Yesterday, July 13, the Television Academy officially revealed the contenders for the 2017 Emmy Awards, with the likes of Stranger Things, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Atlanta garnering a host of nominations. However, alongside more traditional programming, several virtual reality experiences were given recognition for their accomplishments.
The VR projects nominated for Emmys were split across two different categories, according to a report from Road to VR. Three are in contention for the Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media Within a Program gong, while another three are in the running for the Outstanding Interactive Program award.
Planet of the Couches, a “couch gag” designed in association with Google Spotlight Stories to open the 600th episode of The Simpsons in October 2016, is among the VR experiences up for the former prize. It’s joined by Netflix’s Stranger Things VR Experience, and The Mr. Robot Virtual Reality Experience, which was highly praised for its integration with the high-tech themes of the show.
Meanwhile, the visually arresting and emotionally heartfelt Dear Angelica and non-fiction standouts Mission: ISS and The People’s House – Inside the White House with Barack and Michelle Obama could take home the Outstanding Interactive Program award. All three of these projects were backed by Oculus VR.
This isn’t the first time that Oculus has enjoyed success at the Emmys. Last year, the company’s animated adventure Henry — which was created by some of the talent behind Toy Story 3 and Brave — landed the 2016 Emmy for Outstanding Interactive Program, and it was the first original narrative project to be released in VR that managed that feat.
High-quality content is a crucial part of bringing VR to wider audiences, and recognition from the Television Academy will be hightly beneficial to Oculus. The timing couldn’t be better for the company, as it recently launched a promotion slashing the prices of its Rift headset until the end of the summer.
VR still hasn’t taken hold among mainstream audiences, but representation at the Emmy Awards is a good step forward for this nascent and very promising medium. It will be interesting to see whether any of the six projects that have been nominated manage to claim an Emmy when the awards ceremony takes place on September 17.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.