Blog

The terrible, fantastic life of AbleGamers COO Steven Spohn

[ad_1]

This story is just one reason he wanted to get on-stage at SXSW and deliver a speech about finding strength in any body. Across all forms of media, people with disabilities have fewer role models than the able-bodied population, and also fewer tools designed specifically for the ways they interact with their environments.

Video game developers are waking up to this fact, thanks in large part to AbleGamers, YouTube personalities like Shane Burcaw and activists like Alex Dacy. Many studios nowadays are implementing accessibility options like subtitles, colorblind modes, button re-mapping and co-pilot features out-of-the-box. Uncharted 4 shipped with an option that allowed players to hold down a button rather than repeatedly tapping it, for instance, and Microsoft proved the market for customizable, accessible gamepads with the $100 Xbox Adaptive Controller.

It’s a start.

“Xbox might be amazing, but they’re only one organization,” Spohn said. “They need to continue on what they’re doing, but PlayStation needs to jump in, Nintendo needs to jump in. They all have different parts they can play and we can all push different parts of the narrative to have everyone included so everyone can play.”

Spohn has been with AbleGamers for 15 years, and over that time, it’s grown from a small charity bringing in $50,000 a year and begging for spots at trade shows, to an in-demand organization earning close to $1 million each year. That cash will come in handy, because there’s still plenty of work to do, like advocating for better representation in video games and popular culture alike.

Xbox Adaptive Controller

“The needle has moved, but it went from zero to one, not zero to 100,” Spohn said. “There are 12 characters on TV that now have a disability, instead of zero amongst 10,000. So is there more? Yes, there is more. Is there enough? No, there’s not.”

Spohn points out that one in five people has a disability, yet that ratio is not represented in TV, movies or video games. It’s not that he wants every other on-screen person to have a disability, but there’s clearly room for improvement — and he’s not talking about giving the villain an eye patch. What he wants is truth.

This applies to everyday, real-world interactions with people with disabilities, too.

“People with disabilities are still largely not represented.”

“Tech is where you would think that most people with disabilities would be, and yet people with disabilities are still largely not represented even there,” Spohn said. “We’re seeing it now with the corona thing going on, these companies that have said for years and years, ‘Oh, you’re so smart, you’re amazing. I’m sorry you use a wheelchair. We just can’t open up this position remotely. There’s too many protocols in the way, you have to come to the office. There’s no way this could ever be remote.’ Now, nine quarters of the industry are working from home remotely, so what changed?”

AbleGamers at the NY Abilities Expo 2016

The coronavirus epidemic has shifted the way the world does business, with entire countries on lockdown and companies urging their employees to work from home. Teleconferencing tools didn’t suddenly appear overnight; they’ve been viable for years, but many corporations have limited their use. This has effectively shut out an entire community of potential employees — people with disabilities that make it hard for them to navigate an office, but otherwise don’t affect their performance.

“Those barriers had to be removed because there was a health crisis and it’s exposed that a lot of these corporations didn’t want to employ people from home,” Spohn said. “Didn’t want to give those opportunities to the disability community. They could have. They chose not to.”

Inclusion is a choice. AbleGamers’ mission is to help companies see where they can do better, how they can catalyze new audiences, and what they can do to bring video games to the people who can use them the most. As the charity’s most prominent advocate, Spohn has discovered the depth of his own power as a positive influence, and it’s as terrifying as it is fantastic.

AbleGamers at the NY Abilities Expo 2015

He was running a Dear-Abby-style column called Ask Steve for a while, and one day he received a message from someone saying, “Hey, I was thinking about committing suicide yesterday and I didn’t because what you said resonated with me. Thank you.”

It threw Spohn for a loop.

“I went, ‘Oh crap. Uh, okay,'” Spohn said. “And I realized all of a sudden how powerful words are. Even somebody who sits up there and talks every day about how powerful we can be to one another, it didn’t really sink in to me that this could have some amazing consequences. So, whether you’re going to the grocery store and getting a Twix bar, or whether you’re talking to your friend and convincing them that living for another Twix is worth it, you’ve got some amazing power if you just realize that you have it.”

Yes, even you.

Images: Engadget (Xbox Adaptive Controller); AbleGamers (abilities expo); AbleGamers (group shot)



[ad_2]

Source link

The Weather Channel brings localized COVID-19 updates to your phone

[ad_1]

This new coronavirus tracking will be available in The Weather Channel iOS and Android apps, on weather.com/coronavirus and in an online dashboard. The offerings include AI-powered “Incident Maps,” which show stats like confirmed COVID-19 cases by US state and county, and trend graphs that show spread by US state. There are links to the latest news and videos from The Weather Channel team, and when possible, there are additional details including public health information, like locations of testing centers.

The Weather Channel probably isn’t the first source you think of for COVID-19 updates, but given that it already turns heaps of global data into maps and dashboards, it’s well-prepared to provide this kind of data and analytics. The tools run on the IBM public cloud and use IBM Watson to access and analyze data — IBM already relies Watson to warn users about flu outbreaks.

“We feel it’s critical to provide the most trusted information currently available to help people stay informed on the reach of COVID-19… so you can see why social distancing matters in your community and why it’s important to heed instructions from your local, state and national resources,” said Cameron Clayton, general manager of IBM’s The Weather Company.

This isn’t the only creative way apps are helping to spread reliable info. Last week, WhatsApp and the WHO created a chatbot to provide the latest stats and answer users’ questions — the WHO joined TikTok to help set the record straight. And Facebook is attempting to connect its Messenger developers with government organizations to create apps and bots that will share COVID-19 updates. IBM and The Weather Channel have a unique advantage in that they’re able to share local and regional data, as well as national and global stats.

[ad_2]

Source link

Chinese digital spying is becoming more aggressive, researchers say

[ad_1]

Cisco and Citrix both told Reuters that they have patched the vulnerabilities that were being exploited by APT41. Citrix is also coordinating with FireEye to find “potential compromises.” Reuters reached out to Dell Technologies’ cybersecurity arm, Secureworks, which stated that the company has also seen increased activity from Chinese hackers “over the last few weeks.”

Chinese government contractors carrying out cyber attacks is nothing new, but the scope of these current initiatives is concerning. Companies in about 20 countries are being targeted, and APT41 is carrying out subsequent attacks frequently: “This activity is one of the most widespread campaigns we have seen from China-nexus espionage actors in recent years,” says FireEye. “This new activity from this group shows how resourceful and how quickly they can leverage newly disclosed vulnerabilities to their advantage.” Whether the attackers are purposely taking advantage of a reduced cybersecurity workforce during the coronavirus pandemic or the timing is just a coincidence remains to be determined.

[ad_2]

Source link

‘Picard’ finally shows us how ‘Star Trek’s’ technology evolves

[ad_1]

Over seven seasons various TNG episodes continued to explore what the holodeck could do. Deep Space Nine (DS9) even gave us a recurring holographic character, lounge singer Vic Fontaine. But it was Voyager that made a sentient hologram part of the main cast and spent the next seven years exploring the concept of having a hologram as a full-time crew member — from his mobility limitations (he was confined to the ship until he obtained a mobile emitter in season three), his relations with his fellow officers and eventually, his legal rights as a synthetic being.

There were plenty of questions left to explore; plenty of ideas that could be iterated on. What happened to the Doctor when he got back to the Federation? Would he fight for the rights of fellow holograms? Would holograms continue to be used on ships? Would the Doctor’s mobile-emitter technology become widespread? All of these questions would not, and could not, be answered because, after the release of Nemesis in 2003, the universe stopped moving forward. Star Trek: Enterprise was set 200 years earlier in the 22nd century, and Star Trek: Discovery put us back in the 23rd. The NX-01 Enterprise barely had transporters, much less sentient holographic lifeforms. (And the three Abrams films were not only set in the past, but in a different reality with its own tech!)

Star Trek: Picard

The choice to place new series in the past not only kept them from continuing technological threads introduced in other shows, but it kept them from introducing new ones lest they break the logic of the shared timeline. Discovery‘s spore drive was a pretty unique piece of technology, allowing travel across vast distances in a matter of seconds — way beyond warp capabilities — but ultimately it had to be kept secret with all records of it erased, since such technology didn’t line up with what we’d seen in TOS, TNG and DS9. It would have made the entire premise of Voyager, that of a ship stranded 70,000 light-years away from home, completely moot.

Now, with Star Trek: Picard, we’re back in the 24th century. And we can now start following up on these technological threads again. If Voyager asked what happens when you make a holographic being a full-time officer, Picard asks what happens if the entire crew of its ship, La Sirena, was made up of holograms. (Hilarity, apparently.) But Picard is more a continuation of TNG than Voyager, and so its raison d’être is one of its parent series’ continuing plot threads: sentient android life.

TNG

In the pilot of TNG we met Data, where we were immediately told he was a sentient android. In fact, he was the only sentient android, as his creator, Noonian Soong, never published the details of his work. Many of Data’s plots revolved around his desire to be more human and his role as the sole Soong-type android in existence. There were minor points of character development — Data developing an interest in Sherlock Holmes stories or getting a cat that he wrote poems about — but there were also huge leaps forward, like that time he built himself a daughter. Over the course of the show, Data would build strong friendships with his fellow crew and eventually develop the ability to feel (thanks to a chip which was first revealed in season four but not implanted in Data until the first film, Generations, four years later).

Data was killed in Nemesis and that was the end of it. Since the next two series were set in the past, where sentient androids didn’t even exist yet, they couldn’t address questions like, “Did anyone try to build more androids like Data? What happened to that scientist, Bruce Maddox, who was working on building one and wanted to take Data apart for research? What happened to the other Soong-type androids we met, B-4 and Lore?” The entire plotline was as dead as Data.

[ad_2]

Source link

‘War of the Visions’ is a mobile spin on ‘Final Fantasy Tactics’

[ad_1]

War of the Visions features the same grid and turn-based combat of Final Fantasy Tactics. You can also see the influence of Akihiko Yoshida, the character designer who defined the look of Tactics, in the game’s art style.

The story is your usual fantasy fare. It involves a small kingdom called Leonis. The country becomes inevitably drawn into a much bigger conflict involving several other nations. The story unfolds over multiple cutscenes, which you can watch in both English and Japanese. War of the Visions takes place in the same setting as Brave Exvius, the Final Fantasy title best known for its connection to Ariana Grande.

One of your characters can summon warriors to help you in the game’s battles. This is where War of the Visions‘ free-to-play mechanics come into play. You primarily obtain these characters by paying real-world money for a chance to add them to your team. You’ll know what you’re about to get yourself into if you’ve played Fire Emblem Heroes. Some characters are harder to obtain than others, and it can take tens, and sometimes hundreds, of “gacha pulls” to get the characters you want. Still, if you’ve played War of the Lions‘ iOS and Android port to death, War of the Visions looks like a decent homage to one of the best games ever made.

[ad_2]

Source link

Verizon will provide free internet to students in Los Angeles

[ad_1]

Reliable internet access is critical during this pandemic, but Verizon (Engadget’s parent company) is a little late to step up. Spectrum is offering free internet installation and service to students and their families. Comcast is making its Internet Essentials program free for new, qualifying customers for 60 days, and it is boosting broadband speeds for existing Internet Essentials customers. AT&T has removed data usage caps.

While Verizon’s support for students in LAUSD is critical, that’s only one school district. As Superintendent Austin Beutner said, “the digital divide is very real.” With learning moving online, closing the digital divide across the entire country may be more important than ever.

[ad_2]

Source link

Marshall’s latest Alexa smart speaker is a compact cube

[ad_1]

Smaller in size than Marshall’s Acton and Stanmore speakers, the Uxbridge is more on par with the Google Home Mini, but there’s still a lot of power in the compact cube. There’s Alexa, of course, plus Bluetooth, Airplay 2 and Spotify Connect support, as well as multi-room capabilities and far-field voice recognition, so no matter how loud your tunes are, Alexa will hear you.

And, according to the company, the speaker has been engineered to create a thunderous sound from its small frame, with high-end components helping to deliver screaming highs and hard-hitting lows. Plus, of course, it just looks cool. It’ll be on sale from April 8th for £170 (about $200). Not big on Alexa? The Uxbridge will launch with Tencent Xiaowei on May 4th, and Google Assistant on June 11th.

[ad_2]

Source link

Lifting weights in a Panasonic exosuit destined for the Tokyo Olympics

[ad_1]

Unstrapped, I lifted the 20-kg plates again, under my own steam. I felt a harder ‘pull’ returning — it’s not that I can’t lift the plates without the Model Y, it’s simply easier with it.

While most of us can handle lifting and moving a 10kg-weight plate or two, loaders during competitions like this will have to deal with bigger weight plates and shift more than 100 of them over the span of a competition. The reduction in muscle fatigue is apparently one of several benefits, according to Panasonic. The suits improve safety, helping spotters catch loose weights or when an athlete loses control of the barbell. With less stress on the loader’s back, it speeds up the entire process, as they calibrate the weight on the bar for each athlete.

This was the first appearance of Model Y assistance at a powerlifting competition outside of Japan, but Panasonic’s latest exosuit has performed the same duties at several meets in its home country. According to Takashi Tsurumaru, who works in the Business Development division of ATOUN (partially owned by Panasonic, which established the spin-off company), there have been no major changes to the suit between these competitions.

The Model Y does, however, come from a long line of power assist suits. Compared to the now-discontinued Model A, the Y is lighter and more streamlined. It weighs roughly 50 percent less, while it can work for twice as long between charges. The design is also far more streamlined. That said, in over 15 years of development, the models have got more expensive — and bigger.

But at approximately 4.5kg, the Model Y is the lightest power suit in its class. It also has IP55 rating and can be worn outdoors and in rainy weather.

Those specs are further proof that the Model Y isn’t built expressly for weightlifting competitions. In the run-up to this next year’s Olympics, Japanese companies like Panasonic will be teasing the sheer breadth of technology it would showcase at the Games. The ATOUN Model Y was part of that, strapped on to assistants in airports so they could effortlessly unload suitcases. The company envisions the suits helping human labor in construction, farming and logistics — anywhere repetitive physical tasks are commonplace.

Not the exosuit you’re waiting for?

NININ

This might be the buttoned-up reality of suits for now, but the company has several prototypes that seem far more sci-fi. Its NIO project is a heavy-lifting exosuit that would look perfect on Ripley, while the NININ ‘Intelligent Assist Chair’, apparently aimed at office work, looks like the perfect work furniture for an evil genius.

Tsurumaru notes that nursing home staff could use power assist suits to lift or turn older patients. The ATOUN team is also looking into “walking assistance models” and locations where these exosuits could work. Companies in Asia are very much interested — Panasonic says ATOUN has sold hundreds of power suits already.

Its appearances in Tokyo, whether on the Paralympic stage or merely at the airport, would have helped ATOUN garner international attention, but the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics have put a pin in those plans for now. Panasonic reiterated to Engadget that it was “committed to supporting the Olympics next year.”

Perhaps by 2021, ATOUN will have a new model to showcase to visitors.

[ad_2]

Source link

Can Twitter survive when no one can go outside?

[ad_1]

One of the ‘joys’ of covering Twitter’s financial presentations is the conference call that takes place afterward. CEO Jack Dorsey and CFO Ned Segal answer questions from analysts at big American banks about things like CAC and Run-Rate. One common theme is how much weight Twitter puts in events, which Segal says drive’s Twitter’s growth. But with the company now facing stringent targets, how is it going to cope when all of those events stop happening?

Twitter’s pitch is to “enhance the public conversation around events,” especially those in “sports, entertainment, news and politics.” It allows the peanut gallery to snark about whatever’s going on, with advertisers able to spend big to get their brands in front of your eyes. That’s why there is so much ad money thrown around the platform in the run-up to, say, the Super Bowl. These events are key to pulling new people to Twitter and showing them why it’s worth sticking around.

2020 was set to be a banner year for these events, too, as outlined by CFO Ned Segal at the start of February. “There is a ton of stuff that we’re really excited about, both from an audience perspective and from an advertiser perspective,” he said. “The Olympics, the Euro Cup [sic], the US Presidential election,” he added, saying that it’s these things that “bring people to Twitter.” The company’s most recent shareholder letter made this point, too, saying that these big events “expand the audience and often creates additional ad revenue for Twitter.”

And those big banner events were more important than ever after Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey fought off a challenge to his leadership. Activist investors Elliott Management was calling for Dorsey’s head, both because of his plan to spend some of 2020 in Africa but also because of his second job as CEO of Square. A deal was eventually struck on March 9th that maintained the status quo, but with the pledge that Twitter increased its mDAU targets by 20 percent in 2020.

mDAU is short for Monetizable Daily Active Users, a term that Twitter uses to describe people who are logged in to the platform and are able to see ads. It’s these people whose attention Twitter can sell to companies, embedding adverts and sponsored hashtags, and is a key sign of its money-making potential In Q4 2019, which ended in February, the company had 152 million mDAUs worldwide: 31 million in the US and 121 million elsewhere. It would seem that, if Twitter wants to keep its trigger-happy new investors happy, that figure needs to leap north of 182 million.

But what happens when there are no big events to help draw in new users to hit that target? The 2020 calendar is now full of holes where before there were opportunities for Twitter to shine. In the US, the NBA, NHL, MLS, MLB, NCAA Championships and PGA Tour have all been put on hiatus, postponed or canceled. Soccer, the world’s most-watched sport, has seen its biggest leagues stopped, and the summer tournaments — including the European Championships Segal mentioned — pushed back to 2021.

There’s also the fact that while Twitter is awash with information about COVID-19, it’s not exactly a great one for advertisers. Jim Cridlin is head of innovation at Mindshare, one of the biggest advertising firms in the world. He says that “advertisers don’t want their content” sat beside hashtags about how people can remain safe. After all, it would hardly be appropriate or tasteful to offer coronavirus content, brought to you by, say, Purell.

The 2020 Olympic Games was going to be a big deal for Twitter, with Segal saying last July that there were “opportunities” for brands to use the site “differently.” Twitter was clearly laying the groundwork for new ways to use the site during the event and had already laid out its media strategy. In partnership with NBC, Twitter would host highlights of events, as well as a daily round-up show. But the games have been pushed back to 2021, removing the centerpiece of Twitter’s summer schedule.

Of course, with no big banner events in the calendar for the foreseeable future, and COVID-19 dominating the news and social agenda, Twitter is stuck. It’s likely it has seen usage among its current relatively small base skyrocket. CEO Jack Dorsey said the platform has seen a “meaningful increase” in the number of people using Twitter, and the company’s mDAU figures have bounced up to 164 million, at least part-way through the first quarter.

What’s not clear, however, is if that spike is simply the limit of Twitter’s hyper-engaged user base or if it’s driving new sign-ups. After all, the company still needs to push its mDAU figures by another 14 million by the end of the fiscal year. But will that happen if the only thing anyone can talk about is how they’re coping during the era of “shelter in place?”

Twitter’s dilemma is that it needs to pull in new users with nothing beyond the current crisis as the draw. Certainly, lots of people are using it right now to talk and connect, but is that enough of a sales pitch to lure folks from other social networks? It’s not as if it can scream “Hey, come obsess about COVID-19 with everyone else over here,” without looking ghoulish. But can it grow the sort of volume it needs to in order to avoid its investors getting angry?

Twitter declined to comment for this story.

[ad_2]

Source link

Unity is offering premium game development tutorials for free

[ad_1]

Unity powers big hitters such as Hollow Knight, Escape from Tarkov, Cuphead and dozens more, and is particularly popular with small-scale indie developers. Even if you’ve never toyed with the idea of making a game, it’s certainly worth having a nose around the tutorials on offer, at the very least to get a better understanding of the work that goes into game development. Like all professional game engines, though, Unity is pretty vast, so check out Getting Started with Unity first.

[ad_2]

Source link