“Swery and Arc System Works team up for his latest mystery: The Missing” plus 19 more VentureBeat |
- Swery and Arc System Works team up for his latest mystery: The Missing
- Descenders is Spelunky with bicycles
- LG targets Judy, its next flagship smartphone, for June unveil
- ProBeat: Google can be proud of poor Pixel shipments, Essential should give up
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance console test shows multi-platform frame drops and muddy textures
- AI-powered customer engagement isn’t optional anymore (VB Live)
- Trove’s next free expansion adds superheroes to the voxel-based MMO
- AT&T offers roadmap for U.S. cities that want early 5G service
- Netflix’s 40% stock run has it challenging Disney’s valuation
- The DeanBeat: High Fidelity takes us dancing in a virtual reality club
- Want to join the VB team? We’re looking for a kick-ass Account Executive
- ZTE chases 5G growth in Japan as U.S. shuns ‘insecure’ Chinese mobile gear
- Siemens builds consortium of powerhouses for a community of cyber trust
- Walmart reportedly in talks to buy more than 40% of India’s Flipkart
- 2017 brought VR cameras to everyone — in 2018 they might even use them
- White House blames Russia for NotPetya cyberattack
- PC Gaming Weekly: the live services blues
- Crossing Souls review — a full course of nostalgia, with a small side of story
- Microsoft is offering refunds after accidental overcharges for EA Access on Xbox One
- Inside China’s growing use of facial recognition technology
| Swery and Arc System Works team up for his latest mystery: The Missing Posted: 16 Feb 2018 12:31 PM PST  Deadly Premonition creator Hidetaka Suehiro, aka Swery, is teaming up with Arc System Works on a new game: The Missing. It will be out sometime this year, though the studios haven’t announced a date or which platforms it will be on. In fact, they haven’t announced many details at all. "The title, ‘The Missing,’ has many meanings,” muses Swery in the announcement video. “A missing person, someone who's lost, or even something lost. Maybe it's your loved one or a place you belong. Do you ever feel lost in your everyday life?" Swery is being enigmatic on purpose, but we can no doubt expect some kind of twist when more information is revealed about the game. His previous game, the cult favorite Deadly Premonition, was a surreal murder mystery. And his studio, White Owls, launched a crowdfunding campaign last year for The Good Life, a “perverted, violent, and crazy” game about a sleepy town that’s full of secrets, such as everyone turning into cats and dogs at night. Though Swery didn’t raise enough funds for The Good Life on the funding platform Fig, his team is still working on that title. Arc System Works recently teamed up with publisher Bandai Namco to release Dragon Ball Fighterz, and it previously developed other stylish fighters like Guilty Gear Xrd and the BlazBlue series. The Missing’s title doesn’t seem to imply that it’s in the same genre. But could you imagine a Swery-conceived, Arc System Works-developed fighting game? I don’t know what that would look like, but it would certainly be mind-bending. |
| Descenders is Spelunky with bicycles Posted: 16 Feb 2018 12:01 PM PST  When I started the downhill biking sim Descenders earlier this week, I didn’t understand its structure. But after spending a solid hour with it last night, I realized that it borrows its progression from the roguelike platformer Spelunky. That’s a lot different than I was expecting, but it also works well for this kind of game. Descenders is available now for $25 on Steam from developer RageSquid. It is in the Early Access channel for unfinished games, and the studio is planning to add new features like accessories for your rider and bicycle. In terms of mechanics, Descenders has you riding a bike down a hill and over jumps. The idea is to get speed and to do stunts to maximize your score while avoiding crashes at all costs. Like Spelunky, Descenders has you progressing through stages in various biomes. You start out in the grassy Highlands zone with 4 lives. If you complete 4 stages and then a boss jump, you get to move on to the next biome. If you crash, you lose a life, but you’ll get an extra life if you complete a bonus objective in each stage. In total, Descenders has four major worlds you must complete to “beat” the game. If you lose all your lives, however, you have to start at the beginning. This is just like Mossmouth’s rougelike, and the structure works so well here because it brings the daring risk-reward balance of that genre to an action-sports game. You want to maximize your score, but you also want can’t fall down because every life lost increases the probability that you won’t get to the end. During my time with it, this forced me to play much more conservatively and to learn the intricacies of the controls and physics. I was trying to do flips and spins simultaneously, but I’m not good enough for that yet. So instead I tried to perfect my rotations and flips with the occasional tweaks. I also began figuring out the right amount of pressure to apply to the analog sticks. I was never into Spelunky, but my problem wasn’t the roguelike elements. I thought the game was not fun to control in platforming or combat. But I appreciated the idea of learning more about how the game works to do better in future runs, and now I can apply that to something that I do enjoy playing. And that’s awesome. |
| LG targets Judy, its next flagship smartphone, for June unveil Posted: 16 Feb 2018 10:40 AM PST  EXCLUSIVE: Along with LG’s widely reported mobile strategy reboot earlier this year — in which the company vowed to eschew traditional release schedules — came an obvious question: When will the first new hardware come to market, if not in early spring? Thanks to a person briefed on the company’s plans for a device codenamed “Judy” (in line with LG’s traditional reliance on female monikers), the details are finally starting to come into focus. Whereas the latest phones announced by the Korean manufacturer have been little more than existing handsets with new color schemes or additional software features, Judy is a brand new design. With a 6.1-inch, 18:9 Full Vision display, it’s significantly larger than its predecessor, the 5.7-inch LG G6 (though it will apparently not be branded as the G7). LG is said to be employing a fairly new type of display for the device, a so-called MLCD+ panel. Because its RGBW matrix contains a white sub-pixel (the color of much online text background), it is allegedly capable of high, 800-nit brightness while consuming 35 percent less power than standard IPS LCD panels. Specs-wise, Judy reportedly ticks off many of the requisite boxes demanded by mobile enthusiasts.
Besides a somewhat low standard RAM allotment (which could see a boost in an accompanying Plus-type model), Judy sounds like a fitting follow-up to 2017’s very capable G6 and V30. But you’ll have to wait patiently through early spring to purchase one: A targeted June launch means that it may not be available globally until sometime this summer. |
| ProBeat: Google can be proud of poor Pixel shipments, Essential should give up Posted: 16 Feb 2018 10:30 AM PST  OPINION: IDC shared two interesting smartphone numbers this week: Google Pixel and Essential Phone shipments for 2017. The research firm typically shares shipments for the top five smartphone makers, but interest around these two companies was apparently high enough to warrant a breakout by research director Francisco Jeronimo more than 10 days after IDC’s most recent report. For reference, Samsung shipped 317.3 million smartphones in 2017, followed by Apple with 215.8 million, Huawei with 153.1 million, Oppo with 111.8 million, and Xiaomi with 92.4 million. The overall market was largely flat at 1.47 billion smartphones shipped both in 2016 and in 2017. Meanwhile, Google shipped 3.9 million Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, and Pixel 2 XL phones last year. The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL started shipping in October:
Essential shipped 88,000 PH-1 phones last year. Phone shipments started in July:
Put another way, Google’s Pixel shipments stand at 1 percent of leader Samsung’s for the year, while Essential could not even crack six figures in six months. Both of these are abysmal results in the context of the larger smartphone market. And yet, Google should fight on, while Essential should give up. Be proud, GoogleI’ve given Google a lot of flak for its decision to not include a headphone jack in the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. I still think it was a terrible move, and it doesn’t surprise me that the second iteration is not the breakout success the company hoped for. That said, that Google has managed to steadily grow sales is an impressive feat, especially as it is only selling flagship phones. Sure, shipments in the millions does not mean we can expect shipments in the tens of millions or even hundreds of millions. But growth is notable given that the overall market is plateauing. The original Pixel and Pixel XL are still great options in 2018 for those who don’t need the latest and greatest. And while Google is unlikely to add a headphone jack to the Pixel 3, it will likely learn a lot from the various Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL kinks. Plus, the company now has $1.1 billion worth of HTC employees to put to work. The Pixel brand overall does a great job of showcasing Android and Google Assistant at their best. Like Microsoft is doing with Surface, this strategy means you don’t need to dominate sales to achieve your goal. Give up, EssentialAndroid cofounder Andy Rubin should have known better. Yes, his name alone generated a ton of hype around his new company’s new phone, but the reality is PH-1 is not a game-changing device. Furthermore, all its competitors have significantly deeper pockets. Most smartphones nowadays are very good. Making a good smartphone is not good enough. You either need something unique or a massive marketing push, and ideally both. Rubin has a plan for Essential that does not simply involve making Android phones. His company is also developing a smart speaker called Essential Home that runs a new operating system dubbed Ambient OS. I was bearish on Essential when the products were first unveiled, and I’m all the more bearish now that we have early numbers. The company’s only hope is a hard pivot. Maybe Rubin should double down on Ambient OS, his artificial intelligence service push, and hope for a sale. After all, he’s done it before. DiscountsEven if we didn’t have Pixel and Essential shipment numbers, it would be obvious Google and Essential are tiny players. Headlines have focused on the devices’ shortcomings more than anything else, and the companies have responded with deals. Google this week started offering loyal Nexus owners 20 percent off Pixel 2s. In October, Essential reduced the price of its phone from $700 to $500, and this week it offered three new “limited edition” colors. These are all fine and dandy distractions. Google needs to spend more time thinking about what worked with Nexus and focus on a global expansion plan. Essential needs to tap out and shift strategy. ProBeat is a column in which Emil rants about whatever crosses him that week. |
| Kingdom Come: Deliverance console test shows multi-platform frame drops and muddy textures Posted: 16 Feb 2018 10:04 AM PST  Kingdom Come: Deliverance is already a hit, having sold over 300,000 copies just on Steam. The open-world historical role-playing game came out on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on February 13. But Warhorse Studios’ game is experiencing performance issues on all platforms. YouTube channel Digital Foundry has created a video comparing the game running on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Pro, Xbox One, and Xbox One X. You can watch it above. All versions of the game have problems with muddy textures and pop-in. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One releases suffer from uneven framerates that are capped at 31 fps. The PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X versions run better, but they can still drop down to framerates in the 20s. Digital Foundry notes that the Xbox One X runs the game best, although it still has its problems. Although Digital Foundry doesn’t cover the PC version, Kingdom Come also has performance issues on that platform. The game is attracting fans with its realistic take on medieval role-playing, but some performance patches could enhance the experience. |
| AI-powered customer engagement isn’t optional anymore (VB Live) Posted: 16 Feb 2018 09:15 AM PST  VB LIVE: AI has become a must-have, offering companies the power to seamlessly anticipate customer needs and serve up hyper-personalized, emotionally resonant campaigns where and when they're most welcome. Join Wayfair’s Director of Data Science and others to learn more about the business advantage it brings and how to get in the game when you join this VB Live event. Wayfair, the consumer décor and furniture giant, has been on the AI tech train for awhile now — and they've seen tremendous business value from applying machine learning and AI for the right use cases, says Dan Wulin, the company’s Director of Data Science. "We've had great returns on everything from marketing to on-site personalization to pricing," Wulin says. "And we've been putting a lot more energy into how we grow this function and invest more in it, because it's been super successful for us." Their mission, Wulin says, boils down to one thing: How do we use all the data we have to give our customers have better experiences, both on the website and through our marketing? And a little more tactically, how do we use these algorithms to help the different teams at Wayfair make better decisions? For marketing, that means figuring out how the company should be allocating its budgets to get the best return, determining which marketing creatives should be used for the most powerful results, or what products to show to customers on the website. As they've continued to invest in AI, they've been increasingly able to innovate beyond the familiar AI use cases we've grown accustomed to, such as Amazon and Netflix's recommendation engine. Those familiar engines often simply show popular items. If you buy a DVD, here's another popular DVD that people tend to buy with it, based on customer clicks and trying to guess what the customer was looking at without really thinking about the products they were clicking on. "But because our catalog is so big and there's such a big variety of products, and our customers shop in such a visual way, we have to use AI in a different way to be successful," Wulin says. In other words, consumers are sold on an item via a product's unique aesthetics — i.e., how good that lamp is going to look in the living room, and will it match my other awesome stuff. "Then the goal is knowing what products to recommend using the image," he says. "If you look at what other companies are doing for product recommendations, nothing really scratches that itch." So what Wayfair did was build an AI model where product images are used to teach the model which items are complementary. When a customer is shopping on the website, the recommendation engine looks at the items they've purchased previously as well as the things they've browsed, and tailors their recommendations and search results to surface the products that match their personal style. If somebody buys this sofa and that ottoman together, that goes in as a positive example for the model. "No one on my team, or anywhere at Wayfair, has to write out or figure out what's going on," he explains. "Because of the sheer amount of data we have, from all the examples of our customers buying things that go well together, the model can figure that out on its own." For example, if you've been browsing lots of sofas, and then you pop over to ottomans, rather than just showing you popular ottomans you'll see ones that the model determines will go well with what you've already purchased. It's like the engine has an opinion about your home decorating — and it's a really good one. This kind of visual search technology also means that Wayfair can allow consumers to submit images of furniture that they're jonesing for on the site, and they'll get a search return full of items that look similar. The company is building these solutions in-house, Wulin says, though they've benefitted from the AI work others have done, from Google to Facebook and other companies, big and small. But innovation is all home-grown. "We're taking cutting-edge papers and research techniques and applying them to the problems we care about at Wayfair," he explains. "And for all the AI models that we're building, we're really adamant about testing them in the wild, whether that's on the site or in marketing. We're confirming that we're getting improved customer engagement and experience regardless. That's built into our culture and DNA as a data science team and a broader organization." But, he says, don't be afraid to start simple. "A lot of third-party vendors and data scientists immediately get down to the complex marketing solutions AI can deliver," says Wulin. "Maybe that is where you end up after a year or two or three, but what I've seen succeed is being pragmatic about things — being okay building a simple minimum viable product, and then once you have positive signs there, then invest to get more in-depth and more complex." 2018 is the year to seize the AI advantage. To learn more about starting simple, the technology it takes, and the opportunities you'll start to unlock, don't miss this VB Live event. Don’t miss out! In this VB Live event, you’ll learn:
Speakers:
|
| Trove’s next free expansion adds superheroes to the voxel-based MMO Posted: 16 Feb 2018 09:00 AM PST  Trion Worlds announced today the next free expansion for its voxel-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game Trove is coming out this spring. Trove — Heroes will add superhero-themed content. Trove came out for PC in 2015, with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions following in 2017. The MMO is free, but players can spend money on things like costumes and new character classes. Trove has had over 8 million players on Steam, according to SteamSpy. On all platforms, Trove has over 15 million players. Free expansions like these keep those players engaged. Heroes focuses on the city of Luminopolis, a neon-lit town filled with evil robots and brave rebels. Players will have access to a new Vanguardian class which takes its inspiration from classic superhero comics. The last free expansion, Adventures, came out in November and added a new Eastern-themed landscape called The Forbidden Spires. Heroes also adds the new Beacon system. Beacons shine brightly to attract heroes that have to come together to beat a powerful boss for a chance at loot. |
| AT&T offers roadmap for U.S. cities that want early 5G service Posted: 16 Feb 2018 08:40 AM PST  The upcoming transition from 4G to 5G cellular technologies has consumers eagerly awaiting the chance to get their hands on smartphones with extraordinarily fast internet speeds. In the meantime, city mayors are grappling with how to get their citizens access to 5G service as soon as possible, without getting bulldozed by telecom companies. In a blog post written by AT&T executive vice president Joan Marsh, the carrier detailed why it decided to work with three cities — Indianapolis, Minneapolis, and Little Rock — on testing its “5G Evolution” networks, the last “4.5G” step before full 5G. AT&T is using these cities to demonstrate the regulatory conditions that mayors and city councils should create if they want to get early 5G coverage, which will rely heavily upon new networking gear, including small cell transceivers. VentureBeat’s Heartland Tech channel invites you to join us and other senior business leaders at BLUEPRINT in Reno on March 5-7. Learn how to expand jobs to Middle America, lower costs, and boost profits. Click here to request an invite and be a part of the conversation. All three cities highlighted by AT&T made it easier to deploy small tech in a variety of ways. Indianapolis, Minneapolis, and Little Rock all expedited the small cell permitting process, allowing companies to obtain a permit for small cell deployment in 45-60 days in Indianapolis, versus up to 90 days in Minneapolis. It’s unclear how long it took companies in these cities to obtain a permit before the process was expedited, but in other municipalities, it can take up to a year to get a permit. In Little Rock, the permitting form AT&T and other companies needs to fill out to deploy a small cell shrank to just two pages, and the city allowed companies to use one permit for the deployment of up to 25 cells. The state of Indiana also passed legislation last year that capped the maximum attachment rate for small cells at $50 a node. According to the American Enterprise Institute, some municipalities had been asking deployers to pay $4,000 per year for each small cell. The legislation has made Indiana a popular 5G testing ground for other telecom giants, not just AT&T. In May, Verizon conducted a residential test of 5G at a complex in Speedway, Indiana, home of the Indianapolis 500. For the cities and states that are already thinking about 5G deployment, one of the biggest questions that remains is whether permitting processes should be decided by the state or the municipality. In October, California Governor Jerry Brown (D) vetoed a bill, backed by the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, that would have set statewide standards for small cell deployment. In particular, the bill would have capped the fee for using city property at $250 per device each year and barred municipalities from imposing additional fees — which the sponsors of the bill said would have encouraged more investment from telecom companies. But 300 mayors who opposed the bill said those fees were too low and would have allowed telecom companies to “use public property practically [for] free.” |
| Netflix’s 40% stock run has it challenging Disney’s valuation Posted: 16 Feb 2018 08:30 AM PST  The Walt Disney Company may own the most valuable film properties on the planet. But investors seem to think Netflix could still be in a position to challenge the House of the Mouse and become this century’s leading entertainment media company. Whoever comes out on top, it seems increasingly clear that the battle is going to come down to these two global giants. Since the start of this year, Netflix’s stock has climbed from $199.50 per share to $280.31 on Thursday, just slightly down from its $286.49 per share peak on January 29. The latest bull run started with word that the Netflix movie Bright had attracted a large number of viewers over the holidays. This was further boosted when the company reported that it had added more subscribers than expected in the last quarter. In terms of streaming, Netflix is available in almost every country, a reach that’s unmatched by the likes of HBO, or even Amazon Prime Video. And Netflix has used that global footprint to continue leveraging its original content. The biggest risk facing Netflix, of course, is how much it’s spending on content. In the most recent earnings call last month, executives said the company will spend between $7.5 billion and $8 billion on content in 2018. And that number will likely go higher each successive year. The company has also been signing exclusive deals with producers to create shows for its service. For the moment, Netflix will need to continue borrowing to fund that content budget. In 2018, the company expects to spend between $3 billion and $4 billion more on content than it receives in cash. But Netflix is betting it can manage the payments on that debt until it becomes cash-flow positive again. A risk, for sure. But investors and analysts seem increasingly confident in Netflix executives’ ability to manage this challenge. The company’s valuation has now climbed to $121.6 billion, versus $158 billion for Disney as of Thursday’s close of market. Netflix’s stock was down slightly in early Friday trading. Of course, Disney has taken note of the Netflix threat and has made a couple of big moves to thwart it. The first was to announce it would pull its content from Netflix in 2019 in order to launch its own subscription service. That means no more Disney, Marvel, or Pixar films on Netflix. Then, late last year, Disney announced that it had agreed to buy 21st Century Fox's film and television assets for $52.4 billion. That mega-deal is still awaiting regulatory approval, but when it closes it will place Disney’s valuation another tier beyond Netflix’s reach for the time being. Still, Disney face its own risks. Netflix has built out massive infrastructure to deliver a smooth, reliable, and high-quality streaming experience around the planet, taking into account a wide variety of gadgets, screen sizes, and internet speeds. It deftly uses its internal artificial intelligence to surface content for viewers. And its design and navigation is fluid and easy to navigate. Matching that is no easy task. Just ask Amazon, which — despite running its own massive cloud service — offers a video service that often feels clunky, with laggy designs that make it hard to search and little in the way of suggesting interesting titles. Plus, Disney’s massive content libraries will contain lots of well-known titles, but asking users to subscribe and pay a monthly fee involves establishing an entirely new relationship. This will eventually leave consumers facing some tough choices. Users’ brief euphoria about saving money by cutting the cord is giving way to the reality that paying for content across different services is going to add up quickly. Even with all these amazing titles, Disney is going to have to convince consumers to make room in their budget for one more monthly fee. Likewise, Netflix is going to have to continue investing in content to shore up its hold on subscribers. In any case, the fight is on. And high-stakes games around content and acquisitions are going to be the norm for the next several years. |
| The DeanBeat: High Fidelity takes us dancing in a virtual reality club Posted: 16 Feb 2018 08:00 AM PST  I’m looking forward to Steven Spielberg’s upcoming film based on Ernest Cline’s virtual reality sci-fi novel Ready Player One. In one scene in that 2011 tome, a group of hackers gather to dance in a virtual night club. They float in the air and bump and grind to pulse-pounding music as a masked DJ looms over the crowd. It was one of many iconic moments about our VR future in the sci-fi novel. And I got to experience a little taste of that scene yesterday at High Fidelity, Philip Rosedale’s VR world company in San Francisco. Rosedale (who will be a speaker at our upcoming GamesBeat Summit 2018 event; check out our $500 indie dev ticket) was the visionary behind Second Life, the online virtual world built by his former company, Linden Lab. Yes, I went dancing in the dance club in VR, and talked to a bunch of people all at once. I even allowed strangers to touch my avatar in VR so that I could physically feel what it was like to have a sense of touch in the cyber world.  Above: A scene from Spielberg’s upcoming Ready Player One. Image Credit: Ready Player One “‘We’re showing this for a little party today, and it’s just the beginning,” said Philip Rosedale, CEO of High Fidelity, in an interview, pointing at the room with a couple of dozen VR headsets and computers. “In a short while, we’ll bring in teachers and a class on a field trip here. We’ll start going on virtual trips with tour guides, so the teacher can take you through the pyramids in Egypt. They could send kids out to look in the environment for a hieroglyphic of a jackal and then come back. This is the start of social VR experiences. Games are fun, but it’s the social experiences that will bring people together and make a lasting impact.” The experience felt real, as the movements of the real dancers were in sync with their virtual characters. High Fidelity made it possible by bringing down the latency, or interaction delays, to about a tenth of a second. The quick interaction, combined with the lights and the sound of music and voices, made the dancing experience more believable in VR, Rosedale said. High Fidelity, which has 50 people working in San Francisco, has created a collection of VR spaces than a continuous world, like Second Life. But it will grow over time as the community members create more content and High Fidelity starts to launch the full version of the world later this year. Yesterday, we just got a small sneak peek. I joined a number of other journalists on the dance floor to try it out in a room where a bunch of the VR machines were all networked together.  Above: Dancers in High Fidelity. Image Credit: Dean Takahashi We donned Oculus Rift VR headsets and were transported to the balcony above the dance floor. Rosedale joined us with his own silver-haired avatar. He showed me how to walk using the Oculus Touch controllers, or how to teleport around the room. When I spoke, my Avatar’s lips moved. We walked downstairs to the multicolored tiles on the floor, where a bunch of other dancers were making fancy moves. We saw a dancer floating in the air, like they do in Ready Player One. And we saw a dancer upside down, defying gravity, walking on the bottom of a crystal disco ball. We gathered around Rosedale and struggled to listen to him amid the dance music. But I could hear him. The audio seemed to come from different directions, but I had trouble identifying which avatar was talking until I saw the avatar’s lips move in sync with the voice. High Fidelity brought in a half-dozen dancers and equipped them with HTC Vive VR headsets. They also had Vive Trackers, or sensors that were attached to their legs, hips, and backs. Those sensors captured their full body movements, and High Fidelity translated those moves into much better action on the dance floor. I could only wave my arms around, but those dancers were moving everything.  Above: The place where I interviewed Flash. Image Credit: High Fidelity The virtual dance club, dubbed Rust, was designed by one of High Fidelity’s community members. It had disco lights and a DJ in real life named The Flash, one of the top DJs on Periscope. He had his own avatar, or virtual character, with a huge fiberglass-like head. When he spoke, his avatar’s lips moved, and he encouraged everybody to start dancing to his blaring hip-hop music. In a quiet place dubbed the Oasis, I interviewed The Flash, and it was the first such interview I did in VR. His hope is to make money through tips from other virtual visitors. “This world is already here,” Flash said. “I’m all about bringing people into new experiences and making them happy.”  Above: Philip Rosedale (left) of High Fidelity and Jeremy Bailenson of Stanford. Image Credit: Dean Takahashi “You can test a lot of things in VR to see how they compare to real life,” said Jeremy Bailenson, a VR expert and communications professor at Stanford University, in an interview. “You can get up close to someone and violate that by about ten centimeters and see how that feels. If you mimic someone non-verbally, like in dancing, they notice you more and like you more. Here, in VR, you could do that with 20 people.” Bailenson just published a book, Experience on Demand: What virtual reality is, how it works, and what it can do. It’s about all of the ways that VR will blur the lines between illusion and reality. He said he looked forward to all of the educational applications of VR. “When you start bringing groups of students in here, I want to be there,” Bailenson said. “It’s maddening that all of the other environments force the students to be in different places, not in the same place.” Rosedale looks forward to VR places where you can travel to places like the Caves of Lascaux in France, where ancient cave drawings have been preserved but are no longer accessible to the public for preservation purposes.  Above: A haptic suit enables Wade to feel touch in the Ready Player One trailer. Image Credit: Ready Player One High Fidelity still has a lot of work to do. Our avatars were bumping into each other in VR, and sometimes they were all stacked together in the same place, with arms and legs of different avatars combined in so-called “clipping” computer art problems. But over time, proper physics simulations and other fixes will make the experiences feel more realistic. “I’ve been in this for 20 years, and to me it feels like we’re seeing so much progress,” Bailenson said. The virtual touch experience was weird, and it was reminiscent of the first Ready Player One trailer. David Eagleman, the founder of NeoSensory, brought a couple of “haptic vests” to the High Fidelity event to show off what they could do. I donned one of the vests, which was a fairly tight fit for me, and went into the world with another journalist. We spent some time touching each other, and I could feel the sensations of touch on my torso and back via the haptic sensors on the vest. It was a buzzing sort of feeling. Now I know where your dirty mind is going, like this is a precursor to virtual sex. But my mind wasn’t going there. I was just laughing the whole time at the sense of touch.  Above: A woman wears NeoSensory’s haptic vest. When someone touches her in VR, the suit’s sensors light up. Image Credit: Dean Takahashi After I got out of it, Bailenson said that over time, you’ll be able to hire people who are experts at moving your body around, such as dance gyrations, and you can concentrate on things like talking to people. It will be one more aspect of a vast virtual economy, and it will be fun because it will be more intimate. “You can build more trust, by touching someone on the shoulder,” Bailenson said. “The difference is you can scale it up and touch 20 shoulders at once. If someone shakes your hand tightly, you can respond with mimicry, and squeeze their hand hard.” Is it Ready Player One? Not yet. It doesn’t look nearly as good, and the avatars have a long way to go before they’d be considered realistic. But as Rosedale said, it’s a beginning. |
| Want to join the VB team? We’re looking for a kick-ass Account Executive Posted: 16 Feb 2018 07:50 AM PST  VentureBeat is on the hunt for a passionate and consultative Account Executive to help sell big, custom campaigns and integrated marketing solutions to leading business and technology brands. This is about driving VentureBeat's online, custom, and events business — already at the epicenter of the startup ecosystem and wider digital-tech revolution — to greater heights. The role is at the heart of our organization: Advertising and sponsorship sales for VentureBeat's website, events, and custom content marketing solutions ensure our success and continued growth. There's a major growth opportunity here with huge market potential. The position is located in San Francisco in our offices situated in the heart of the financial district but will require some travel. Responsibilities:
Qualifications:
To apply, please send a cover letter and resume to alex@venturebeat.com. |
| ZTE chases 5G growth in Japan as U.S. shuns ‘insecure’ Chinese mobile gear Posted: 16 Feb 2018 07:35 AM PST  Reeling from highly public accusations of espionage levied by U.S. intelligence officials, Chinese mobile hardware manufacturer ZTE is expanding its sales efforts in Japan, where it is using low-cost 5G cellular equipment to woo potential customers. The Nikkei Asian Review reports that ZTE is working to win 5G contracts from Japanese carriers ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which it expects “will become the world’s showcase for 5G technology.” According to the report, ZTE has priced its hardware at roughly one-fifth the cost of European and Japanese competitors’ products and is using its growing Tokyo office to pitch Asian and South American companies. ZTE already has a non-exclusive 5G hardware partnership with SoftBank, Japan’s third-largest carrier, which it expects will lead to both 5G base station and handset sales. ZTE also hopes to sell 5G networking gear to Japan’s leading carriers, NTT Docomo and KDDI, though that is expected to progress more slowly. On the 4G side, ZTE recently collaborated with NTT Docomo to develop a dual-screen foldable smartphone called M Z-01K, which was released last week in Japan — and late last year by AT&T as the Axon M. U.S. officials have actively urged customers not to purchase ZTE or Huawei phones and have lobbied carriers to cut ties with the Chinese companies for security reasons. 5G networking gear is expected to be used for everything from phones to autonomous cars, factories, and city infrastructure, radically increasing security risks and consequences compared to its 4G predecessor. As recently as last month, ZTE had hoped to expand in the United States and had announced plans to release its first 5G smartphone here later this year, ahead of competitors. But the announcement was quickly overshadowed by members of Congress, who spotlighted six years of investigations into the companies’ clandestine ties to China’s government. The heads of the FBI, CIA, and NSA reiterated those security concerns this week, leading ZTE USA to issue a public statement:
U.S. concerns aside, a global rush to install affordable 5G hardware may help ZTE in some markets, as other countries have recently accelerated their plans for next-generation cellular networks. International standards organization 3GPP completed work on a key 5G standard six months ahead of schedule, enabling major U.S. carriers to promise initial 5G rollouts in 2018. Though Japanese carriers have largely stuck to 2020 timetables, most appear set to have some 5G infrastructure in place by next year. Other Asian countries are still working out their plans: Malaysia may roll out 5G in 2022-2023, while India just announced that it will finalize its 5G roadmap by this June to keep the country at the “leading edge of technology.” |
| Siemens builds consortium of powerhouses for a community of cyber trust Posted: 16 Feb 2018 07:00 AM PST  Siemens has formed a consortium of giant companies to form a community of trust to build greater cyber security. The major industrial and tech allies in the consortium include Airbus, Allianz, Daimler Group, IBM, MSC, NXP, SGS, and Deutsche Telekom. Those companies believe that cybercrime is getting out of hand and they need to band together to protect both digital assets and physical assets — from data centers to power plants. The companies will sign the Charter of Trust at the Munich Security Conference today in Germany. Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser said in an interview with VentureBeat that his company has 460 factories around the world, with many of them in China. His company needs to keep the data safe, and it has to comply with data laws in various countries. He can’t bring some of that data out of China. “I need to know how these factories are doing no matter where I am,” he said. “I have to access my data wherever I am. But we also have to keep this data safe. We need something that verifies identity and enables trust. We have to build a community. People have to understand that the physical world can actually be the victim in cyberattacks. Data theft can impact the physical world.” The trust group will do things like eliminate duplicate costs for manufacturers and bring standards to the Internet of Things. The companies want to share resources for defending themselves against attack, and they are calling on governments and chief information security officers to join them and create independent certification for critical infrastructure and the Internet of Things. Kaeser doesn’t want to have to hire thousands of cybersecurity people just to have to cover all the bases alone. “We have to be able to verify with my partners that these people are OK without building up thousands and thousands of cybersecurity people to protect my stuff,” Kaeser said. “Do we know all the answers yet? Absolutely not. Do we know we need to do this? Absolutely.” The Charter of Trust calls for binding rules and standards to build trust in cybersecurity and further advance digitalization. The Charter outlines 10 action areas in cybersecurity where governments and businesses must both become active. It calls for responsibility for cybersecurity to be assumed at the highest levels of government and business, with the introduction of a dedicated ministry in governments and a chief information security officer at companies. It also calls for companies to establish mandatory, independent third-party certification for critical infrastructure and solutions — above all, where dangerous situations can arise, such as with autonomous vehicles or the robots of tomorrow, which will interact directly with humans during production processes. “We need tangible use cases on how to defend a power plant or how to defend a mobile system or the traffic lights,” Kaeser said.  Above: Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser is fed up with cyberattacks. Image Credit: Dean Takahashi In the future, security and data protection functions should be “preconfigured” into technologies, and cybersecurity regulations should be incorporated into free trade agreements, the companies said. The Charter's signatories also call for greater efforts to foster an understanding of cybersecurity through training and continuing education as well as international initiatives. "Secure digital networks are the critical infrastructure underpinning our interconnected world," said Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland, in a statement. "Canada welcomes the efforts of these key industry players to help create a safer cyberspace. Cybersecurity The matter is also a top priority for the Munich Security Conference. "Governments must take a leadership role when it comes to the transaction rules in cyberspace," said Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference, in a statement. "But the companies that are in the forefront of envisioning and designing the future of cyberspace must develop and implement the standards. That's why the Charter is so important. Together with our partners, we want to advance the topic and help define its content.” According to the ENISA Threat Landscape Report, cybersecurity attacks caused damage totaling more than $815 billion (€560 billion) worldwide in 2016 alone. For some European countries, the damage was equivalent to 1.6 percent of the gross domestic product. “It’s important to protect not only the assets but also the data flows, and it creates the coming together of industry, government, and academia,” said Leo Simonovich, a security vice president at Siemens, in an interview. “Our customers are looking for blueprints, both technical and strategic.” And in a digitalized world, the threats to cybersecurity are steadily growing: According to Gartner, 8.4 billion networked devices were in use in 2017 — a 31 percent increase over 2016. By 2020, the figure is expected to reach 20.4 billion. Kaeser referred to Bitcoin as “the greatest money-laundering machine ever built.” He added, “And no one cares. There are thousands of regulations. Every time I come into this beautiful country, I have to report if I have more than $10,000 in [physical] cash. In cyberspace, you can transfer much more than that and no one cares. No one stops you. The black money. The dirty money. The drug money is being cleaned. No one cares because no one knows how to deal with it. Think about it. The whole world is not prepared for this.” As for the response, it hasn’t even started yet, Kaeser said. “This is just the beginning,” he said. “We should have 50 or 100 companies trying to reinvent the same wheel time again. We need a knowledge community, and that’s the intent.” |
| Walmart reportedly in talks to buy more than 40% of India’s Flipkart Posted: 16 Feb 2018 02:04 AM PST  (Reuters) Walmart is in talks to purchase a stake of more than 40 percent in Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart, a direct challenge to Amazon.com in Asia's third-largest economy, two sources familiar with the matter said on Friday. In what would be one of its biggest overseas deals, the U.S. retailer is looking at buying new and existing shares in Flipkart and due diligence is likely to begin as early as next week, the sources said. They declined to be named as the talks were private. Terms under discussion were not immediately available, but Flipkart would be valued at more than the $12 billion figure given when Japan's SoftBank Group Corp's Vision Fund took roughly a fifth of the firm last year for $2.5 billion, they added. Existing investors in Flipkart also include U.S. hedge fund Tiger Global Management, China's Tencent Holdings Ltd, online marketplace eBay Inc and software giant Microsoft Corp. A spokesman for Flipkart said the company does not comment on rumors or speculation. An India-based representative for Walmart declined to comment. |
| 2017 brought VR cameras to everyone — in 2018 they might even use them Posted: 15 Feb 2018 11:11 PM PST  GUEST: It's been an exciting decade for video and still-photography cameras, but if we were to sum 2017 up as anything, it would be the year that virtual reality (VR) cameras became accessible to a much broader “prosumer” and consumer market. Previously, fliming footage in full 3D 360-degree VR was limited to those with deep pockets. VR cameras were the domain of movie studios and Silicon Valley startups hoping to define the new media. It required the funds of the super-rich, remaining wildly out of reach for office and home users. But 2017 saw some significant changes on this front. Facebook introduced Surround 360, a family of VR cameras for licensing, not for sale, to partners to help get this technology into the hands of average Facebook users. At Humaneyes Technologies, we launched the Vuze VR Camera, the first consumer-focused VR video camera with a price below $1,000. The industry also saw the introduction of a middle tier, with Insta360 Pro hovering around $3,500 that allows for live streaming in full VR. What’s gone wrongDespite this move toward consumer friendliness, 2017 was not a healthy year for consumer adoption. There were several reasons for this, but one of the biggest is continued consumer confusion between VR 360-degree video, VR 180-degree video, and 2D 360 video. There are cameras on the market that support all of these options, and it's nothing short of overwhelming for consumers struggling to understand this new market. Even worse, some companies are lending to this confusion by marketing 2D 360 degree cameras as "virtual reality" devices. With new technology, keeping things crystal clear for consumers is essential if we're to see adoption. As an industry, we're failing to maintain the standards that ensure that. We also saw the exit of a major company. Nokia discontinued the OZO unexpectedly in October, and in doing so, seemingly left the VR camera market. While this wasn't a consumer-level device (originally retailing at $60,000), Nokio’s exit is a symptom of the most prominent struggle the VR industry faces: the slow adoption of VR technology, and specifically, headsets. While VR experiences can be mind-blowing, getting consumers to try them — and then commit to the investment in their own homes — has proven more challenging than optimists and evangelists might have expected. This problem has only been compounded by the varying quality of VR experiences available, with some hardware offering fully immersive adventures, but others are offering headsets that won't even provide for menu selections without taking the headset off. This fragmentation of the market provides for a wide variety of prices to entice consumers into a purchase, but it means that lower-priced experiences will pale in comparison to the more expensive options. Hope for the futureIt's possible that soon, even in 2018, we'll see a more level mid-tier emerge in VR headsets with the release of Oculus Santa Cruz and similar standalone devices. But even then, we'll have to overcome the other challenge we face as an industry: quality content. If the market for true VR cameras can overcome its current obstacles, that of limited headset utilization, the level of consumer-created quality content will grow with it. VR video is still waiting for its YouTube revolution, but as long as consumer adoption can increase to support it, such a revolution isn't a question of "if" but "when." Fortunately, things seem to be on track for more consumers to have their first experiences with VR than ever in 2018. The uses of VR in training and education are multiplying, and as a result, giving many people their first real VR moments. The more the public encounters VR outside of their homes, the more they're likely to welcome it in. We are also seeing growth in the 180 VR camera market, which is excellent for introducing users to exploring their creativity in VR, and will only lead to an interest in more immersive 360-degree experiences as the industry grows. Consumer behavior has changed in recent years, shifting from still photographs to videos thanks to services like SnapChat, YouTube, and live streaming video. We firmly believe that the next evolution — the apparent evolution — is immersive videos created in VR. As an industry, we're shaping consumer habits to empower anyone to relive moments as close to real life as possible. And we're on track to do just that, as long as we focus on removing barriers to consumer adoption in the year ahead. This article originally appeared in Virtual Reality Reporter. Jim Malcolm brings more than two decades of imaging, virtual reality, and consumer products experience to his role as General Manager, North America, at Humaneyes. |
| White House blames Russia for NotPetya cyberattack Posted: 15 Feb 2018 09:25 PM PST  (Reuters) –The White House on Thursday blamed Russia for the devastating 'NotPetya' cyberattack last year, joining the British government in condemning Moscow for unleashing a virus that crippled parts of Ukraine's infrastructure and damaged computers in countries across the globe. The attack launched in June 2017 by the Russian military "spread worldwide, causing billions of dollars in damage across Europe, Asia and the Americas," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. "It was part of the Kremlin's ongoing effort to destabilize Ukraine and demonstrates ever more clearly Russia's involvement in the ongoing conflict," Sanders said. "This was also a reckless and indiscriminate cyberattack that will be met with international consequences." The strongly worded but brief statement was the first time the U.S. government has blamed Russia for what is considered one of the worst cyberattacks on record. Many private sector security experts had fingered Moscow months ago. The statement came days after leaders of U.S. intelligence agencies again warned that Russia, and potentially other adversaries, were likely to attempt to use cyber means to meddle in the U.S. midterm elections in November. Experts said the White House vow of a response needed to be met with clear action, especially because U.S. President Donald Trump has sought to improve relations with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and has at times appeared dismissive of the cyber threat posed by Russia. The U.S. government is "reviewing a range of options," a senior White House official said when asked what consequences Russia would face. It was not clear what those options were, nor what was meant by "international consequences." Earlier on Thursday Russia denied being behind the attack, saying the accusations were part of a "Russophobic" campaign that it said was being waged by some Western countries. The White House had intended to release a statement about 'NotPetya' at the same time as London, but those plans were delayed due to a school shooting in Florida, according to three sources familiar with the matter. ‘Empty Promise’?The U.S. government has been quicker to blame other nations, most notably North Korea, for destructive cyberattacks, including the WannaCry ransomware attack in May 2017. Some administration officials have worried that publicly blaming Russia without imposing some cost could raise questions about why the United States was not retaliating, said two sources familiar with the internal debate. Others argued that because the United States also conducts covert cyberspace operations that could not be discussed in public, the statement attributing blame to Moscow required no elaboration, the sources said. In addition to covert operations, retaliation could take the form of further sanctions on Russia or other diplomatic penalties. Trump has resisted the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that Moscow also meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. After he met Putin in Vietnam last November, Trump said he believed the Russian leader when he denied his government interfered in the election. Democrats and some Republicans have criticized the Trump administration for not imposing sanctions that were passed unanimously by Congress last summer and were intended to punish Moscow for meddling in the 2016 election. "With Russia, if we are promised consequences, people are going to be looking for tangible proof" of a response, said Kenneth Geers, a security researcher at the cyber firm Comodo and former U.S. intelligence official who works at NATO's think tank on cyber defense. "Otherwise it seems like a real empty promise." The NotPetya attack started in Ukraine, where it crippled government and business computers before spreading around Europe and the world, halting operations at ports, factories and offices. Britain's foreign ministry said in a statement released earlier in the day that the attack originated from the Russian military. "The decision to publicly attribute this incident underlines the fact that the UK and its allies will not tolerate malicious cyber activity," the ministry said in a statement. "The attack masqueraded as a criminal enterprise but its purpose was principally to disrupt," it said. "Primary targets were Ukrainian financial, energy and government sectors. Its indiscriminate design caused it to spread further, affecting other European and Russian business." |
| PC Gaming Weekly: the live services blues Posted: 15 Feb 2018 08:47 PM PST  Ubisoft may have put words to the unspoken strategies of many triple-A publishers when it said during an investors call this week that it would focus on live-service games and plan on fewer releases. We’re seeing this with every major publisher (such as Activision-Blizzard, EA, and Take-Two) except Nintendo, which still focuses more on single-player games and hasn’t dipped into the lootbox economy (yet). And while a number of gamers claim to hate this monetization scheme, the large number of sales for these game — and ongoing transactions — brings to mind a line from Hamlet: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” As I look at my gaming habits, I see that only two loot box games are in my regular rotation: Hearthstone and The Elder Scrolls: Legends, both digital card games in which you buy packs to bolster your collections. You could throw Neverwinter in as well: This free-to-play MMORPG charges for a variety of items and boosts. But then I also look at Path of Exile (think a modern Diablo II, but online and with regular content updates). It’s free-to-play, but it charges for cosmetic improvements, pieces of flair that help your character stand out. Grinding Gear Games calls this “ethical free-to-play.” And then I turn to the other games I play on PC. Civilization VI (check out the new Rise and Fall expansion, which I think is pretty dang good). Single-player RPGs like Pillars of Eternity and Divinity: Original Sin 2. Night in the Woods. Hundreds of good single-player games appear on the PC every year, all without loot boxes or “live services.” Maybe the next time someone complains about in-game purchases ruining the industry, point them to a great, old-fashioned PC game instead. For PC gaming coverage, send news tips to Jeff Grubb and guest post submissions to Rowan Kaiser. Please be sure to visit our PC Gaming Channel. —Jason Wilson, GamesBeat managing editor P.S. Watch Dean smash this mime mech with an angry, armed octopus in Octogeddon. From GamesBeatRocket League's in-game tournament mode goes into testing February 21Psyonix is about to make it easier for you to compete against your friends in its vehicular soccer hit Rocket League. The studio is launching its Tournaments mode into a short beta test on Steam next week. This trial begins February 21, and it runs through February 23. Rocket League debuted in 2015, and it […] THQ Nordic gets Deep Silver, Saints Row, and Metro in Koch Media acquisitionSwedish publisher THQ Nordic has acquired European entertainment company Koch Media for an undisclosed sum. The deal means that THQ Nordic is acquiring Koch's Deep Silver gaming division, which is responsible for the open-world crime series Saints Row and the postapocalyptic shooter franchise Metro. This brings Saints Row back under the THQ name after Nordic […] Ubisoft plans to make fewer games after a decade of annual releasesAssassin's Creed took a year off in 2016 for the first time after having at least one new blockbuster-sized release per year since 2009. But despite some strong sales for 2017's Assassin's Creed: Origins, Ubisoft is saying that it plans to make fewer games in the future. Instead of a bunch of annualized franchises, Ubisoft […] AMD releases first Ryzen-Vega combo chips for desktopsAdvanced Micro Devices released the first Ryzen chips that combine graphics with a central processing unit (CPU) for desktop computers. The accelerated processing units (APUs) combine a Radeon Vega graphics processing unit (GPU) with a Zen CPU for mid-range and low-cost desktop computers. AMD said the new chips will bring down the cost of gaming […] Nvidia CEO: Cryptocurrency mining drove a spike in graphics-chip salesNvidia reported better-than-expected earnings for its fiscal fourth quarter that ended on January 31. The company said it's earning non-GAAP revenues of $1.72 a share on revenues of $2.91 billion. Analysts had expected $1.16 a share on revenue of $2.68 billion. It makes you wonder if all of those rumors about cryptocurrency mining driving up […] Yakuza 6: The Song of Life's localization philosophySega's action-adventure series Yakuza first launched in 2005, and Yakuza 6: The Song of Life is the final chapter to protagonist Kiryu Kazuma's story. His journey has been uniquely Japanese, tackling underground criminal organizations with geopolitical tones, commenting on the way people use technology, and showcasing the country's culture. Sega's North American localization team at […] Beyond GamesBeatThe Road To War | The AI of Total War (Part 1)Since the beginning of my AI and Games series on YouTube I’ve explored a variety of AI techniques to solve specific problems within video game design that require both immediate, reactive behaviour in conjunction with long-term and strategic decision making. (via Gamasutra) Fortnite Save The World Players Say They’re Second-Class After Valentine’s Content DelayWith Fortnite Battle Royale burning up the charts, folks might be forgiven for forgetting the original Fortnite. That team-based horde-style mode is still in the game under the Save The World moniker. While Save the World and Battle Royale are different modes in a single game, some players only play one of the modes. When it comes to Save the World-only players, they’re starting to feel like Epic Games has left them behind. (via US Gamer) This streaming startup wants to make high-end PCs obsoleteStreaming service Shadow doesn't just want to replace your gaming PC – it wants to put your entire high-end computer in the cloud (via WIRED) The war behind the scenes of Eve: "I don’t think we will be able to solve botting"Eve Online developers CCP have been fighting an invisible war against bots since the game launched in 2003. Yesterday they changed their tactics, announcing new punishments for players caught botting, but their new target isn't the bot problem – it is the perception of the bot problem. (via PC GamesN) Subscribe to PC Gaming Weeklyand receive this newsletter every Thursday |
| Crossing Souls review — a full course of nostalgia, with a small side of story Posted: 15 Feb 2018 05:47 PM PST  REVIEW: Crossing Souls is an action role-playing game that’s in love with the ’80s. It’s strewn with references to The Goonies and Back to the Future, and its cutscenes and soundtrack do an excellent job at surfing the nostalgia wave. Indie developer Fourattic raised funds for the game on Kickstarter in 2014. Four years later and with the help of publisher Devolver Digital, Crossing Souls is out now on PC (which is what I played it on) and PlayStation 4. Check out our Reviews Vault for past game reviews. What you’ll likeGreat style
Crossing Souls has a comfy aesthetic. It’s a nostalgia trip back to the ’80s, starring a scrappy group of kids who find themselves in over their heads when they find a mysterious stone that lets them peek into the spirit world. Of course, some paramilitary group of baddies are also after the stone, and of course, it’s up to our young heroes to save the world. Most of the game has a retro pixel art style, but notably, the cutscenes have a low-fi cartoon look complete with static lines as though you’re playing on a dusty old VCR. To match, the soundtrack is synth-y, period-appropriate goodness. As a package, Crossing Souls looks great and hits all the locations you’d want from a game like this, such as an arcade, a comic book shop, the local high school, and a spooky mansion.
You play as one character at a time, and each of the kids has a different skill set — Matt wields a ray gun and has rocket boosters; Joe can drag objects around and tanks with powerful punches; Charlie has a whip and can slingshot the party across wide ravines. The protagonist Chris is a little vanilla to be sure (he wields a bat and can jump and climb) but he rounds out the group. I enjoyed switching between characters to complete tasks. The puzzles aren’t that challenging, and neither are the fights. But it’s all simple fun. Plus, if you play too fast and loose, you then might find yourself in a tight spot. You won’t encounter many health restoration items, and you can’t level up your characters or give them new abilities. My favorite sequence is a scene in which you’re running from left to right on the screen to escape a wall of flame. You must get to safety by toggling between Matt and Chris and timing your jumps and rocket boosts so that you don’t run out of stamina. Crossing Souls also features some delightful minigames. In one, you pilot a ship and dodge bullets and missiles. In another, you avoid obstacles as you escape the bad guys. What you won’t likeStory falls flat
Crossing Souls’s ’80s callbacks are sometimes cute — like the Poltergeist house — but other times, they felt awkward. It’s peppered with stereotypes from that time period like the effeminate bad guy and the mystical Asian antique shop owner. It often relies on tropes without elevating them or reexamining them in a modern context, the way a show like Stranger Things does. The main problem with the story, though, is that we never get to know the characters. They’re archetypes: the nerd, the girl, the heroic protagonist, the one friend who is a person of color. Because of that, dramatic moments lacked emotional resonance. Even the characters themselves simply pause before moving on as though nothing’s happened. Without any psychological realism or notable character development, it’s hard to relate to these kids or see them as anything other than 2D cartoony homages. Significant plot revelations are also missing from the picture until about two-thirds of the way through. The big bad, Major Oh Rus, makes moves that keep the kids on their toes, but it takes a long time before we learn more about how Egyptian mythology fits into the big picture. And once we do find out, the story ignores some of the more interesting existential questions that arise. Repetitive gameplay
Crossing Souls doesn’t set out to be a head scratcher with its puzzles, but I was still disappointed by how simple and repetitive they were. Most of them involve switching between the ghost world and the living world to flip switches and open up new paths forward. In one scenario, you’re simply going back and forth between various NPCs to trigger dialogue so you can advance. The boss fights also sometimes underwhelm — particularly the final Big Bad. These never felt complex, ending too quickly. I also wish that the character-switching was more useful. The characters’ special abilities didn’t come in handy that often, and I think I may have only used Charlie’s slingshot skill a total of three or four times. ConclusionWhen you peel back the aesthetic, though, Crossing Souls is a little disappointing. I wish they had done something more with the ’80s setting beyond just sprinkle in a few references here and there. It’s cool that Egyptian mythology plays a part in the story, but it felt tacked on. This is an ambitious undertaking for a tiny team like Fourattic, and I appreciate the effort. It’s enjoyable to run around Crossing Souls’s 1986 world and whack some evil ghosts with a baseball bat. And the ending, while a little corny, is genuinely kind of sweet. Even though the story is thin and the puzzles are a bit too simple, it’s a game with a lot of heart. Score: 75/100 Crossing Souls launched on February 13 for PC and PlayStation 4. The publisher sent us a code for review. |
| Microsoft is offering refunds after accidental overcharges for EA Access on Xbox One Posted: 15 Feb 2018 04:16 PM PST  In the last couple of months, Microsoft has accidentally charged some people twice for the same subscription. For example, you may have had an active EA Access membership, and Microsoft could have overlapped that with a second charge. The publisher wants to give Xbox owners their money back, and it has recently set up its refund site to automate the process. “We identified a number of Microsoft accounts that are due a refund for overlapping subscriptions,” reads Microsoft’s refund page. “This occurred if you purchased a new subscription that overlapped with one you already had.” This problem isn’t widespread, but it is a bug that affected enough people that Microsoft felt it had to act to help. If you aren’t sure if you need a refund, Microsoft should email you or you can check the Subscription Refund tool. All you have to do is sign in with your Xbox account, and the system should see if you paid twice for the same subscription. Then all you need to do is agree to have the money returned to your form of payment or sent as credit to your Microsoft account. I went through this process after getting an email from Microsoft about my EA Access subscription, and it turns out that I overpaid by $27. But the publisher has refunded me that money, and then it even sent a $10 Xbox store credit to my account as a make-good. So if you have an active subscription through Xbox One, you should check for yourself. Get that money! |
| Inside China’s growing use of facial recognition technology Posted: 15 Feb 2018 02:10 PM PST  GUEST: As China’s Lunar New Year approaches, citizens and tourists will spot the country’s police force with facial recognition glasses. These glasses will help officials use real-time ID verification to fight crimes during the celebrations around this year’s event. But interestingly, such facial recognition technologies are not new to the people of China. In the past, the country has relied heavily on cardless identification. The “Smile to Pay” feature, launched by Alibaba’s Ant Financial affiliate, lets users take a grinning selfie to authenticate a digital payment. Facial recognition in China also allows students to enter university halls, travelers to board planes, and employees to enter office premises with ease and no ID cards. In 2015, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security announced it was looking to implement an “omnipresent, completely connected, always on and fully controllable” network using facial recognition systems and CCTV hardware. So it is not surprising that private firms and facial recognition startups in China are actively partnering with the government to monitor fraudulent and criminal behavior. Facial recognition powerhousesHere are some of the firms in China that have already introduced facial recognition technology to keep a watchful eye on the country’s citizens. Dahua TechnologyIn 2016, Dahua Technology set a new record for labeled faces in the wild (LFW) facial recognition, beating previous records from Baidu, Tencent, and Google. Consisting of a network with over one hundred layers, Dahua’s facial recognition system is currently the deepest network among facial recognition systems. This allows a new type of metric learning method, which can detect suspects in the crowds of Beijing and even monitor pedestrians at traffic lights in the Fujian Province. Dahua says its technology helped police arrest a number of fugitives during the G20 summit. HikvisionChina’s Hangzhou-based Hikvision Digital Technology claims to be the world’s largest maker of surveillance technology. The company weaves facial image modeling and a similarity calculation into the system to enable facial recognition capabilities. Users apply this solution to blacklist criminals and prevent admission of known offenders to venues like sports stadiums, parks, and casinos. Reportedly, Hikvision facial tech has helped capture five criminal suspects picked out from a database of 973,661 facial images. Face++Ranked 11 out of 50 on MIT’s list of the world’s smartest companies, Face++, which may be the first facial-recognition AI startup, sits on a whopping valuation of $1 billion. Face++’s software tracks faces using 83 different data points. The technology already powers popular applications like Alipay and Didi Chuxing. For example, the software enables Didi passengers to confirm that the person behind the wheel is a valid driver. SenseTimeSenseTime has used facial recognition to help the police department nab 69 suspects in one month in southwest China. The company has a growing business relationship with the government and large data sets of a vast population, which has raised concerns about privacy. Among many other things, the company’s technology can trace the route of targets in a billion-scaled database of face image capture records and has a flexible surveillance for different times, places, and targets. Strengths of facial recognition techAccurate facial recognition algorithms are based on deep learning and require a large dataset to train the system. In 2017, China built a giant facial recognition database that identifies citizens in its population of 1.3 billion within seconds, with the goal of achieving 90 percent accuracy. The huge database and the number of partnerships the country has have helped grow China’s domination of the physical security equipment market. According to IHS Markit’s Physical Security Equipment & Services Report, the market in China will account for 38 percent of the global market by 2021. That is larger than the North American and Western European markets combined. Limitations of facial recognition techEven though facial recognition allows China to fight crime and thus contributes to public safety, it comes with a long list of limitations. For one, it raises the issue of human rights. Human Rights Watch raised objections when iris scans and fingerprints were made compulsory for the residents of Xin Jiang. And some fear the government will use the information to “clamp down” on petitioners and human rights activists. On top of this, the heavy reliance on facial recognition could lead to data hacks that leak loads of sensitive information, resulting in a security and privacy breach. Moreover, a slight inaccuracy in face detection could lead to a wrongful arrest. Another concern about China’s reliance on facial recognition is that the technology could discriminate against people. The South China Morning Post recently reported that some restaurants employing facial recognition offered discounts based on a machine ranking of the customer’s looks. In other words, customers with “beautiful” features would get better scores and cheaper meals than those with noses the machine deemed too big or too small. Without a doubt, facial recognition is transforming the way China does business and fights crime. However, researchers must continue to strive for 100 percent accuracy to minimize the negative effects and maximize the positive impacts. Deena Zaidi is a Seattle-based contributor for financial websites like TheStreet, Seeking Alpha, Truthout, Economy Watch, and icrunchdata. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from VentureBeat. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
Lexo edhe:
