This week, a look at Motorola’s new line of smartphones, the Moto G and the Moto X Play. Plus, the new Gears of War is being made in Vancouver, and how you can learn computer programming for free.

Motorola aims for mid-tier mobile market with new Moto X Play, makes Moto G waterproof

On Friday, Motorola’s latest smartphone hits Bell, Koodo, and Telus. The Moto X Play will retail for about $400, depending on your carrier.

In an interview last week, director of sales for Motorola Mobility Carly Biggart said that the new line of smartphones, the Moto X Play and the third-generation Moto G, already available, were designed knowing that “people have intense relationships with their devices”.

“You love your phone,” said Biggart. “But does it love you back?”

One of the things I like about Motorola’s smartphones is that they come with the basic Android operating system. There aren’t a pile of apps you don’t want and you’ll never use bloating your device before you even turn it on.

Those apps that come on the Motorola devices are enhancements, like the ability to enable Google Now by voice command, instead of a tap on your phone. Motorola’s enabled all of the apps through the Google Play Store, too, so they update automatically.

The Moto G is a solid, everyday phone for people who need a basic smartphone. The device can withstand being under up to three feet of water for up to 30 minutes (but don’t attempt to use it underwater) which makes it perfect for a teen’s first mobile.

The Moto X Play is for when they’re ready to upgrade. It’s priced cheaper than the premium smartphones but is outfitted with a new chip, runs on the latest Android operating system (Lollipop 5.1.1.), and has a 21 megapixel camera.

It’s also equipped with a massive battery that can deliver up to 48 hours of life depending on how much you use your phone (and for what). Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and NFC are standard these days, and the 16 GB on board storage is expandable up to 128 GB with a SD card.

My favourite features of the new Moto X Play:

• You can turn it on by simply twisting your wrist
• A double twist of the wrist will enable the selfie camera
• There’s built in optical character recognition (OCR) software so you can take a picture of a business card and have the person automatically added to your contact list
• You can enable lock screen notifications so you can see if that text message that just came in during your meeting is your spouse informing you that your lottery numbers came up
• Location-based assists can be set up to take effect when you’re at specific places; to mute your smartphone when you’re at your local movie theatre, for example
• TurboPower charging will give you eight hours of battery in only 15 minutes. Koodo and Telus are including the TurboPower charger in the box with the Moto X Play; Bell and Wind will be selling them separately

Both the Moto G and the Moto X Play have a number of personalization options, including coloured back plates and flip coverings.

There is currently no plan to release the Moto X Style in Canada.

Cross-posted at the Georgia Straight

How to get schooled for free

Curious about computer science? If you want, you can take Harvard’s “Intro to computer science” course online, for free. It’s the full introductory course – CS50 – taken by students attending Harvard in real life (IRL), but using an online interface.

Harvard is far from being the only university to make its courses and course materials available for free. Others include UC Berkeley and MIT, and you can find hundreds of courses at edX, Open Culture, and the Open Learning Initiative.

And Apple has dozens of institutions on iTunes U including Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, and the Open University.

As for CS50, you can take the course on the institution’s own HarvardX online service, on iTunes, or on YouTube. And for a small fee, you can be awarded a credit for taking the course if you do it thorugh the Harvard Extension School.

Yes, it’s a freemium university education.

Here’s instructor David Malan with the course outline.

Gears of War gets remade, not remastered, in Vancouver

The Coalition is a Microsoft Games Studio in Vancouver’s Crosstown area, and for the past seven months the developers there have been hard at work remaking one of the best games ever released on the Xbox 360.

Gears of War was first released in 2006 as a Microsoft exclusive. Developed by Epic Games in North Carolina, the franchise was acquired by Microsoft in January of this year, and Rod Fergusson, who helped make the first three games in the series, was hired to run the studio.

His first decision was to completely remake the 2006 game, and the result, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, will be released on Tuesday, August 25, exclusively on Xbox One.

The cinematics were completely redone, including the motion capture, and much of the art was recreated. Remaking the game was not only a way to help the Vancouver developers learn how to make a Gears of War game, it will help settle the fans who are anxiously awaiting Gears of War 4, also being developed at the Coalition. But it’s at least a year out.

Read more about Gears of War: Ultimate Edition at the Georgia Straight

Here’s the trailer for the remade game. Don’t watch it unless you’re 18 or older.