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Square Enix unexpectedly releases ‘The Last Remnant’ on mobile

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Square Enix re-released The Last Remnant on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch almost exactly a year ago. The role-playing game first launched on Xbox 360 back in 2008. At the time, it was greeted with mostly middling reviews, thanks in large part to a host of technical issues like inconsistent framerates and texture pop-in. In Square Enix’s defense, a lot of early Unreal Engine 3 games were janky messes (see the original Mass Effect, for example). The 2009 PC release and last year’s remaster smoothed out most of those issues and helped the game find a more accepting audience — though it’s fair to say there are better lesser-known gems in Square Enix’s back catalog.

Like most of Square Enix’s mobile ports, The Last Remnant will set you back more than the usual iPhone or Android game. It currently costs $20 on both iOS and Android. However, once you buy the game, there aren’t any micro-transactions. You’ll also need 8.5GB of free space on your iPhone, or 6.1GB on your Android phone to install the game. So keep that in mind if you have an older iPhone like the 6s with *shudder* 16GB of storage.

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Google adds spam detection and verified business SMS to Messages

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When you receive a message from a verified business, you’ll see the company name, logo and a verification badge in the message thread. Businesses must sign up to use Verified SMS, and so far, 1-800-Flowers, Banco Bradesco, Kayak, Payback and SoFi are on-board. Verified SMS is rolling out gradually in the US, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Mexico, Philippines, Spain and the UK.

Google is also adding real-time spam detection. When Google suspects a message is phishy or garbage, it will show a spam warning in Messages. You can help improve the feature by reporting spam texts and vouching for texts from legitimate businesses.

Google

All of this is in addition to the Rich Communication Services (RCS) that Google introduced last month. Thanks to that feature, Android users in the US can get added Messages perks, like being able to chat over Wi-Fi, send high-quality messages and get read receipts.

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Build (and destroy) your own levels in ‘Angry Birds VR’

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Resolution Games hopes to release an online version of the stage editing mode next year. This would allow players to share their creations with others and compete for titles like the most difficult and creative levels, or the highest score.

Setting up a complicated structure and then destroying it sounds like the type of primal fun from childhood, like building a sandcastle just to smash it later. The Angry Birds franchise has been around for a decade, so it’s a little surprising that players are just now getting a level editor. Plus, since many Angry Birds fans — like casual gamers and older folks — probably haven’t jumped on the VR bandwagon yet, it would be nice to have a level editor in a classic 2D version of the game. You can download Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs for $14.99 on the Oculus Rift Store, Oculus Quest Store, PlayStation Store, Steam and Viveport.

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‘Fortnite’ adds split-screen multiplayer on PS4 and Xbox One

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Epic notes it’s an early release of the feature, and it’ll improve the split-screen option over time. The patch also adds an Item Shop preview on mobile, an increased daily Item Shop gifting limit from three to five and an updated ammo indicator.

The couch co-op feature comes to the game amid some other Fortnite news. A Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in-game event will take place on Saturday, in which Disney will premiere a scene from the upcoming movie. Data miners also discovered files in the latest patch that point to an annual pass, which seems to include all the 2020 Battle Passes along with exclusive cosmetics.

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Tidal adds Dolby Atmos Music to its HiFi tier

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Dolby Atmos Music is mixed so that instruments or vocal tracks (called objects) sound like they’re appearing in different parts of a room. For instance, you might hear the vocals coming from the front, while the other instruments are coming from all around you. That means “listeners can discover hidden details and subtleties with unparalleled clarity,” according to Dolby. The encoding works regardless of how many speakers you have.

If you’re a Tidal HiFi subscriber, the app will default to the Dolby Atmos experience if its available on a track. “Tracks will be identified by a ‘Dolby logo’ visual badge as well as through a ‘Dolby Atmos’ identifier that will display once a song is selected,” according to the press release. You can also scroll through a list of Dolby Atmos tracks under the Explore tab. Tidal said that it’s also “working closely with its artist-owners, including Jay-Z, to mix their catalogs in Dolby Atmos — which are expected to become available in 2020.”

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The Morning After: ‘Matrix 4’ release date sets up a Keanu Reeves double feature

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Clear your schedule.‘The Matrix 4’ premieres in theaters on May 21st, 2021

Warner Bros. has set the sequel’s release date for May 21st, 2021, or right smack in the middle of blockbuster movie season. Not only that, but the title is scheduled to arrive the same day as John Wick 4 — who’s in for a Keanu Reeves double feature?

Like blockchain, but for social media.Twitter will fund development of an open social media standard

In a series of tweets, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said his company will fund a “small independent team” — called Bluesky — of up to five open source architects, engineers and designers. The platform will have just one purpose: find an existing decentralized standard to advance or create one from scratch.

DJI’s camera still has more fine-grained image controls.Skydio 2 review: The best self-flying drone

This time around, AI obstacle avoidance and follow features are improved, the drone is faster and battery life is longer. But to get the full experience, you’ll need to pay at least $149 more for a controller.

FYIAmazon breaks down its Christmas delivery cut-offs for 2019

Prime members can take advantage of Amazon’s same-day delivery service, which they can get for free on orders over $35, until December 24th 9:30AM local time. And in the event something goes terribly wrong with their Christmas Eve dinner, they can take advantage of Amazon’s free two-hour grocery delivery until 3-to-5PM local time for Whole Foods orders and until 8PM for Amazon Fresh orders.

Also new: ‘Messiah,’ ‘The Circle’ and ‘Sex Education’ season two.What’s coming to Netflix in January: hello ‘Sabrina,’ goodbye ‘Friends’

Netflix’s January will be defined by one glaring, impossible-to-miss departure: Friends is leaving the service at the end of 2019 before it returns on HBO Max.

Watch the show at 8:30PM ET on YouTube, Twitch, Twitter or Facebook.The Game Awards demo festival brings ‘System Shock,’ ‘Skatebird’ and more

The Game Awards will air tonight at 8:30PM ET, and no matter who takes home a trophy, gamers can enjoy some free action starting earlier in the day. That’s because its Game Festival will make first-look demos for a dozen-plus indie games available through Steam for 48 hours starting at 1PM ET.

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NASA finds water ice just below the surface of Mars

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Researchers created the map of the Martian surface which shows where water ice is believed to be located. In some places, the ice is as little as 2.5 centimeters below the surface, making it easily accessible to future visitors. Cool colors represent ice closer to the surface, while warm colors are ice deeper down.

Map of underground water ice on Mars

“You wouldn’t need a backhoe to dig up this ice. You could use a shovel,” the paper’s lead author, Sylvain Piqueux of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a blog post. “We’re continuing to collect data on buried ice on Mars, zeroing in on the best places for astronauts to land.”

Locating ice is important to enable manned missions to the planet, and could help identify sites for projects like SpaceX’s planned Mars base. Water is heavy to transport aboard rockets, so finding it on Mars will help humans to survive there. However, because the planet has such a thin atmosphere, most water on the surface evaporates quickly.

Scientists realized that looking below the Martian surface is the best hope of finding accessible water ice, and that there may even be liquid water beneath the polar ice caps. With this new map, researchers have a blueprint for where to start planning missions and eventually sending astronauts to Mars.

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Comcast made a VR version of its Xfinity Stream app for visually impaired users

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The electronic magnifier comes with 3K LCD screens and enhances the usable vision of people with conditions like low vision macular degeneration, glaucoma and retinitis pigmentosa. It allows visually impaired users to customize its magnification and contrast, depending on what they need to be able to read, watch movies or even just to see their loved ones’ faces. It also has OCR or text-to-speech capability that users can activate if their eyes get too tired and want the device to, say, continue reading a book to them.

Giving NuEyes users access to the Xfinity Stream app means they might be able to start watching TV and movies again in case they haven’t been able to recently, because their vision has gotten so bad. Company founder Mark Greget said “to be able to stream content directly to our consumers’ eyes in a way that has never been done before enables millions of visually impaired people to continue enjoying their TV experience and more.”

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Anthem’s winter update, ‘Icetide’ is here

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As EA and Bioware reportedly work out a new approach for Anthem, the game is trudging forward with the promised “seasonal” updates. After the “season of skulls” wrapped up in November, a new “Icetide” event has blanketed its world in snow and frost, while also mixing up the enemies and inventory that are available. Following its lore, the “Shaper” devices that create Anthem’s world are responsible for the localized ice storms.

As far as gameplay, each week it’s rolling out a new seasonal stronghold for players to team up and take on complete with leaderboards. There are also time trials, new collectibles and more. EA said it would increase its focus on “live services,” and before Anthem launched, developers talked about how they would continue to update it over time. While the launch of the game turned out to be a disappointment, this is at least a tiny step in that direction, and perhaps a treat for players who picked it up via EA Access or Black Friday sales.

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Opera’s gaming-focused GX browser comes to macOS

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To keep your browser from stealing resources, the GX control panel lets you set how much CPU power or RAM it can use. That means you can leave it running during gaming sessions, confident it won’t overwhelm your machine. On top of that, Twitch is integrated directly into the sidebar, and you get shortcuts to Discord, Reddit and other sites, along with Telegram, WhatsApp and Facebook.

To set the right mood, you can also customize Opera GX with a huge color palette, sound effects and wallpapers. It also has a built in ad-blocker, browser VPN and a “GX Corner” that hosts gaming news and deals feeds.

Opera also did some surveys and revealed a ton of statistics on PC gaming, noting that 82 percent of PC gamers are on Windows and 14 percent on macOS. About 49 percent have had technical issues, with 30 percent troubled by network problems, 26 percent having memory issues and 14 percent CPU problems. Opera GX for macOS is now available to download here.

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