Blog

Nintendo Switch Lite teardown reveals modified joystick components

[ad_1]

iFixit has taken a Nintendo Switch Lite apart and discovered the ways it differs from its non-Lite siblings. If you’re wondering whether the gaming giant made changes to prevent drifting, which is a persistent issue for Joy-Cons, the answer is: maybe. Nintendo definitely did something to its joysticks — some of their components are a different size from the original, and the part that controls the buttons is narrower. However, the black contact pads under their (slightly wider) metal sliders still look the same. One of the theories behind the infamous Joy-Con drift is that those contact pads wear down over time. As iFixit notes, though, it’s unclear if they’re now made of tougher materials.

[ad_2]

Source link

‘Mario Kart Tour’ mobile racing begins at 4AM ET on Android and iOS

[ad_1]

Until then you can work out your strategy, evaluate the best ways to navigate its free-to-play mechanics and make sure you’ve already created a Nintendo Account — you’ll need one to play. Nintendo also put together a five minute video explaining how everything works, so you might want to watch now and avoid any wasted time that could be used ruining someone’s day with a blue shell.

For the first two weeks the tour will take place in a New York City-based course, with other locations rotating in afterward. Players can unlock Musician Mario and Pauline from Super Mario Odyssey as drivers during the tour’s first stop. The controls will have players sliding their fingers across the screen to turn, and tapping the screen to unleash stored items. Head to Google’s Play Store or Apple’s App Store to pre-register and you should have access as soon as the game launches in a few hours.

[ad_2]

Source link

New music platform Audius plans to capitalize on SoundCloud’s faults

[ad_1]

Audius already has backing from some big names, like deadmau5, Rezz, 3LAU and The Stafford Brothers. But to start the library is small, just a few hundred artists. For now, Audius is free, and artists can’t make money. By early 2020, the company may run ads or offer a subscription. According to TechCrunch, the plan is that eventually 90 percent of the revenue will go to the artists.

Audius seems to mainly be focused on reclaiming a spirit that SoundCloud seems to have lost, and part of that hinges on its open source blockchain protocol. As TechCrunch explains, Audius won’t host the music. Instead, it’s decentralized across nodes. “Because the network is decentralized and secured by the blockchain, the attribution metadata remains safe, verifiable, and immutable,” the company explains.

While SoundCloud definitely hit some roadbumps — from financial woes to questionable contracts, unpaid royalties and hot mess subscriptions — it does have the advantage of being established. Audius will also have to compete with the likes of Spotify and Apple Music, which have 100 million and 60 million paid subscribers respectively.

[ad_2]

Source link

Canoo wants to sell the world’s first subscription-only EV

[ad_1]

The Canoo vehicle looks like a space-age transport pod, offering a more roomy interior for passengers while maintaining the exterior footprint of a compact car. It has space for seven people and the rear seats are designed to be comfortable and stylish, more like a sofa than a traditional car seat. Other fun features include the ability for anyone in the car to control the navigation, music and heating from a smartphone or tablet.

The vehicle comes with advanced driver-assistance systems and driver monitoring, using a total of seven cameras, five radars and 12 ultrasonic sensors. These sensors can detect nearby objects and other cars using deep learning algorithms for better protection of the driver and passengers. Plus the battery has plenty of juice with a range of 250 miles and the ability to charge to 80 percent in under 30 minutes.

Subscription services for cars are becoming more commonplace, with Toyota, Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz getting in on the action, among others. However, there have been investigations from regulators after objections from dealers and not all the services have taken off, with Ford deciding to sell its subscription service earlier this month.

The Canoo EV subscription concept has lots to offer potential users, but it is incredibly difficult for new companies to bring a vehicle to production at scale. Canoo will now begin beta testing a fleet of vehicles before switching focus to production at the end of the year. The hope is to launch the service in 2021, beginning in Los Angeles.

[ad_2]

Source link

Facebook makes clear that posts by politicians can break ‘normal’ rules

[ad_1]

Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs and communications, confirmed the approach to politicians’ posts during a speech Tuesday. He said:

“We have a responsibility to protect the platform from outside interference, and to make sure that when people pay us for political ads we make it as transparent as possible. But it is not our role to intervene when politicians speak.

“That’s why I want to be really clear today – we do not submit speech by politicians to our independent fact-checkers, and we generally allow it on the platform even when it would otherwise breach our normal content rules.

“Of course, there are exceptions. Broadly speaking they are two-fold: where speech endangers people; and where we take money, which is why we have more stringent rules on advertising than we do for ordinary speech and rhetoric.”

The company previously said content reviewers wouldn’t remove a politician’s post for breaking its rules if it was deemed newsworthy. Since the platform says it essentially views all politicians’ posts as newsworthy, they aren’t going anywhere.

Facebook uses third-party fact checkers to determine the veracity of content. But a post isn’t eligible for a fact check rating if it “contains a claim that is not verifiable, was true at the time of writing, or from a website or Page with the primary purpose of expressing the opinion or agenda of a political figure.” That policy has been in place for over a year, former British deputy prime minister Clegg noted.

“I know some people will say we should go further. That we are wrong to allow politicians to use our platform to say nasty things or make false claims. But imagine the reverse,” he said. “Would it be acceptable to society at large to have a private company in effect become a self-appointed referee for everything that politicians say? I don’t believe it would be. In open democracies, voters rightly believe that, as a general rule, they should be able to judge what politicians say themselves.”

Facebook is effectively taking a hands-off approach to politicians’ posts, if not their ads. It seems likely the stance will allow campaigns to spread lies, harassment and nastiness across Facebook’s vast network, as long as they’re not paying for promoted posts. Fact checking content elsewhere on the platform will be less effective if the political classes can post whatever they like, unburdened of Facebook’s guidelines. If they post misinformation, users might take that at face value, and Facebook won’t point out that they’re not telling the truth. That’s a risky approach that might well lead to deeper confusion among voters.

The company might very well be trying to appease critics who have accused it of stifling conservative speech. Still, the policy raises plenty of questions, despite Facebook’s attempt at clarifying it. Clegg didn’t define how Facebook determines whether someone is a politician (just elected officials? Candidates? Former congresspeople?), nor is it clear how Facebook determines whether a post could lead to violence.

Twitter also sees politicians’ tweets as broadly newsworthy and typically won’t remove them, but it’s adding a label to posts that violate its terms of service. It also clearly draws the line on who the rule applies to: verified accounts representing a person being considered for a government position, elected officials and candidates. They also need to have at least 100,000 followers.

[ad_2]

Source link

Morbidly charming puzzle game ‘Felix the Reaper’ lands October 17th

[ad_1]

Felix the Reaper is a tragic, comedic love story that plays out in the bureaucratic cubicles of the underworld, and it’s coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch and PC on October 17th.

It stars Felix, a marshmallowy dancer on a mission to attract the attention of his crush, Betty The Maiden. The problem is, Felix works at the Ministry of Death, and Betty works at the Ministry of Life. So, Felix has to sneak his way into her heart by taking a job in the field as a reaper, ensuring the deaths of all the humans on his list. He causes their demise one by one, dancing through the shadows of various, grid-lined maps, solving spatial and physics puzzles along the way.

[ad_2]

Source link

‘Humanity’ is a PS4 game about the strangeness of crowds

[ad_1]

The title arrives sometime in 2020. It’s hard to say if Humanity will live up to its premise. With that in mind, Enhance isn’t just coming aboard to distribute THA’s work. Mizuguchi’s team has been helping develop the game to the point where it’s “more like a co-production,” according to THA’s Yugo Nakamura. Although that doesn’t guarantee a classic on par with Mizuguchi hits like Rez or Lumines, it won’t be shocking if some of those games’ hypnotic qualities carry over.

[ad_2]

Source link

Project xCloud’s first public trial hits Android devices in October

[ad_1]

First, this isn’t the console streaming that Microsoft promised players at E3 2019. In theory, that service will allow folks to stream games from their own Xboxes to their mobile devices, essentially giving each player a personal xCloud server. It’s a feature that sets xCloud apart from its streaming competitors, most notably Google Stadia. Microsoft previously said the xCloud console-streaming trial would launch in October, and those plans are still on track, but that’s not what today’s announcement is about. Instead, the company is throwing its standard, Azure-based game-streaming service live and planning to launch public tests for the console component later this year.

Project xCloud

Second, the xCloud public preview is open only to Android owners. There are no concrete plans to bring xCloud to iOS devices, though a Microsoft spokesperson told Engadget the company is working on it.

“We’re excited about partnering with Android partners in the early phases of our public preview and are working closely with others in the industry to bring game streaming to a wide variety of devices with a screen and internet connection,” the spokesperson said. “We’ll have more to share about bringing Project xCloud to other platforms at a later date.”

The xCloud public preview is open only to Android owners.

Specifically, anyone who wants to participate in the xCloud preview will need a phone or tablet running Android 6.0 or better with Bluetooth 4.0, plus a wireless, Bluetooth-enabled Xbox One gamepad. The service launches with four games: Halo 5: Guardians, Gears 5, Killer Instinct and Sea of Thieves. These will be available for free during the preview. Players in the US and UK can sign up for the public trial here.

The preview will roll out in stages, beginning with a contained number of players and adding more as it continues over the coming months — and maybe even years. Microsoft hasn’t provided a timeline for the public test, saying it will last until xCloud consistently works and the technology is stable.

This will likely take a while. Streaming relies on Wi-Fi and mobile networks, and while internet infrastructure is ever-expanding, it’s far from ubiquitous, even in the US. In February, the FCC estimated 25 million people in the country didn’t have access to broadband, but that figure is much higher in practice. Microsoft published a blog post in April with its own estimates that counted folks without broadband access and those who don’t use the internet at broadband speeds. That figure came out to 163 million people in the US, many of them located in rural regions.

Xbox E3 2019 Briefing

Connectivity is a core aspect of multiple Microsoft business models, so it’s no surprise the company is fighting against the digital divide. For instance, the Microsoft Airband Initiative aims to expand rural broadband access to more than 3 million people by 2022, and the company is simultaneously partnering with regional ISPs to roll out high-speed internet in underserved areas.

Meanwhile, 5G is in its infancy. As the backbone of any mobile game-streaming effort, 5G will play an important role in the evolution of services like xCloud and Google Stadia. But, for now, it’s not widely available. For instance, Verizon plans to have 5G in 30 cities by the end of the year — but it’s not exactly coast-to-coast coverage. In the UK, 5G coverage is even more sparse.

“Our focus is on delivering a great experience at the lowest possible bandwidth.”

“Our focus is on delivering a great experience at the lowest possible bandwidth needed wherever users are,” Microsoft’s spokesperson said. “The Project xCloud preview will work over either a Wi-Fi or any mobile network in your area (4G LTE or 5G) that supports 10Mbps-down bandwidth, similar to streaming video. We’ll continue to work with mobile carriers and ISPs to improve the technology, and garner feedback from participants to better understand their experience.”

Microsoft is partnering with T-Mobile in the US, Vodafone in the UK and SK Telekom in Korea for its xCloud debut. It calls these “technical partnerships” that will allow developers to learn more about player behavior and infrastructure limitations. Players with any carrier in the US and UK can participate in the preview, while the Korea test is limited to SK Telecom customers at first.

As it turns out, 2019 is the year that game streaming finally gets a fighting chance. Though broadband and mobile connectivity may not be perfectly established across the globe, major companies including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, EA and NVIDIA are attempting to shift gaming’s foundation to the cloud. Google and Microsoft, in particular, have the tools to make it happen, with servers positioned across the globe and robust cloud networks of their own. However, connectivity overall may still be unstable enough to make game streaming more frustrating than fun.

Let the public trials begin.

Update 9/24 7:20pm ET: Microsoft’s plans to launch console-streaming capabilities in October are still on track, a spokesperson clarified. The second paragraph has been updated with this information.

[ad_2]

Source link

Internet metrics giant settles charges it faked its own numbers

[ad_1]

The deal has Comscore and Matta pay respective penalties of $5 million and $700,000, while Matta will also pay another $2.1 million to reflect profits he made from selling company stock and other compensation. The executive is also banned from serving as the director or officer of a public company for the next 10 years. Neither party, however, is required to admit guilt.

Comscore stressed that it was under new leadership and had new internal procedures to prevent this from happening again. All the same, the settlement could spark uncertainty among many — however irrational it might be. If Comscore couldn’t be trusted to report its own finances properly, how do advertisers know the data they got was on the level? The same goes for market share estimates and other studies. It’s unlikely that the data was tainted, but ad teams might be shy about relying on Comscore in the future out of an abundance of caution.

[ad_2]

Source link

‘Death Stranding’ PS4 Pro includes a baby pod-inspired controller

[ad_1]

Have you been so eager for Death Stranding that you’ve been saving a console purchase for it? You’re in luck. Sony has unveiled a limited edition Death Stranding PS4 Pro bundle that will debut alongside the game on November 8th. As you might have noticed, the real centerpiece is that translucent yellow DualShock 4 controller — yes, it’s directly inspired by the creepy baby pods in the game. Sony suggests you can rock the gamepad to mimic holding the pod in your hands, but that’s a little too on the nose if you ask us.

[ad_2]

Source link