketing, in a statement. “With an infinite canvas, support for uploading a wide range of files, iCloud integration, and collaboration capabilities, Freeform creates a shared space for brainstorming that users can take anywhere.”

As the first app that Apple has released in years, the company is thrilled to see how users take to the app and the creative ways in which they will use it — and especially all the places they’ll go. After all, the main purpose of the app is in its tagline: “Bring your ideas to life.”

The Freeform app is free to iPhone users on iOS 16.2, iPad users on 16.2, and Mac users on Ventura MacOS Venture 13.1.

Source: sports.yahoo.com

‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ is the first great high frame rate movie

guardianpub on December 14, 2022

Avatar: The Way of Water is a triumph. As a sequel to the highest-grossing film ever, which was criticized for its formulaic story (and the surprisingly small ripple it had on pop culture), the new movie is a genuine surprise. It’s a sweeping epic that reflects on the nature of families, our relationship to the natural world and humanity’s endless thirst for violence and plunder. Fans of the original film often had to make excuses for writer and director James Cameron’s stilted script, but that’s no longer the case for The Way of Water, thanks to additional help from Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa (who both worked on the recent criminally under-loved Planet of the Apes trilogy).

Perhaps most impressive, though, is that James Cameron has managed to craft the best high frame rate (HFR) movie yet. Certain scenes play back at 48 frames per second, giving them a smoother and more realistic sheen compared to the standard 24fps. That leads to 3D action scenes that feel incredibly immersive — at times HFR can make you forget that the lush alien wildlife on Pandora isn’t real.

Unlike the handful of high frame rate movies we’ve already seen – The Hobbit trilogy, as well as Ang Lee’s Gemini Man and Billy Lynn’s Long Half-Time Walk – the Avatar sequel deploys the technology in a unique way. Rather than using HFR throughout the entire movie, Cameron relies on it for major action sequences, while slower dialog scenes appear as if they’re running at 24fps. To do that, the entire film actually runs at 48fps, while the calmer scenes use doubled frames to trick your brain into seeing them at the typical theatrical frame rate.

If this sounds a bit confusing, your brain may have a similar reaction while watching the film. The Way of Water often jumps from hyper-real HFR to pseudo-24 fps in the same scene — at one point, I counted around a dozen switches in a few minutes. This is a strategy Cameron has been discussing for years. In 2016, he noted that HFR is “a tool, not a format,” and later he rejected Ang Lee’s attempt at using HFR for Gemini Man’s entire runtime.

Cameron’s dual-pronged approach to HFR is bound to be controversial. Even for someone who appreciates what the technology has to offer — pristine 3D action scenes with no blurring or strobing — it took me a while to get used to flipping between high frame rate and 24 fps footage. With Gemini Man, my brain got used to the hyper-reality of HFR within 15 minutes. In The Way of Water, I was almost keeping an eye out for when the footage changed.

Despite the distracting format changes, The Way of Water’s high frame rate footage ultimately worked for me. At times, the film appears to be a window into the world of Pandora, with breathtaking shots of lush forests and lush oceans. It makes all of Cameron’s creations, from enormous flying fish-like creatures that you can ride, to alien whales with advanced language, appear as if they’re living and breathing creatures. HFR also works in tandem with the sequel’s more modern CG animation, making the Na’vi and their culture feel all the more real.

Over the film’s three hour and twelve-minute runtime, I eventually managed to see what the director was aiming for, even if his ambition exceeded his grasp. (Cameron, who has the world’s first [Avatar] and third-highest grossing films [Titanic] under his belt, and who dove into the Marianas Trench in a self-designed personal submarine, suggests you can use the bathroom anytime you want during The Way of Water. You’ll just catch up the next time you see it in theaters. Baller.)

The re-release of Avatar earlier this month also used a combination of HFR and traditional footage (in addition to brightening the picture and upscaling the film to 4K). But even though that revamp grossed over $70 million on its own, there hasn’t been much discussion about how it integrated high frame rate footage. (I saw it on a Regal RPX screen, which offered 3D but no extra frames, sadly.) There’s a better chance you’ll be able to catch Avatar: The Way of Water exactly how Cameron intended. It’ll be screening in 4K, HFR and 3D at all AMC Dolby Cinema locations and select IMAX theaters (single laser screens get everything, some dual-laser screens will only offer 2K 3D with HFR). While you could see it in 2D, why would you?

After suffering through the interminable Hobbit movies in HFR, I figured the technology was mostly a waste of time, yet another money-grab that Hollywood can use to pump up ticket prices. Director Peter Jackson struggled to recreate the magic of his Lord of the Rings trilogy, and amid production issues, he also failed to change the way he shot the Hobbit films to account for HFR. So that led to sets that looked like they were ripped from B-grade fantasy movies and costumes that seemingly came from a Spirit Halloween pop-up.

Ang Lee’s more studious attempts at using the technology, especially with the action scenes in Gemini Man, convinced me HFR still had some potential. But even he struggled along the way. Billy Lynn’s Long Half-Time Walk is a cinematic curiosity, where HFR makes slow dialog scenes appear too distractingly real. Gemini Man was cursed by a messy script and the need to be a big-budget Will Smith blockbuster.

Avatar: The Way of Water benefits from the creative failures of all of the earlier high frame rate films. For many, it’ll be their introduction to this technology, so it’ll be interesting to see how general audiences respond. Video games and hyper-real YouTube action footage have made 60fps footage far more common, so I could see younger audiences, those raised on hundreds of hours of Minecraft and Fortnite, vibing with Cameron’s vision. Everyone else will need more convincing. For me, though, I’m just glad there’s finally a high frame rate film that’s genuinely great, instead of just a technical exercise.

Source: engadget.com

Apple’s VR Headset Might Be Its Biggest Flop in Decades — Here’s Who the Real Winners Will Be

guardianpub on December 1, 2022

The virtual reality (VR) market has been heating up, with dozens of major players and startups rolling out their versions of the original Oculus.

The clear winner is currently Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META) with a reported 90% market share in the VR industry. This is in line with the company’s massive spending in the sector. Meta has spent over $100 billion on building out its VR and metaverse goals, which has yet to pay off, resulting in a roughly 70% decline in its stock price this year.

Despite Meta’s massive market share and willingness to spend absurd sums of money in the space, this hasn’t deterred others from trying to cut out a slice of the market. The runner-up is likely ByteDance Inc. — parent company of TikTok — with its Pico headset series, but Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is set to release a VR headset in 2023.

While many have failed to compete on the hardware side, others have found success on the gaming, marketplace and infrastructure side of things. Dozens of popular VR games like Beat Saber and Contractors have made millions with their fun takes on the VR genre.

VR is a brand new platform, which means startups have the ability to carve out viral popularity and become the next VR for Call of Duty. Further, startups like Gameflip have sold over $140 million of in-game and digital content and building out the next generation of gaming marketplaces. Gameflip is raising funds on StartEngine, which means anyone can invest!

While many are expecting Apple’s headset to be a massive player in the VR headset realm, it might end up dead on arrival. Not only will dethroning Meta be difficult for anyone — even Apple — there are also a number of other factors going into this. Mainly, while the VR market is expected to grow even if Apple manages to take a substantial portion of the current market, it wouldn’t be taking much.

Meta’s Quest Store has only sold about $1.5 billion in games and apps since 2019, resulting in under $500 million in revenue. For its VR headsets, that number is slightly better at 15 million headsets sold. At an average of about $500 per headset, that translates into roughly $7.5 billion in revenue. While these aren’t small numbers in the grand scheme of things, it took over $100 billion to get there. Given Meta’s market dominance and the relatively small size of the potential market share that Apple could take, it could spell disaster.

Apple’s VR headset is set to be priced between $2,000 and $2,500. This is over four times as much as Meta’s popular Quest 2 and double the price of its premium headset, the Quest Pro. While the headset is likely to have more features, the real problem will be the lack of infrastructure. There are PC VR options, but Meta has spent billions of dollars building out its VR apps, games, story and other infrastructure over the last several years. With Apple’s massive market share, it will be hard to attract developers to come to its platform to make games and apps. This ultimately creates a chicken-or-the-egg problem by which Apple needs developers to gain traction, but developers need Apple to gain traction before they will develop on the platform.

This isn’t the first time this has happened to a major player either. Most famously is the Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) flop with the initial release of its Windows phone. This exact problem happened, and it cost them billions and took years to recover.

It’s anyone’s guess what will happen, but there might be a better and different play entirely. With new markets like this, it’s often easier for startups to take advantage of the lack of key players in certain niche areas of the market. With changes in recent law, anyone can invest in startups. Startups like Gameflip offer high-risk, high-reward startup investing options that, if successful, can carve out profitable niches in these emerging markets that scale to become bigger players as the market grows. Several other VR startups are raising funds on StartEngine, and StartEngine itself is also open for investment.

 

Source: finance.yahoo.com

Vietnamese Tesla Rival Sets Sail for the U.S. Market

guardianpub on December 1, 2022

VinFast is shipping 999 of its electric vehicles to California as the Vietnamese company looks for a place in the U.S. market.

The Vietnam-based electric vehicle maker is taking the slow boat to California as it sends its first batch of 999 VF 8s, the company’s 5-seater electric SUV, to America aboard the Silver Queen, a Panamanian charter ship.

The Silver Queen is expected to arrive in the Golden State about 20 days after departing from MPC Port in Haiphong, Vietnam.

The company, which held a ceremony to mark the occasion on Nov. 25., said the first VinFast customers in the US can expect their cars by the end of December.


“The export of the first 999 VF 8s is a significant event for VinFast and Vingroup and a proud historical milestone for the Vietnamese automotive industry,” Nguyen Viet Quang, vice chairman and CEO of Vingroup, said in a statement. “It affirms that Vietnam has successfully produced high-quality standards electric vehicles that are ready to compete in the international market.”

The news of the shipment follows the company’s Nov. 17 announcement at the Los Angeles Auto Show, where VinFast said it had received an order from Autonomy, the nation’s largest electric vehicle subscription company, for more than 2,500 VF 8 and VF 9 vehicles.

Established in 2017, VinFast is part of the VinGroup conglomerate, which was founded by Pham Nhat Vuong, Vietnam’s first billionaire.

“The VinGroup has a lot of resources and they are investing those resources to enter the American and European markets,” said Tung Bui, information technology management professor with the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Shidler College of Business.

Filling the Void

Bui said it was too early to tell how VinFast will fare in the U.S., “but they have followed the marketing strategy of Hyundai when it entered the U.S. market in 1986:”

“There is currently a void for affordable luxury EVs and VinFast is trying to fill this void with an entry point of $45,000,” he said. “They also have an aggressive second-to-none warranty service: 10 years or 200,000 whatever comes first. This is a strong signal of quality.”

Bui said that the company’s timing is good, since battery technologies are getting better and cheaper.

“In the domestic market, VinFast is rolling out a line of electric motorcycles,” he said. “Vietnam is still recovering from Covid, the economy has nicely return to full production, and they are benefiting from the US-China trade war, with many factory relocating from China or developing in Vietnam.”

Vietnam’s economic recovery accelerated over the last six months on the back of resilient manufacturing and a robust rebound in services, according to a World Bank study.

The report said the recovery is facing such risks as growth slowdown or stagflation in main export markets, further commodity price shocks, continued disruption of global supply chains, or the emergence of new COVID-19 variants.

VinFast said in July that it had received a $1.2 billion incentive package from the State of North Carolina for its electric vehicle manufacturing facility at the Triangle Innovation Point in Chatham County.

The facility will cover 2,000 acres, with sections for electric cars and buses production and assembly, and ancillary industries for suppliers. The factory is designed to reach the capacity of 150,000 vehicles per year.

Closer to Customers

“While VinFast has a production facility in Haiphong they believe the investment in the NC plant positions them to compete more effectively in the U.S. against Tesla and other EV manufacturers,” said Michael Goldberg, a professor with the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. “It reminds me a bit of Honda’s decision to open a production facility in Ohio in 1982 to get closer to customers here.”

Goldberg said “it will be a challenge for VinFast to control costs in the US as opposed to manufacturing in Vietnam but they think it is a risk worth taking.”

“Like many conglomerates in Asia, VinGroup is involved in quite a few businesses and have deep pockets,” he said. “So VinFast is not a thinly capitalized startup in the EV space. They can count on support through VinGroup as they go through their capital intensive market launch in the U.S.”

In September, VinFast Chief Financial Officer David Mansfield said the company is looking to conduct its U.S. initial public offering sometime in 2023, according to Bloomberg, which would make VinFast one of the first Vietnamese companies to be traded on an American market.

Ivan Small, associate professor of anthropology and international studies at Central Connecticut State University, wrote last year that many auto companies “ranging from Peugeot to Isuzu have entered and subsequently exited the US auto market,” and startups have an even harder time.

Growing a Global Presence

VinFast’s “investment in the American market demonstrates the company’s commitment to succeed by growing a global presence,” Small said in an article posted by the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, a research institution under the scope of the Ministry of Education in Singapore.

“By focusing on electrical vehicle sales in America, VinFast sees an opportunity to leap frog into a transition market where industry leaders are no longer necessarily established original equipment manufacturers,” he added.

Small said Vinfast sees competition with companies like Tesla (TSLA) – Get Free Report as well as many others, such as Amazon (AMZN) – Get Free Report backed Rivian (RIVN) – Get Free Report,, “that are banking that they can attract new customers based on experimental innovation and competitive price points.”

“New technologies often attract younger buyers willing to try brands that are not yet established,” he added.

Small said that “rather than focusing on access to next door China, the world’s largest auto market, Vingroup has turned to the second largest, yet ‘original, global auto market – the United States, to establish international brand recognition.”

He cited several likely reasons for this strategy, including ongoing Vietnam-China political tensions, “the historical complications for foreign automotive companies depending on Chinese joint venture partners, and the Chinese government’s sensitivity to green vehicle competition, a key industrial development sector that has received strategic support from Beijing.”

Source: finance.yahoo.com