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This won’t address glitches within Red Dead itself, but it is a start. It’s also an acknowledgment that the game industry’s attempts to reduce its dependency on Steam (and increase profit margins) can only go so far. Whether game creators like it or not, many gamers prefer to have all their games in one place — there’s a risk developers will miss out on sales by insisting on proprietary launchers, even if they make more money with each sale.
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Red Ice TV and Affirmative Right are among the most visible far-right groups on the internet. The former has interviewed some of the movement’s most notorious public figures, including Daily Stormer publisher Andrew Anglin. Facebook’s ban of the group encompasses the pages of hosts Lana Lokteff and Henrik Palmgren, in addition to their internet radio show, Radio3Fourteen. Affirmative Right, meanwhile, had ties to Richard Spencer. A Facebook spokesperson told The Guardian the company had determined both groups violate its policy against “organized hate.”
However, VDare, one of the other groups identified by the original Guardian report, still has a working Facebook page. Stephen Miller, the White House senior advisor most often credited with shaping President Donald Trump’s immigration policy, emailed VDare articles to former Breitbart writer Katie McHugh while working for the Trump campaign in 2016.
Increasingly, it appears Facebook will only take action against white nationalist groups if it’s shamed into doing so. The irony of the situation is that at least some at Facebook are fully aware of how bad the optics of the company’s lack of action looks. On the same day that the company announced its ban on white nationalism, a bundle of leaked emails highlighted the company’s struggle to tackle hate speech. In one of the emails, a Facebook executive said, “It will be easy for the media to say we’re being inconsistent or ineffectual” when the company discussed an Alex Jones post it had trouble deciding whether to ban. And so once again, despite today’s bans on Red Ice TV and Affirmative Right, Facebook looks inconsistent and ineffectual.
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Alexa’s ability to convey emotions is powered by Amazons’ Neural Text-to-Speech technology, and the company says “overall satisfaction with the voice experience increased by 30 percent when Alexa responded with emotions.” We guess the testers found it much more pleasing to interact with a voice AI that that doesn’t sound monotonous. By the way, Alexa could express excitement or disappointment in three different intensities, which developers could choose from to match their needs.
Listen to a highly excited Alexa here:
And a super disappointed Alexa here:
Amazon has also given Alexa the ability to adopt a speaking style suited for news and music content in the US, as well as for news in Australia. That means it can change its intonation and other aspects of its speech, so it sounds like a real anchor is delivering breaking news or a real DJ/VJ is talking about music.
This is Alexa delivering news in standard style:
While this is Alexa delivering news in its new speaking style:
As you can see (or hear), Alexa sounds more natural in the second sample, though we guess those worried about AI becoming more lifelike may not be pleased.
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Couriers have also been changed substantially. Everyone player now gets their own that will level up next to your hero and get upgrades as they do so. Couriers can place wards after hitting a certain level, and by the way, observer wards are now free. All of that will enhance the role of “supports” players and bring better vision of the maps to you and everyone on your team.
The Outlanders have arrived, bringing major updates to @DOTA2 and @DotaUnderlords. New heroes Void Spirit and Snapfire are now playable in both games, as well as significant gameplay updates across both games, and a new play mode for Underlords. pic.twitter.com/JVZhsWnmm6
— Valve (@valvesoftware) November 26, 2019
Outlanders also makes it harder to become nearly invincible as you level up by grabbing monster loot, because it will now be randomly dropped by neutrals. Other changes include outposts instead of side shops, leveling that goes past 25 to 30 for heroes, map changes and the removal of the stout shield. All of this will no doubt shake up Dota 2, which has some of the largest communities and esports tournaments out there.
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Star Wars-themed Instant Pots look like R2-D2, BB-8 or Darth Vader
Once you’ve stocked up on Han Solo Carbonite Le Creuset cooking ware, it’s time for a themed Instant Pot. The perfect overlap of holiday shopping and aggressive Disney marketing. You can get the BB-8-styled Duo Mini 3QT for $79.95, while a $99.95 six-quart version comes in three different paint jobs: Darth Vader, R2-D2 or Storm Trooper. The Star Wars Instant Pot Duo 8QT is the largest one, with a Chewbacca look, and it costs $119.95. Or you can get a standard, boring one for close to half the price in Black Friday sales.
Ford will pass on a tug-of-war with Tesla’s Cybertruck
After Elon Musk exchanged words with Ford exec Sundeep Madra over an F-150 vs. Cybertruck rematch, a Ford spokesperson told TechCrunch “Sunny’s tweet was tongue in cheek to point out the absurdity of Tesla’s video, nothing more.” While the car company has hybrid and full-electric versions of its truck in the works, for now at least, it’s not trying to correct the record against Tesla’s prototype truck.
Yes, these Russian cows are wearing VR headsets
Moscow-area farmers have strapped modified VR headsets to cows to see if it improved their mood — and, of course, their milk production. The project simulated a summer field with colors tuned for the animals’ eyes, giving them a decidedly more pleasing landscape than a plain, confining farm and grey weather. The headsets were even adapted to the “structural features” of cows’ heads so they could see properly.
It appears to have worked, at least on a basic level. The first test apparently reduced the cows’ anxiety and boosted their overall sentiment — though I wonder how they tested that. While it’s not certain how well this affects the quality or volume of milk, there are plans for a more “comprehensive” study to answer that question.
The controversial sex toy that shook up CES 2019 is finally ready
Osé is the sex toy that received a CES Innovation Award, lost it and then won it back again. The device sparked a debate about gender bias in the tech industry and what can and cannot be exhibited at the world’s biggest tech trade show. Now, a year removed from making headlines across the world, the device is finally available for pre-order.
CES 2020 will allow sextech companies to exhibit their “tech-based sexual products” so long as they can demonstrate the products are innovative and “include new or emerging tech.” It will also partner with Female Quotient to launch a space at the show to “advance gender equality.” The body has also outlined a new dress code designed to dissuade “sexually revealing” clothing to hopefully cut down on the appearances of booth babes.
Pre-orders for Osé begin today for people signed up to the creator’s mailing list, with orders opening to the general public on December 2nd. It’ll cost $290 and is expected to begin shipping in four to six weeks, which is likely the middle of January.
Facebook buys ‘Beat Saber’ creator Beat Games
Last week, we learned that Valve is about to release a Half-Life game on Steam VR platforms, and now Facebook’s Oculus unit has purchased the makers of popular VR game Beat Saber. For now, Beat Games is saying it will continue to support the game on all platforms, but we’ll be watching to see if their next title is an Oculus-exclusive experience.
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The problem started when NU.nl labeled an ad from Dutch politician Esther de Lange as false, saying it couldn’t be verified. Facebook then stepped in, telling the newspaper that a politician’s speech could not be fact-checked.
Facts are not a form of activism.
While Facebook’s advertising guidelines don’t allow misinformation, it formally exempted politicians from this rule in September. “From now on we will treat speech from politicians as newsworthy content that should, as a general rule, be seen and heard,” wrote Facebook VP Nick Clegg.
This policy irked critics, particularly after ads appeared on Facebook from President Trump’s 2020 ad campaign repeating debunked conspiracy theories about Ukraine. Even after Twitter said it would no longer allow political ads on the platform, Facebook didn’t budge from its position.
NU.nl became the only Facebook fact-checker in the Netherlands after another group, Leiden University, pulled out last year. It said it had already become uncomfortable with Facebook’s stance on political ads, and decided to end the partnership when Facebook wouldn’t change its position on the de Lange ad.
“We value the work that Nu.nl has done and regret to see them go, but respect their decision as an independent business,” a Facebook spokesperson told The Verge. “We have strong relationships with 55 fact-checking partners around the world who fact-check content in 45 languages, and we plan to continue expanding the program in Europe and hopefully in the Netherlands.”
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The trick to capturing the night sky is taking long exposures. As such, Google bumped the Pixel 4’s maximum exposure time to four minutes, up from just one minute on the Pixel 3. However, shooting a single four minute exposure would blur the stars, so the Pixel 4 takes up to 15 exposures, each no longer than 16 seconds. That makes the stars look like points of light, rather than streaks, but it introduces a host of other problems that must be solved.
For instance, any image sensor has defective “hot” or warm pixels that are invisible for normal shots, but appear as tiny dots during long exposures. To get rid of those, the Pixel 4 looking for bright outlying pixels, then hides them “by replacing their value with the average of their neighbors,” Google said. That results in a loss of image information, but “does not noticeably affect image quality.”
Another issue is that a smartphone’s display can’t show night sky detail, making composition a challenge. When you start taking a photo, the Pixel 4 displays each of the 15 maximum exposures as they’re captured (above), giving you a more detailed look. If you don’t like what you see, you can just move your phone, and it’ll restart the process again. It does a similar process for autofocus, capturing two one-second exposures that help focus the lens. If it’s too dark even for that, the lens simply focuses to infinity.
With multiple night exposures, the sky can appear too bright, especially during a full moon. The Pixel 4’s AI can detect which part of the image is sky, then dim that part to make the image more natural. “Sky detection also makes it possible to perform sky-specific noise reduction, and to selectively increase contrast to make features like clouds, color gradients, or the Milky Way more prominent.,” Google said.
Just bear in mind that you can’t can’t capture stars and the moon at the same time, as the moon’s brightness overpowers the stars. At the same time, when you capture a starry sky with no moon, the landscape will only appear as a silhouette. Still, Google showed off some of the results (below), which are incredibly impressive for a smartphone.
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It’s been almost a month since Halloween, and it may be time to switch your Nest Hello doorbell tune from “cackling witch” to something more season appropriate. Google has rolled out a collection of winter ringtones for the smart doorbell, just like it did for Halloween back in October. The selection includes holiday tones for Hanukkah, like the sounds of a dreidel, and Christmas, like the ringtone versions of Deck the Halls and Joy to the World, but it also has nondenominational winter sounds.
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Now that Call of Duty is officially in the post-loot box era, Activision and Infinity Ward have revealed what “season one” in Modern Warfare will bring players. As it’s moved to a Battle Pass system, mimicking Fortnite and other shooters, developers are calling this “the biggest free content drop in Call of Duty history.”
Players who pay up for premium access will find out what the 100 tiers of Battle Pass rewards are next week when the season starts on December 3rd, but everything announced right now is available for free, although some of it will have to be earned through playing the game. New maps coming to the game include a few favorites from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, like Crash, Vacant and Shipment. It’s also expanding with three new gameplay modes, like a 2v2 gunfight where players have to find weapons and resources after the match starts, a single-life “Reinforce” mode with two teams competing to control three flags, and a new Infected survival game mode.
Beyond that, there’s a couple of new weapons and also some new Special Ops co-op missions on the way. Some of the content may drop later in the season, but everything’s coming to all platforms at the same time — check back next week for more information.
Roadmap Announcement: #CallofDuty #ModernWarfare Changes the Rules of Engagement.
Ready for the biggest FREE content drop in franchise history? Here are the first details on Season One content.
Initial Intel Drop HERE: https://t.co/Tk3RrQMQb0 pic.twitter.com/uwMPXEdd7k— Activision (@Activision) November 26, 2019
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Ford and Rivian haven’t commented on the apparent leak.
The move would make sense. Ford hasn’t been shy about relying on others to fast-track its EV strategy, including plans to build a car on VW’s electric platform. Rivian would help Lincoln quickly build an electric SUV without investing the time and resources needed to build it from scratch. This could also help Lincoln’s offering stand out from other Ford EVs with less work. It might just be a question of what happens next. The SUV could be a one-off, but it could also be the start of a long-term relationship with Rivian if the machine proves successful.
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