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HTC’s Vive Sync beta offers businesses free access to VR meetings

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Vive Sync meetings can support up to 30 participants per session and can access files users need from OneDrive. Participants can, for instance, present PowerPoints, PDFs, marketing videos and 3D models in their virtual meeting space. They can also record notes, annotate them with a 3D pen and take screenshots. Those notes and screenshots are instantly uploaded to participants’ cloud services, making them easy to access on phones and computers.

In its announcement, HTC says it’s just getting started with Vive Sync and plans to implement more features “quickly.” Those plans include making Vive Sync compatible with non-Vive headsets to give more people access, as well as giving it the ability to record full meeting sessions.

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Epic Games Store gets local pricing in five more countries

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You can now pay for Epic Games Store purchases in your own currency if you’re in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The developer’s digital storefront now supports AUD, CAD, DKK, NOK and SEK, bringing the total number of currencies it accepts to 15. That means you no longer have to worry about potentially huge price differences due to conversion fluctuations anymore. And, as PC Gamer notes, prices on the store now match Steam’s.

Epic Games has also recently rolled out a feature allowing users to throttle their download speeds, which you can enable by going to the launcher settings menu. It’s probably a welcome update for a lot of people, seeing as whole households are staying at home and using the internet all day due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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‘Luigi’s Mansion 3’ adds more multiplayer minigames with new DLC

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Last year Nintendo promised a two-part release of extra content for Luigi’s Mansion 3, all scheduled to arrive before July 31st. Part one of the $10 DLC pack went on sale in early March, and now Part 2 is here.

Both halves of the DLC add three additional competitive ScreamPark minigames, and three new themes for its four-player co-op mode, as well as new ghosts and costumes. Nick Summers didn’t find the game lacking for content when he reviewed it last fall, but if you’re tired of playing the same things over and over it should put a little more life into the game for those times when you need an Animal Crossing: New Horizons break.

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Raspberry Pi unveils a high-quality interchangeable-lens camera

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Raspberry Pi has launched a new high-quality, interchangeable lens camera for budding photographers or folks who want to learn how integrate a camera into their build projects. It comes with a 7.9mm (Type 1/2.3) Sony IMX477 12.3-megapixel back-illuminated sensor, along with a mount that works with off the shelf C- and CS-mount lenses used on industrial and 16mm film cameras.

Dubbed the “High Quality Camera,” it’s a big step up from the Camera Module V2 from 2016. While it’s much less compact, the back-side illumination and much larger pixels will make it much more capable in low-light. It comes with a back-focus adjustment ring and tripod mount, and the larger format sensor is close to what you’d see on a compact camera, rather than a smartphone.

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Microsoft Office for iPad tests multi-window support

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Microsoft will soon make it easier to juggle multiple Word documents and PowerPoint presentations for iOS users. The tech giant has given Office Insiders the ability to open multiple Word and PowerPoint windows side-by-side on an iPad.

Insiders can access the feature by going to the Recent, Shared or Open file list and then holding and dragging a file to the iPad screen edge or selecting one from the “…” menu. They can also simply swipe up from the bottom of the screen to open a dock, drag the icon of the open app to the edge of the screen and then choose the file they want to launch.

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Extreme E races will have male and female driver changeovers

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Changeovers will take place in a pit lane that has designated spots for each team. That should ensure the Double Dash duos — which will be racing head-to-head and completing laps at different times — can safely swap over mid-race. A spokesperson for Extreme E said that each course will “essentially” be a large loop. When a racer becomes the co-driver, therefore, they won’t need to perform any rally-style map reading. Instead, they’ll be in the vehicle for emotional support and pointing out natural obstacles.

Extreme E was officially unveiled in January 2019 by Agag and former professional racing driver Gil de Ferran. Unlike Formula E, which takes place on tarmac and asphalt tracks, the still-in-development competition will cover deserts, glaciers, tropical rainforests and other ‘extreme’ locales.

The inaugural season, which is scheduled to start in January 2021, will have five races in Senegal, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Greenland and Brazil. Teams will race in the Odyssey 21, a monstrous electric SUV built by Spark Racing Technology, the same company that made the first and second-gen Formula E race cars. The base model will weigh 1,650kg and go from nought to 62MPH (100KMH) in 4.5 seconds. Teams will have the option to test and develop their own powertrains, though, and customize select body parts including the engine cover, bumpers, side skirts and lights.

Extreme E’s organisers will move everything they need, including the Odyssey 21 vehicles, on RMS St. Helena, a former Royal Mail vessel that’s currently being converted into a floating paddock. The boat will also serve as a base for Extreme E’s scientific work. The organizers want to use the competition to highlight climate change and support environmental projects. Earlier this month, Extreme E unveiled a five-person scientific committee that will guide its various education and research initiatives.

Various broadcasters have already agreed to show the competition, including Fox Sports, TVNZ, Mediaset, Dubai Sports and the BBC.

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Balmuda’s $329 steam-based toaster finally arrives in the US

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Just how much do you value your toast in the morning? Enough that you’d pay top dollar to have a near-ideal texture every time? You now have a chance to prove your commitment. Japanese brand Balmuda has released its fabled The Toaster in the US, making its one-of-a-kind steam tech available on this side of the Pacific without extraordinary efforts. It costs a staggering $329 on the company website (and soon on Amazon and Williams Sonoma), but there’s a reason for that — it’s a significant step up from a pop-up toaster.

Instead of the usual wires, The Toaster relies on precisely controlled steam on all sides to heat your bread more consistently while preserving more flavor and moisture. Wired noted in its 2016 review that Balmuda’s device couldn’t make ordinary toast seem sublime, but it did preserve the innate tastiness of higher-quality options and could even revive some stale bread. You might just notice the difference if you prefer to shop at a local bakery instead of the supermarket.

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British Museum makes over half of its collection viewable online

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You can’t visit museums in person during pandemic lockdowns, but you might not have to for one of the most prestigious institutions. The British Museum has made (via Motherboard) images of more than half its collection (4.5 million objects) available online, with 1.9 million images available through a Creative Commons 4.0 license. You can not only browse the gallery, but use it however you like for non-commercial purposes. About 280,000 photos are being published for the first time, and you can now zoom into and pan images if you want to see every last nuance of an artifact.

The museum already has a number of legendary items available online, including the Rosetta Stone and the Sutton Hoo discoveries. This expansion adds items like a once-lost painting by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a Bronze Age pendant and a Easter Island sculpture (which Easter Island residents want returned).



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Uber AI plays any Atari 2600 game with ‘superhuman’ skill

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DeepMind isn’t the only one with an Atari-savvy AI. A team of Uber AI researchers has developed a set of algorithms, Go-Explore, that reportedly beats any Atari 2600 game with “superhuman” scores, including ones where AI previously had trouble besting its organic rivals. The key is a system that takes care to remember promising states and returns to those states before it sets out exploring.

Go-Explore saw improvement by “orders of magnitude” in some games. It was the first to beat every level in Montezuma’s Revenge, and got a “near-perfect” Pitfall score — both of these are particularly challenging for reinforcement learning systems like this. DeepMind’s Agent57 reached a similar benchmark, according to the team’s Jeff Clune, but through “entirely different methods.” That gives developers a “diversity” of approaches to the same tasks.



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Tesla’s ‘full self-driving’ feature is coming in subscription form

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By that July, Tesla had tacked another $1,000 onto the FSD’s price tag — $7,000 all told if you install it after the fact. The company then promised another price hike in August which ended up being furloughed until version 10 of the vehicle software package, which included an enhanced summon capability, was available in September.

But for people that are buying the Tesla second hand or didn’t spring for the FSD package to start with, dropping seven grand can seem a steep sum for such an investment, which is why Musk announced on Wednesday, “I think we will also be having it as a subscription service, but it will be towards the end of this year.”

“It was to make available FSD as an option. In our view, buying FSD is an investment in the future and we’re confident that his investment that will pay off to the consumer,” Musk continued. “My guess is the FSD option is something people will not regret doing.”

A company rep then reiterated that rolling the upfront cost of the FSD system into the overall vehicle loan “will be the least expensive to pay on a monthly basis.”

The earnings call was not without verbal fireworks, however, as a clearly frustrated Musk ranted about the COVID-19 quarantine and government-issued stay at home orders.

“Is it right to infringe upon people’s rights,” asked Musk. “As what is happening right now, I think people are going to be very angry about this.”

“If somebody wants to stay in their house, that’s great. They should be allowed to stay in the house and they should not be compelled to leave,” he continued. “But to say that they cannot leave their house, as they will be arrested if they do, this is fascist.”

“This is not democratic, not freedom, give people back their goddamn freedom,” Musk insisted, as a tense silence fell upon the conference call.



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