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‘Scoob!’ goes direct to video on-demand May 15th

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While Trolls is only available as a $20 rental, Warner will make this animated feature available for 48-hour rental at a price of $20, or purchase for $25, in the US and Canada starting on May 15th. There’s no word on whether or not it will make a quick jump to HBO Max, which just announced a launch date, but so far Disney has used Disney+ for a few accelerated streaming releases, will premiere Artemis Fowl on the service later this year. This is the second home release Warner has adjusted, it bumped Birds of Prey up to March 24th as lockdowns started to roll out across the US.



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Opera’s desktop browser now includes quick access to Instagram

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Opera has tried any number of special features to draw users away from rival browsers, but its latest might be the most straightforward: make a popular social network part of the software. It’s introducing Opera 68 for desktops with built-in access to Instagram. Click a button in the sidebar and you’ll have fast access to your feed, Stories and direct messages.

This doesn’t appear to provide any features that weren’t already part of the web version, and you can get vaguely close to this in other browsers by pinning a tab. However, Opera’s clearly counting on both the convenience of a built-in feature and making Instagram available no matter what site you’re already visiting. If you find yourself reflexively checking for new posts, the updated browser might be worth a look.

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Porsche is working on a cheaper two-wheel drive Taycan EV

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Porsche’s Taycan EV will apparently come in four models instead of just three like the luxury automaker originally announced. In an interview with Car Magazine, R&D chief Dr Michael Steiner said an entry-level Taycan will be joining the mid-range 4S, the Turbo and the Turbo S.

It will be a two-wheel drive vehicle for markets that don’t need four-wheel drives — “places like China, where weather conditions mean you don’t need it,” he said. In addition, the vehicle will have a smaller battery to make it as affordable as possible for a Porsche EV. The mid-range 4S, as Autoblog notes, has a 79.2-kWh battery with 252 miles of range.

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‘Splatoon 2’ is getting one more Splatfest.

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While Nintendo can’t get enough Switch consoles on shelves right now to meet customer demand, following its recent sales spike the company is highlighting an old favorite: Splatoon 2. A special event for the game in May is timed perfectly for people who might want a break from playing the turnip markets in Animal Crossing: New Horizons and start looking around for something else.

First, there’s a special Demo Event that starts April 29th and runs for a week, where players can try modes including Turf War, Ranked Battle and Salmon Run competing against other people in the demo or players who own the full game. To make it even more enticing, Nintendo is putting the game on sale during the event, dropping its price from $59.99 to $39.99, and offering a free seven-day trial of its online services so people can try the multiplayer.

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‘Hey Google’ sensitivity option for Assistant devices starts rolling out

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It’s pretty easy to trigger Google Assistant by accident either by pressing a button or saying anything that it mistakenly hears as a wake word. The tech giant promised last year to release a feature that would make it harder to wake Assistant up when you don’t mean to, and it has now started making it available to the public. Google told The Verge that it’s gradually rolling out the ability to customize Assistant-powered devices’ voice detection sensitivity.

XDA Developers’ Editor-in-Chief, Mishaal Rahman, posted screenshots of the sensitivity option that’s found under Device Settings. As you can see, you’ll be able to adjust a slider to make your Assistant device less responsive to “Hey Google” — or more, if it hasn’t been as responsive as you’d like.

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This VR system tethers your hands to your shoulders to improve haptics

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For years, researchers have been trying to bring improved haptics to virtual reality (VR) experiences. We’ve seen haptic suits from companies like bHaptics and Tesla, as well as VR boots, gloves and other handheld devices. Now, a team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University is ready to introduce a new approach. Their wearable device connects users’ hands to their shoulders via spring-loaded cables. The researchers claim that the product, Wireality, can better simulate objects in VR.

The device sits on users’ shoulders, and the spring-loaded cables attach to each fingertip and a few points on the hand. Gears inside Wireality lock to create resistance, and the design takes advantage of the users’ upper body mass to simulate heavy and fixed objects. Wireality could make flat and curved VR surfaces, like walls and railings, more lifelike. It could also allow users to interact with touchscreens and buttons in ways that haptic systems with only vibrational motors don’t allow.

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Motorola’s Edge+ launch was spoiled a day early

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You won’t have to wait until Motorola’s April 22nd event to find out what the Edge+ can do. Droid Life reports that a premature blog post confirmed many of the flagship Android phone’s specifications for the US version exclusive to Verizon (Engadget’s parent company), including tidbits that weren’t immediately available before. The Edge+ will have a 6.7-inch 1080p OLED screen whose curved edges explain its name, a 90Hz refresh rate, a Snapdragon 865 processor, 12GB of RAM and 256GB of built-in storage. So far, it’s what you’d expect from a high-end Android phone in 2020.

It’s in the cameras where Motorola might do more to stand out. The rear camera array won’t be completely revolutionary with its 108MP, hardware-stabilized f/1.8 main sensor (pixel-binned to produce 27MP shots most of the time), but there should be a 16MP ultra-wide camera and an 8MP telephoto cam to produce zoomed-in shots without cropping. There’s a 25MP front-facing shooter as well. Curiously, the Edge+ can record up to 6K — better than the 4K that’s still commonplace, but not 8K like you see with the Galaxy S20 family.

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‘Fortnite’ is finally available through the Google Play Store

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This isn’t the first time Epic has railed against Google’s insistence on a 30 percent take. It pushed for an exemption to the rule and went so far as to call the practice illegal for any platform with a majority of the market. Google rejected the argument, maintaining that its policy lets it “invest” in the platform and that it doesn’t want to play favorites. Epic sells Fortnite on iOS, where non-App Store titles aren’t allowed outside of exceptions like beta tests and enterprise rollouts, but Apple also has a minority of the market.

Whether or not Epic has a case, there’s also a simple business reality at work: it’s easier to bring Fortnite to Google’s store now than it was when the Android version shipped 18 months ago. Many of those who wanted to play on Android have already downloaded it. This is reaching out to that relative minority of people who either couldn’t install from third-party sources or refused to go elsewhere. This may be less a matter of survival and more a bid to scoop up those players who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) download the game before.

“After 18 months of operating Fortnite on Android outside of the Google Play Store, we’ve come to a basic realization:

“Google puts software downloadable outside of Google Play at a disadvantage, through technical and business measures such as scary, repetitive security pop-ups for downloaded and updated software, restrictive manufacturer and carrier agreements and dealings, Google public relations characterizing third party software sources as malware, and new efforts such as Google Play Protect to outright block software obtained outside the Google Play store.

“Because of this, we’ve launched Fortnite for Android on the Google Play Store. We’ll continue to operate the Epic Games App and Fortnite outside of Google Play, too.

“We hope that Google will revise its policies and business dealings in the near future, so that all developers are free to reach and engage in commerce with customers on Android and in the Play Store through open services, including payment services, that can compete on a level playing field.”



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Snapchat users surge amid coronavirus pandemic

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But not all of Snapchat’s growth is due to the pandemic. “While we observed higher engagement in the final weeks of the quarter, as many in our community sought to stay connected and entertained from home, this had little impact on our Q1 result,” said Snap CFO Derek Andersen. “As a result, we were already on pace to accelerate year-over-year growth in daily active users absent this impact.”

As with previous quarters, Snap’s strongest growth continues to be outside of North America and Europe. The company has previously credited its redesigned Android app and augmented reality features for attracting users in new markets.

Also growing: Snapchat Discover, thanks in large part to the company’s investment in original programming. Daily time spent watching shows “more than doubled” this quarter, according to the company. And “more than half of the United States Gen Z population,” is watching news on Discover, Spiegel said.

Snap will share more about its growth during its quarterly earnings call, check back for more updates.



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Netflix memberships grew in Q1 as coronavirus lockdowns spread

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The effect of the coronavirus pandemic and stay-at-home orders meant to slow its spread have impacted businesses differently, but for Netflix it means more people are streaming than ever. In its Q1 2020 earnings report (PDF), the company said membership growth spiked as lockdowns spread, but also predicted that as the orders are lifted it could negatively impact growth through the rest of the year. It added 16 million subscribers in the period, way above the seven million originally projected.

Predictably, it had big numbers — using a new standard for viewing stats — to report for content released over the last few weeks, with a projected 64 million Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness over its first four weeks, along with 29 million on Ozark season three, 65 million for Money Heist (aka Casa de Papel) and 85 million for its Spenser Confidential flick.

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