The debut of Half-Life: Alyx has already added more than a million new VR users to Steam, and now comes the next step: mods. The game’s latest update brings beta support for the Steam Workshop so users can add their own levels, textures, animations and more, as well as browse the content produced by others. This initial release includes tools like Source Filmmaker and Hammer, the latest Source 2 Level Editor.
So if you think you can make experiences that rival or even best what Valve’s developers were able to do, then everything you need should be right there. Or, if you just want to create a level that’s based on your own house — check out the documentation first — so you can be in the same room in VR that you’re already inside in real life, then I guess you can do that too. One of the first mods in the Workshop is this sample created by the team to show how the tools work.
After missing its initial March 19th release date, Konami’s TurboGrafx-16 mini will finally make its way to North America on May 22nd. When it becomes available next Friday, you’ll be able to pick it up for $100.
At the start of March, Konami delayed the TurboGrafx-16 mini’s US and Canadian launch due to the coronavirus pandemic. At the time, the company said the outbreak had caused an “unavoidable suspension” at the facility in China where it was manufacturing the device. There’s still no release date for the CoreGrafx mini, the console’s European variant. However, Konami said it’s keeping an eye on the situation.
Fitbit wants to join the host of companies making ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic. Company chief James Park told CNBC in an interview that Fitbit is shifting its production to make the potentially life-saving equipment, with plans to submit its technology to the FDA in the days ahead. And yes, the activity tracker brand is aware that it’s relatively late. Park said Fitbit would adjust its production to meet demand, whether the virus is (hopefully) fading away or begins a second wave as the world reopens.
The CEO didn’t outline the capabilities of the ventilator, but he claimed it would be the “most advanced” design that’s still available at a “lower” price than the tens of thousands of dollars they normally cost. It’s more sophisticated than some of the basic, emergency-oriented ventilators companies have scrambled to make during the pandemic.
There’s a lot to like about Microsoft’s Surface Earbuds. They’re comfortable, sound great and offer more playback controls than most wireless buds. But one problem reared its head during our review: They use an archaic pairing method, which only connects the right bud directly to your source device. The left bud, meanwhile, shares reception with its sibling, Microsoft confirmed to Engadget.
For most people, this won’t be much of an issue. But if you’re like me and enjoy walking around with a single earbud for passive podcast listening, it means you’ll have to rely on the right Surface Earbud. During my testing, I noticed that the left bud dropped reception often if I got too far away from the right unit. That’s when I got in touch with Microsoft reps, who confirmed the pairing method.
Some stores are offering curbside pickup during the COVID-19 pandemic, but not all of them — and that’s a problem if you need something now from a store that can’t let you inside. Postmates wants to fill that gap. It’s rolling out a feature that lets restaurants and other shops offer curbside pickup using the Postmates app as the conduit instead of building something themselves. You just have to check in through the app when you’ve arrived to grab your goods.
Retailers don’t need to do much more than enable the pickup option from the Postmates dashboard. It’s not guaranteed that you’ll see many stores use this, but it could still play an important role as cities gradually reopen — even if your local store is fully open, this could help you avoid the anxiety of venturing indoors.
Meanwhile, the 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera turned out to be a pleasant surprise. It captures a 123-degree field of view with minimal barrel distortion around the edges, and its colors are even poppier and more saturated than what you’d get out of the main camera. If you’re walking around and shooting photos on a clear day, those pale blue skies will turn out a little more neon than you’d expect. Since this camera is mainly meant to capture lots of attractive, well-lit space, it’s no surprise that it struggles more than the main camera does in low light.
Rather than a telephoto camera (which was almost certainly too expensive for a phone like this), the A51’s third sensor is a 5-megapixel affair for macro photos. I’ve wondered in the past who spends their time bopping around and looking for very small things to take photos of, but ever since testing the OnePlus 8 Pro, I’ve become one of those people. It’s too bad, then, that this never produced the sort of crisp, super-tight images I was hoping for. That’s partially because the camera’s image processing seems to iron out some of those minute details, but also because the narrow depth of field means getting everything framed up just right can take some work.
And that last lens? It’s for a 5-megapixel depth sensor that Samsung uses to capture data for more bokeh-filled portraits. It does its job well. I’ve seen more than a few phones struggle with accurately separating the subject from its background, but the A51 handles the task without much fuss.
Ultimately, no matter which camera you spend the most time with, be prepared for good — not great — results. If getting the best overall photo is your biggest concern, you’d still be much better off with one of Google’s Pixel 3As or the iPhone SE. Samsung’s real edge here doesn’t lay in the quality of its images so much as the flexibility that multiple cameras provide.
When Vicarious Visions unveiled its Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 remaster, you probably wondered about how faithful it would be to the originals. Thankfully, it’s close — though not quite comprehensive. The full list (you can listen on Spotify below) includes a selection of tunes from both games. It’s very much a turn-of-the-millennium sound — you’ll hear songs from the likes of Bad Religion, Dead Kennedys and Rage Against the Machine as you string together move combos.
This won’t make you happy if you want the full soundtrack. You won’t hear Mos Def and Mad Skillz drop verses on The High & Mighty’s “B-Boy Document ‘99,” for instance. Still, this is true to the spirit of the THPS games — and it beats what happened to Crazy Taxi and other games that lost their classic soundtracks with some ports and remasters.
Once the new hardware is in place, the August mobile app takes over for calibration. You’ll have to open and close your door several times in locked and unlocked positions to ensure that the Doorsense sensor lines up properly with the lock. You can see this all unfold in real-time on the app, which displays a bright red button if the door is locked, or green if unlocked. There are also designations for when the door is ajar.
Unlike some modern flush smart locks or locks with external number pads, the August WiFi Smart Lock offers manual access that’s intuitive for anyone. The slight point on the outer edge of the smart lock acts as an arrow to indicate whether the deadbolt is open or closed. You don’t have to check the app to know the status unless you’re on the outside part of the door. But if that’s the case, you can pop in your keys and test it as if it were a manual lock or pull on the door.
That is one of the positives of using the August compared to some other brands: Your door can still be used like normal. I was constantly worrying about the batteries dying on the Nest x Yale Lock because then I’d have to find a 9V battery to jump start the lock before I could open the door. August managed to strike a balance by making its smart lock accessible to those who want to get on the connected gadget train but don’t want to institute an entirely new way of living.
The rest of the app is relatively easy to navigate. The simplicity of the interface makes it less overwhelming than the Nest app, especially when you’re managing multiple devices. The August app requires only a tap on a big, clear button to lock or unlock a door. You can also use voice commands with Siri, Alexa or the Google Assistant to lock a door or find out its status. Assistants can unlock the front door, though it requires setting up a code beforehand. Similarly, the August app has limited automation offerings, or Smart Alerts, which notify you of status changes. If you have more than one guest coming through for extended stays, you can offer them virtual keys to unlock the door with their smartphone or Apple Watch.
One thing I appreciate about August as a smart gadget maker is that it takes a candid approach to account security. From the get-go, August forces you into two-factor authentication, requiring you to verify it’s you through both a text message and email before you can login. Anyone who has access to your phone can still configure the smart lock, though. If you’re worried about someone getting to your phone, August offers an online portal you can access from your computer to disable the app and keep anyone from using the app’s virtual keys to access the door. By default, the app also uses Bluetooth encryption, AES 128-bit and TLS encryption.
Like Facebook, Instagram doesn’t ban anti-vaccine content, though the company claims it has attempted to make it less visible to users. The company blocks some hashtags and says it tries to make anti-vaccine content harder to find in public areas of the app, like Explore. Yet accounts promoting conspiracy theories and inaccurate information about vaccines dominate the app’s search results.
When you search the word “vaccine” on Instagram, the app recommends dozens of anti-vaccine accounts in its top results. Accounts with names such as “Vaccines_revealed,” “Vaccinesuncovered,” “vaccines_kill_” “vaccinesaregenocide_” and “say_no_to_bill_gates_vaccine” are front and center. While some of these accounts are popular, with nearly 100,000 followers, others have only a few hundred. Yet Instagram’s algorithm consistently recommends these accounts — and not one verified health organization — as the most relevant accounts for the search term “vaccine.”
Accounts promoting conspiracy theories and inaccurate information about vaccines dominate search results.
Some of these accounts are meant to sow fear — many are aimed at parents — and post clearly spurious claims like “vaccines are causing autism rates to skyrocket”.Many have pivoted to posting conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and the coronavirus pandemic.
Instagram’s recommendation algorithm also pushes users toward accounts spreading conspiracy theories, including those about vaccines and COVID-19.
I made a new Instagram account, searched “vaccine,” and then followed a few of the top results mentioned above. Within seconds, the app began suggesting I follow more anti-vaccine pages and other accounts peddling conspiracy theories, including QAnon. This isn’t a new phenomenon, either. Vice noted last year that Instagram’s follow suggestions could easily lead users down an anti-vax rabbit hole. The company said at the time it would look into it, but it doesn’t appear much has changed.
Not only do the suggestions still appear, these recommendations are now pushing users toward other fringe conspiracy theories. I only had to follow four anti-vaccine accounts before Instagram began recommending popular QAnon pages, one of which prominently linked to the Plandemic documentary Facebook and others have struggled to successfully banish from their platform. A couple days later, the app sent push notifications recommending I follow two more QAnon pages.
An Instagram spokesperson reiterated that the company aims to make misinformation about vaccines harder to find in public areas of the app.
Searching for specific hashtags can also lead users into a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories.
Searching for #vaccine prompts you to first visit the CDC’s website and contains relatively sanitized results, but Instagram’s hashtag search recommends other “related” search terms that are less filtered, including #vaccineinjuryadvocate and #vaççineskillandinjure. (Using the cedilla character instead of a “c” is a common tactic used by anti-vaccine advocates in order to evade detection, as Coda reported last year.)
Screenshot / Instagram
And when you look at search results for these recommended hashtags, like #vaccineinjuryadvocate, Instagram further suggests more hashtags associated with various other conspiracy theories, including coronavirus conspiracy theories: #plandemic, #governmentconspiracy, #populationcontrol, and #scamdemic. (Instagram has since blocked search results for #plandemic, which had more than 26,000 posts, according to the app.)
Screenshot / Instagram
Instagram’s algorithm recommending hashtags associated with conspiracy theories isn’t just limited to vaccines either. Search #5G and the app surfaces “related hashtags” like #fuckbillgates #billgatesisevil #chemtrails and #coronahoax. Other seemingly innocuous suggestions, like #5Gtowers, also lead to conspiracy theories like #projectbluebeam #markofthebeast #epsteindidntkillhimself.
Misinformation on Instagram
None of these are new issues for Instagram, but the photo-sharing app’s misinformation problem has often avoided the same scrutiny that’s been applied to Facebook. When company officials testified in front of Congress, they downplayed Instagram’s role in spreading Russian disinformation. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s subsequent report found that Instagram ”was the most effective tool used by the IRA.”
The problem, according to those who study it, is that misinformation on Instagram often takes the form of memes and other images that are harder for the company’s systems to detect and can be more difficult for the company’s human reviewers to parse. And while Instagram is building out new systems to address this, images can be a much more effective conduit for bad actors, says Paul Barrett, the deputy director of NYU’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.
“Disinformation, which would include anti-vaxxer material, is increasingly a visual game. This is not something that’s done exclusively or even primarily anymore via big blasts of text,” Barrett said. “Visual material makes it easy to digest, and something that’s not going to seem threatening or overbearing. And I think as a result that makes Instagram appealing.”
Yet Instagram has been much slower to deal with its misinformation problem than Facebook. The photo-sharing app didn’t implement any fact-checking efforts until last May — nearly three years after Facebook began debunking posts with outside fact-checkers. And the app has only recently moved to make debunked posts less visible in users’ feeds.
Instagram
And though Instagram, like Facebook, has prioritized coronavirus misinformation it considers “harmful,” the company doesn’t apparently consider anti-vaccine content, which researchers have linked to measles outbreaks and other instances of actual harm, to be as urgent a problem as some coronavirus conspiracies.
“We’re prioritizing reviewing certain types of content, like child safety, suicide and self injury, terrorism and harmful misinformation related to COVID, to make sure that we’re handling the most dangerous issues,” Mark Zuckerberg said during a call with reporters to discuss the company’s content moderation efforts this week.
When asked whether the company was prioritizing anti-vaccine content given its links to coronavirus misinformation, Facebook’s VP of integrity, Guy Rosen, said, “Health-related harm is something that’s very much top of mind and very much something that we want to prioritize.”
An Instagram spokesperson told Engadget the company doesn’t bar anti-vaccination content, but noted it has removed some posts with misinformation in response to a deadly measles outbreak in Samoa and a polio resurgence in Pakistan. Officials in both countries have blamed misinformation for rising anti-vaccination sentiment.
In most cases, though, the company doesn’t act to remove such content entirely, attempting to make it less visible or adding “false information” labels when the content has been debunked by fact-checkers.
But fact-checking might not be enough, according to Barrett. “Facebook is so outmatched by the scale of the problem, it’s almost a little naive to assume that fact-checking is — even if it’s done vigorously — that you’re going to be able to catch a substantial majority of false information that’s being posted on a continuous basis,” Barrett says. “When you’re talking about billions of posts a day, even if you have Facebook’s 60 fact-checking organizations around the world, a lot of stuff is going to slip by them.”
Windows 10 comes in both 32-bit and 64-bit varieties. While they look and feel nearly identical, the latter takes advantage of faster and better hardware specs. With the era of 32-bit processors winding down, Microsoft is putting the lesser version of its operating system on the back burner. Spotted by NeoWin in the system requirements for the upcoming Windows 10 May 2020 update, Microsoft states that, “Beginning with Windows 10, version 2004, all new Windows 10 systems will be required to use 64-bit builds and Microsoft will no longer release 32-bit builds for OEM distribution.” In other words, any computer you buy in the future that has Windows 10 preloaded will be running the 64-bit version.
This news doesn’t mean that Microsoft will no longer support computers running 32-bit Windows 10. Microsoft says that it will continue to update the OS with new features and security patches, and will still sell it directly to consumers. That said, if you’re still using a 32-bit processor, it may be time to upgrade — the weaker version of Windows 10 has several limitations, like capping out at 3.2GB of RAM and less stringent security measures.
