Geek Bytes 3/18/16 Episode 55 – GDC VR and Self Lacing Shoes (music one) Welcome to another episode of Geek Bytes Podcast. I’m Ramon Mejia…….and I’m Edgar Acosta Every podcast we bring you the roundup of the week’s best Geek and Tech news, then we discuss that news and anything else we’re interested in that week. In Geek News this week, we’ll talk about the A.I. Go winner, Nike’s Self Lacing shoes, the Uber family Plan, Chelsea Handler’s new Netflix Show, Indiana Jones 2019, the best Trailers of the Week and More… In our Discussion section we talk about… the great game and VR news that came out of the Game Developer Conference that happened this week. Now let’s Begin our show with Geek News (Music 2) Geek News AlphaGo for the Win! This week AlphaGo beat Lee Se-dol in game five of the DeepMind Challenge to win the series with 4 victories and 1 loss. Lee said the games were psychological difficult for him and that he felt sorry the series had come to an end. Before the match reigning Go champion Ke Jie told China Central television he believed he could beat AlphaGo. http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/15/11213518/alphago-deepmind-go-match-5-result Nike’s Self Lacing Shoes This week Nike announced a new line of self lacing shoes. Finally fulling the promise of Back to the Future 2. The shoes are called HyperAdapt 1.0, and use a series of sensors in the heel and sole of the shoe to tell how you walk and will adjust the tightness of the laces to match your walking style. Nike says the shoes operate on a battery that will last for two weeks on a single charge. No price or release date was announced. https://youtu.be/z7Cyv3cvIxY http://news.nike.com/news/hyperadapt-adaptive-lacing Uber family Plan Uber, the ride sharing service, announced Wednesday that it would be testing a new payment system that would allow one person, or business, to pay for the rides of up to 10 other people. The test will take place in Atlanta, Dallas, and Phoenix. The person who wants to be responsible for paying for all those rides sends invites through the app to everyone he or she wants to add to their plan. Once that invitation is accepted, all future Uber rides will be billed directly to the organizer, who will receive a receipt for every ride. The idea came from feedback from riders who wanted a way to consolidate trip payments under one account, Uber says. http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/16/11242544/ubers-family-profiles-one-person-pay-10-riders Express Drive General Motors and Lyft announced a service called Express Drive. GM will provide Lyft drivers with rental cars for $99 a week plus mileage if you give fewer than 40 rides. Give 65 rides and you don’t pay anything. Drivers pay for nothing else except gas. The service will launch in Chicago with 500 Chevy Equinoxes. Boston, Washington, DC and Baltimore will follow. http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/14/lyft-gm-express-drive/?ncid=rss The Microsoft-Sony Crossover Microsoft announced it is opening up network gaming to allow players of games on Windows and Xbox to compete against players on other platforms. Rocket League will take advantage of the feature with Xbox One/PC network play allowed later this spring. This means that PlayStation players could in the future face off against Xbox One players online. Sony responded that they’d be open to a conversation ‘with anyone’ about cross platform online play. Please note that Sony has allowed online play between PC and PlayStation since it first came out. http://www.engadget.com/2016/03/14/microsoft-will-let-xbox-pc-gamers-play-online-with-other-platfo/ Disney Subscription Service The Nerdist reports that Disney is getting into the box subscription service game with a Haunted Mansion-themed subscription box, called The Ghost Post. The Ghost Post will start shipping at the end of March. Along with collectibles, you’ll receive what sounds like a scavenger hunt of sorts. The items in the box will interact with iPhones, particularly through the Phantom
