Animal Crossing: New Horizons will bring Nintendo’s franchise to the Switch in March, and one month ahead of the game’s release date it will unveil more details about the new entry. A 25-minute livestream on February 20th at 9 AM ET will give us a look at the “Nook Inc.’s Deserted Island Getaway Package!” that makes up the backbone of the new game.
Players have been waiting for years to see a new console entry in the series, and it’s almost here. Just wait a few more hours to get a better look at it, and the good news is that it’s not delayed again.
San Juan’s infrastructure and UNESCO world heritage sites have made it challenging to provide fiber connectivity through Old San Juan. But that makes it an ideal city to test Facebook’s Terragraph system, the 60GHz millimeter-wave wireless tech that blasts internet through buildings along a network of short-distance cell towers. This offers an alternative to costly fiber-optic lines, and the Terragraph device can be attached to existing infrastructure, like street lights and utility poles.
“Looking ahead, we are excited about the potential opportunities Terragraph provides to expand high-quality gigabit internet experience throughout the island of Puerto Rico,” said Gino Villarini, AeroNet’s founder and president.
Match.com stresses that you should call 911 if you feel unsafe, but Date Check-In could be a good option for when a date acts creepy or strange, but not outright dangerous. Match Group — Match.com’s owner — also owns dating sites OkCupid, Tinder, Hinge, eHarmony and Plenty of Fish. However, Date Check-In is exclusive to Match.com. Other Match Group apps have received other safety features recently, including Tinder’s photo verifications and integration with personal safety app Noonlight.
Such safety features seem to be much needed ones, so hopefully other popular dating apps will receive similar updates. In December, ProPublica reported that while Match.com does screen for sexual predators, Match Group’s other offerings do not, making it easier for criminals to find new victims.
The highlight of the new lineup is a $50 motorized version of Halo’s iconic assault rifle. The MA40 will come with 10 darts and a clip mechanism that automatically feeds the projectiles into the blaster’s chamber. Unlike its in-game counterpart, the MA40 from Hasbro isn’t a fully automatic weapon; each trigger pull fires a single dart. As far as everyone’s safety is concerned, that’s likely for the best. You’ll also need four C batteries to make it work (sold separately, naturally). On the plus side, each one comes with a code to unlock the MA40’s color scheme in the upcoming Halo: Infinite.
The two other blasters are part of Hasbro’s Microshots lineup. First, there’s the SPNKR, which is based on the double-barrel rocket launcher of the same name. It fires a single shot at a time but comes with two darts. Last but certainly not least, there’s the Needler — which needs no introduction. Sadly, Hasbro’s take on one of Halo’s most iconic weapons doesn’t fire homing projectiles. Instead, it’s a single-shot dart gun. Both will cost $10.
You’ll be able to buy Hasbro’s new Halo Nerf guns on October 1st, which should coincide nicely with the holiday 2020 release window of Halo: Infinite and the Xbox Series X. We’ll have to see whether Halo has as much pull with kids as Fortnite does, but if you grew up with the series, these are definitely a fun addition to the company’s lineup.
Kickstarter chief Aziz Hasan said his company would “support and respect” the decision, although there are signs that it might have opposed the move. The crowdfunding site’s early stance was “disappointing,” OPEIU said. Former employees have also accused Kickstarter of union-busting by firing people trying to organize unions, although the company has disputed those claims.
The unionization follows efforts at companies like Google and reflects increasing pressure on tech firms to allow labor organization. Workers are concerned that they don’t have voices in company decisions, and that employers can use the threat of retaliation to prevent people from pushing for better working conditions. The Kickstarter effort is relatively small, but might set a precedent that leads others to organize.
The publisher has a couple of warnings about cross-saves, however. It said if you change the name of a PC save file, the Cloud Save feature on Switch won’t recognize it. “Mod-related bugs and blockers might get transferred from a modded PC game save file,” it also noted.
Update 3.6 for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on Nintendo Switch is now available!
It introduces save file integration with GOG and Steam, and adds more graphical settings, making it possible to customize visual fidelity, among others.
That’s not the only change in store for the Switch port. There are several additional graphics options, including ways to adjust the depth of field, anti-aliasing and motion blur. Given that the Switch isn’t as powerful as Xbox One, PS4 or typical gaming PCs, The Witcher 3 doesn’t pack the same visual punch on the hybrid console. The upgraded graphics options might mitigate that a bit.
Also new are touch controls and support for more text languages in some regions, while CD Projekt Red says it improved performance and squished some bugs. “Additional voice-over languages, added as free DLCs in selected regions, will follow later,” it added.
Spotify has moved several interface elements to frontload useful information at the top of the screen. This is most apparent with the new placement of descriptions. They now sit underneath the “follow” button in the new design, which means you don’t have to swipe to find out what a show is about. Underneath the description, Spotify has nested genre tags you can tap on to find similar podcasts.
However, the most significant tweak is that the new interface will place “trailer” episodes at the top of the episode list. If you’re a frequent podcast listener, you’ve probably listened to trailer episodes without necessarily knowing. They’re short, one- to two-minute clips designed to give you a good sense of what a show is about without listening to a full episode. Anchor, one of the companies Spotify acquired last year, recently added a feature to its app to make it easier for DIY podcasters to create trailer episodes, so it’s not surprising to see Spotify put a greater emphasis on them. The thread connecting all the tweaks is that you can now find out more information about a show faster.
Over the last year-and-a-half, Spotify has been making both big and small tweaks to the podcast section of its app. For instance, the company recently made it so that you could add podcast episodes to playlists and created a daily playlist that surfaces new recommendations. Today’s redesign is probably just the start of changes and enhancements the company has planned for 2020.
If you’ve been unable to play Star Wars Battlefront II or log into your Origin account, you’re not alone. EA’s servers are down, impacting thousands of users. EA and DICE community leader, Ben Wilke, confirmed the issue on Twitter, saying that teams are working on rectifying the problem. EA’s help services are slammed due to the outage, and the company’s customer support Twitter account warned that representatives may not be reachable at the moment.
The two-hour film touches on various facets of Amazon’s vast empire, from Alexa and its massively successful Amazon Web Services cloud division through to entertainment on Prime Video and its bricks-and-mortar retail exploits such as Whole Foods. Twitch is perhaps the most prominent division that doesn’t really come under the spotlight.
The film covers issues spanning Amazon’s entire history, including prominent incidents from the last couple of months. For one thing, it looks at Amazon’s tussle with the government over a major cloud computing deal. Amazon claimed that President Donald Trump’s “personal vendetta” against it and Bezos (supposedly stemming from critical coverage of him in Bezos’ Washington Post) cost it a $10 billion Department of Defense contract. Footage from a House antitrust hearing held last month is included as well.
As the title suggests, the documentary profiles Bezos to a certain extent too, covering topics such as his passion for space exploration and even his complicatedpersonal life. Early employees talk about what it was like interviewing with the company’s CEO in its nascent days — he was apparently very interested in their SAT scores, for some reason.
While Frontline didn’t interview Bezos here, the documentary includes prescient concerns he raised in 2000 about surveillance. “I believe that privacy is going to be one of the most prominent issues of the 21st century,” he said at the time. “Do you really want cameras on every corner?” The contrast between then and now is jarring, given Amazon’s expansive work in facial recognition and Ring providing police with footage and data from its cameras.
A number of Amazon executives do appear in the documentary, and, as you might expect, they largely toe the company line. The questions raised by book publishers and former employees in interviews are more compelling. They air concerns on topics as varied as Amazon’s grueling demands of warehouse workers and smart speaker privacy.
Even if you are reasonably au fait with the ins and outs of Amazon, you’ll probably learn a thing or two here. There might not be too many details that’ll make your jaw drop if you follow Amazon closely, but the smart, well-reported documentary packs a solid overview of Bezos and his company into a relatively short time frame. Still, if you have a friend or relative who doesn’t know much about Amazon but places Prime orders regularly, they might be interested to learn about how the company became so ubiquitous.
There’s more Kingdom Hearts coming to Xbox One later this month. Kingdom Hearts III Re Mind — a DLC side story that takes place just before the game’s final battle — will come out on February 25th. Additionally, Kingdom Hearts III will be available to play as part of Xbox Game Pass starting on the same day.
If you’ve never played a Kingdom Hearts game and own an Xbox One, now is a good time to start. The mainline games are fantastic action RPGs that meld the worlds of Final Fantasy and Disney movies. And while the plot makes absolutely no sense, the nostalgia and gameplay more than make up for that.
