[ad_1]
Six finalists will get an all-expenses paid trip to TwitchCon San Diego in September, where they’ll compete for the top prize of $20,000 and for the first time, a singles deal with Columbia Records. Granted, it’s not the eye-watering prize money we’ve seen elsewhere in competitive gaming, but the record deal means the competition comes with major clout. Forget TV talent competitions, this year’s top chart hit could well could find its feet online.
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
Of course, that’s the official line. Previous leaks and rumors have the Galaxy Tab S6 serving as a true successor to the aging Tab S4 (the S5e was a mid-range slate) with a 10.5-inch ‘2K’ AMOLED display, a Snapdragon 855 chip and dual rear cameras that include a 13MP main camera and a 5MP depth sensor. You’d also get an S10-style under-the-screen fingerprint reader and a minimum 6GB of RAM with 128GB of expandable storage.
The Galaxy Watch Active 2, meanwhile, is even less of a mystery. It’s expected to be a slight tweak of the original (released just months ago) with a touch-sensitive bezel saving you from having to poke at the screen for some tasks.
The early unveilings may be welcome news even if you don’t care for Samsung’s tablets or wristwear. They suggest that the company has a lot on its plate for the Note 10 event, and that it wants to get even significant hardware announcements like these out of the way. This doesn’t guarantee any major hardware surprises on the 7th (a Galaxy Home release date would be great, Samsung), but it’s hard to completely rule them out after teasers like this.
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
The AT&T TV app will be available sometime in the “coming weeks,” and existing customers will see the change take effect automatically through software updates. More details will be coming when the rollout starts in earnest, AT&T said.
This does save you the trouble of downloading yet another app, and it’s more consistent with AT&T’s strategy. DirecTV Now doesn’t have much to do with satellite TV, so why pretend otherwise? However, the added simplicity doesn’t necessarily translate to clarity. Two services in one app might be confusing depending on the execution.
One thing’s for certain: this diminishes the power of the DirecTV brand. While there’s no evidence that the core DirecTV service is going away, you won’t see the name if you’re only interested in streaming. That could be significant in an era when AT&T is rapidly bleeding conventional TV customers (it lost 778,000 in the second quarter alone) and will increasingly depend on internet video as a cornerstone of its business.
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
The majority of the vulnerabilities discovered by google were so-called “interactionless” bugs, meaning they can be executed on a remote iOS device without requiring any sort of direct interaction with the phone. An attacker simply has to send malicious code via iMessage and wait for the victim to open it. Because these “interactionless” bugs are in high demand for hackers, the security flaws discovered would have sold on the black market or other seedy parts of the internet for as much as $5 million apiece, according to ZDNet.
While Apple largely addressed these significant security flaws with the release of iOS 12.4 on July 22nd, the researchers are holding back on revealing the details of one vulnerability that has not yet been fully patched. Users are advised to keep their phones up to date and download updates as soon as they become available in order to avoid any significant security risks.
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
The organization published 96 fact checks during this period. Of these, 59 were found to be false, 19 were a mix of truth and lies, seven were found to be opinion and six were judged as satire. Just five of the posts — flagged by users concerned about their veracity — were marked as true. The posts ran the gamut of current affairs, from misleading political information to false statements about vaccines. As The Times reports, much of this dubious information also came with a high health risk — one post claims heart attack victims should cough “repeatedly and very vigorously” until help arrives. The British Heart Foundation has debunked this advice, and yet the post remains live on Facebook.
The problem appears to lie largely with Facebook’s algorithms. Full Fact director Will Moy says that they “are not yet at a stage where they can reliably identify information that is inaccurate.” Furthermore, information flagged by the algorithms and then confirmed as false by fact-checkers remains on the site, although its reach is reduced by more than 80 percent. According to Moy, Facebook has been reluctant to give the organization more details on the impact the fact-checking is having on false content — a complaint upheld by other fact-checking groups such as Snopes, which has since quit the program with concerns over a lack of transparency.
The report also found that while Facebook has extended its fact-checking program to more countries and languages, it needs to scale of the volume of content and speed of response. However, Full Fact does note that the fact-checking initiative is “worthwhile” and it is likely that “something similar may be needed on other internet platforms too,” ultimately concluding that “We want Facebook to share more data with fact checkers, so that we can better evaluate content we are checking and evaluate our impact.”
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
The company stressed that prices for each rider are adjusted to compensate for the extra gas and “wear & tear” on your car. You don’t have to worry that it’ll cost more in the end. This should help Waze’s bottom line, of course, but it’ll also ensure that you’re making the most of your drive — and possibly take a few cars off the road in the process.
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
The two companies announced plans to add 5G to the ASUS ROG Phone II, which uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 Plus SoC, and which Tencent sells in China. Faster mobile connectivity could support Tencent’s ambitions to launch a streaming game service, Instant Play.
Qualcomm provides the chips which power many mobile phones, particularly those using Android. It has also agreed to work with the Chinese company to optimize the way that Tencent games like King of Glory, Crossfire and (PUBG alternative) Game for Peace run on its Snapdragon Elite gaming chips.
“Mobile gaming, an important 5G use case, will soon take advantage of the next generation of connectivity,” said Frank Meng, the company’s head of China, as quoted by Reuters. “Faster speeds, more bandwidth and cutting edge ultra-low latency will support real-time, multi-player and immersive gaming experience.”
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
Capital One coughs up credit application info for 100 million people
According to the company, someone exploited a “configuration vulnerability” that allowed them to access and decrypt customer data affecting more than 100 million people in the US and about six million in Canada. The FBI has already arrested the person they believe is responsible, identified in court documents as Paige Thompson, a software engineer from Seattle who went by the handle “erratic.”
While they believe the data was not distributed, it included all the personal information you’d find on a credit card application, about 80,000 linked bank account numbers and 140,000 social security numbers, and about one million social insurance numbers for Canadians. Capital One said it will notify those who had their data stolen (mostly cardholders and people who had applied for cards between 2005 and early 2019), as well as provide free credit monitoring and identity theft protection.
Google confirms Pixel 4 will support face unlock, touch-free gestures
The company has confirmed its next flagship phones will include motion-sensing Soli radar that lets you skip tracks, silence phone calls and otherwise control key phone tasks by waving your hand. Consider it a potentially more sophisticated take on the LG G8’s gestures.
It also uses the radar to detect when you’re reaching for your phone and activate the IR sensors ahead of time. How did Google make sure this would work on many different kinds of faces and in “almost any orientation”? It paid pedestrians $5 to scan their faces.
Tesla’s Megapack is a battery built for the electrical grid
The tech company has introduced the Megapack, a container-sized battery meant for “large-scale” storage, which could help quickly deploy renewable energy and even replace conventional “peaker” power plants that come online when there’s high demand. A single Megapack has up to 3MWh of storage, or roughly 14 times the 210kWh of a Powerpack.
UltraViolet’s digital movie locker closes Wednesday
The cloud-based digital rights locker that lets users watch content across a variety of services will shut down on Wednesday. Customers will still be able to access any purchased movies and TV shows through retailers with accounts previously linked to its libraries, like FandangoNow or Vudu. Hit up the website and double check your account status now, while you still can.
Oppo eliminates side bezels with its ‘waterfall screen’
Oppo showed off a prototype device packing a “waterfall screen,” which features an aggressive 88-degree fold on both the left and right sides. When viewed directly from the front, the bezels are practically invisible.
Panasonic S1R review: Big, powerful and too expensive
Panasonic’s S1R is a good high-resolution, full-frame mirrorless camera, but it can’t hold up to the competition. The contrast-detect autofocus is good, but inferior to Sony’s faster, more accurate hybrid system. Images are sharp and color-accurate, but again can’t hold up to the Sony A7R III in terms of low-light noise and dynamic range. However, video features and quality are very respectable.
The Morning After is a new daily newsletter from Engadget designed to help you fight off FOMO. Who knows what you’ll miss if you don’t Subscribe.
Craving even more? Like us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter.
Have a suggestion on how we can improve The Morning After? Send us a note.
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
Microsoft already released OpenXR on its store even before the first version was officially launched. Windows Mixed Reality and HoloLens 2 users can simply install it to run any OpenXR-based application. Don Box, Technical Fellow at Microsoft, said: “We are excited to now work with the OpenXR community to design the key extensions that will bring mixed reality to life, with full support by end of year for HoloLens 2 hand tracking, eye tracking, spatial mapping and spatial anchors.”
Facebook promises to add support for apps built on OpenXR 1.0 on the Rift and Quest platforms. HTC VP Vinay Narayan says “HTC VIVE is committed to creating a viable ecosystem for the XR industry which is why [the company] is proud to support OpenXR.” Meanwhile, Tobii promises to “unlock support for eye tracking through OpenXR extensions for eye gaze interaction and foveated rendering.” Valve is “look[ing] forward to supporting [the standard] in SteamVR,” as well.
Brent Insko, OpenXR working group chair, said in a statement:
“The working group is excited to launch the 1.0 version of the OpenXR specification, and the feedback from the community on the provisional specification released in March has been invaluable to getting us to this significant milestone. Our work continues as we now finalize a comprehensive test suite, integrate key game engine support, and plan the next set of features to evolve a truly vibrant, cross-platform standard for XR platforms and devices. Now is the time for software developers to start putting OpenXR to work.”
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
Sony also revealed that for the first time, folks are buying more games via digital downloads than physical discs, marking a trend that’s been ongoing for a while now.
Despite its half-decade age, PS4 sales have never really flagged until recently, with 17.8 million sold last year, down just 1.2 million over 2017. However, it took a noticeable dive last quarter, and Sony has warned that it expects 2019 sales to be down more than it originally forecast last quarter. A slow demise in PS4 sales is to be expected, though, considering that Sony’s next-gen PS5 should arrive in fall of 2020, with support for ray-tracing 8K, SSD storage and PS4 backward-compatibility.
In other Sony news, smartphone revenue dropped by 15 percent over last quarter, continuing what seems like a never-ending trend. It sold less than half the number of smartphones it did during the same period last year, just 900,000 in total. To give you an idea of how bad that is, total units sold in 2018 was less than half of 2017, and so far, 2019 is half of 2018.
Meanwhile, Sony’s imaging division continues to perform well, particularly in the area of smartphone camera sensors. Sales of digital cameras like its full-frame A7 mirrorless cameras were down slightly, but that’s a trend that’s affecting the industry as a whole (because of increasingly more sophisticated smartphone cameras, of course). Sony is still one of the most profitable camera companies out there, though, so that’s not a good sign for the industry as a whole.
[ad_2]
Source link