The first ‘Dark Souls 3’ add-on doesn’t hit until this fall

Given that plenty of folks went to impressive lengths to play FromSoftware’s latest game early, I’m betting the following Dark Souls 3 news isn’t going to sit well with them. Why? Because you’ll have to wait until this fall to play anything beyond what’s in the base game. That’s according to UK enthusiast site Videogamer. And even then, that’s only the release window for the first of two post-launch add-ons. Any other details are as scant as an Estus Flask when you really need it, but you can expect new bosses and enemies in addition to gear for your undead warrior.
This sadly adds to the worrying trend of publishers shilling season passes for additional content — often months in advance of release — without giving players any idea of what their money gets them. Sure, Dark Souls 3’s $25 pass only costs half as much as Star Wars: Battlefront’s (previously) nebulous one did, but regardless of price there’s no reason to shell money out when you have no idea what you’re getting or when.

Via: Destructoid

Source: Videogamer

Extra-thin LEDs put a screen on your skin

Eventually, wearable displays might be so thin that they effectively blend into your skin. University of Tokyo researchers have developed an optoelectronic skin whose polymer LEDs and organic photodetectors are so thin (3 micrometers) that they practically blend in with your body. If it weren’t for the thin film needed to attach the display in the first place, it’d look like a tattoo. The technology more efficient than previous attempts at these skins, running several days at a time, and it’s durable enough that it won’t break as you flex your limbs.

As you might have gathered, the current hardware is a bit crude. The prototype you see above doesn’t do more than tell you your blood oxygen concentration levels. However, the scientists are dreaming big. They see a day where runners could have fitness data on their hands, or workers could put diagrams on their wrists. In that sense, smartwatches could just be stepping stones toward truly seamless wearable tech.

Via: New Scientist

Source: Science Advances

Ancient apps leave 3.2 million PCs open to ransomware attacks

Criminals are relying on some particularly insidious ways to spread ransomware. Cisco’s Talos group has discovered that intruders are taking advantage of vulnerabilities in old versions of Follett library management software (specifically, the associated JBoss web servers) to install backdoors and slip in ransom code. The attack has ‘only’ put 2,100 backdoors in place, but about 3.2 million systems are known to be at risk — many of them at grade schools. Suffice it to say that many educators don’t want to pay a hefty sum just to regain access to their library data.

The good news? Follett appears to be on top of things. It has a patching system that should fix flaws in software up to a few versions back and can catch unofficial files that might be used to compromise the servers. The firm is also working with Talos to notify customers about the security risk. This doesn’t guarantee smooth sailing from here on out (what about those with software too old to get those patches?), but there’s a real chance that the issue will be contained before it gets completely out of hand.

Via: Ars Technica

Source: Talos, CERT

Cricket Wireless has an unlimited plan for $65 a month

Not be left in the dust by the likes of T-Mobile, Sprint or Verizon when it comes to pre-paid smartphone plans, AT&T is getting aggressive with its Cricket Wireless offering. For $65 a month ($70 if you opt out of auto-pay) you’ll get unlimited talk, text and LTE data across North America. That price includes all taxes and fees as well, which should mean no surprises on a monthly basis.

Cricket is going hard after T-Mobile and offering a $100 bill credit if you’re swapping over from John Legere’s magenta-hued network as well. And in case you’re wondering: AT&T tells us that this really does include unlimited data — you won’t see throttling after a set limit. With that said, it says it might consider “reasonable network management practices” on the new plan in the future, and Cricket already limits speeds to 8Mbps.

Source: Cricket Wireless

Louis CK ends his web-only video series

Louis CK’s success in selling online-only video couldn’t last forever, it seems. The comedian has ended his web series Horace and Pete after one 10-episode season, adding the option to buy the whole show for $31 if you haven’t already snapped up each episode. He doesn’t touch on why it’s ending so soon, but it’s likelydue to the staggering cost of running the affair — H&P put him millions of dollars in the hole, and carrying on for another season (especially after dropping the per-episode price to $3) wasn’t going to help matters.

It’s not necessarily a disaster for Louis, who already said that he’d likely “make [the money] back” by returning to his time-honored stand-up comedy routines. However, this shows that having big names and high production values isn’t enough to guarantee success for an internet video project. At the moment, you’re still going to need wide distribution (and lots of buzz) to have a hit on your hands.

Via: The Verge

Source: Deadline Hollywood

Apple made a one-of-a-kind iPad Pro for a charity auction

Don’t think the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is ostentatious enough? You’ll want to book a trip to London, then. In support of a Design Museum charity auction on April 28th, Apple’s Jony Ive and his team have built a unique version of the larger iPad that’s nothing like the models you can find in stores. The audacious-looking yellow aluminum shell is just the start of it. The one-off tablet also comes with accessories that you might wish Apple made for everyone, including a Smart Cover in French leather and an orange Pencil case in Italian leather.

We can’t say the combo is an absolute stunner (the red Mac Pro from 2013 was arguably better-looking), but you’ll definitely get noticed if you take this out at the local coffee shop. Just be ready to pay a very, very large premium for the sake of individuality. Auction partner Phillips anticipates that this custom iPad Pro will sell for between £10,000 to £15,000 (around $14,200 to $21,300), which makes even a decked-out MacBook Pro seem like a bargain.

Via: Wallpaper, AppleInsider

Source: Phillips

Withings Activité Steel review

Buy now from Amazon

Fitness trackers are useful, but they usually don’t look all that good. Companies like Fitbit have been trying to make their wearables look a little better in recent months, though for the most part they still look like fitness trackers. A company called Withings is doing things a bit differently.

The France-based tech company has made a name for itself by producing beautiful Swiss-made watches that double as fitness trackers. Their flagship product, the Activité, looks good, but it’s pricey. There’s also the Activité Pop that comes with the same feature set, but doesn’t look nearly as high-end as the standard device. Somewhere in the middle you’ll find the Activité Steel, the company’s latest fitness tracker.

Does the Steel have enough under the hood to compete against other fitness trackers? Is it worth your hard-earned money? We aim to find that out in our full Withings Activité Steel review.

Review notes: I’ve been using the Withings Activité Steel as my main fitness tracker for 12 days. The Nexus 6P has been my smartphone companion of choice for the duration of this review.

Design

If you weren’t looking for it, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell that the Activité Steel is actually a fitness tracker. For the most part it looks like a standard analog watch. There’s no digital screen; just a normal watch face with two aluminum hands. There’s also a second dial on the bottom right of the face that shows you how many steps you’ve taken for the day.

You won’t find any buttons on the device, and that’s because everything is controlled with the smartphone companion app. And when I say everything, I mean it. You even need to use the app to set the time. You’ll only need to do this once, thankfully, as the Steel will also recognize which time zone you’re in and adjust the time accordingly.

The casing is made from 316L stainless steel and has a layer of swiss mineral glass covering the top of the device. The glass doesn’t show a ton of fingerprints and doesn’t appear to scratch all that easily, but that definitely can’t be said for the casing. I’ve had this device for only a few weeks, and the bottom portion of the watch is covered in scratch marks. The bottom of the watch is the only thing that’s scratched, and that’s because it’s the part that touches my wrist. Thankfully the top and the sides haven’t shown any scratches yet, which is definitely a good thing.

One size may not fit all

The Steel is only offered in one size, which could be a problem for some. It measures 36.3mm in diameter and fits wrists up to 195mm. The 18mm watch strap is just the right size for my average sized wrists, though I do think the watch itself looks a little small on me.

You can choose from two different colors of watch faces – black or white – and from a number of different colored silicone straps. You can get the standard White or Black models for around $170, and branching out to different colored straps will cost you $30 more. Withings will also throw in an extra White strap with your order if you choose to get a colored one.

The Steel is comfortable enough to wear all day, and at just 37 grams, it’s light enough to go unnoticed. The silicone strap is also very soft, durable, and doesn’t collect a ton of dust or hair, which we really like to see. It also comes with quick release pins that make it super easy to switch out straps if you’re in a hurry.

All in all, I’m a big fan of the design. Withings did a great job at making sure you can wear the Steel to dinner and during a workout, and that’s a valuable selling point to many users.

Features and performance

The Activité Steel is no smartwatch. It won’t feed you notifications and it won’t buzz when you get a text message. Basically the smartest thing it can do aside from tracking your daily activity is give you silent alarms. You’ll need to set them from within the Withings app, but once that’s done, the Steel will vibrate 12 times when it goes off.

If you happen to forget when your alarm is set, just tap on the watch’s display three times and the hour and minute hands will show your alarm time for about 5 seconds. It’s a super handy way to check if you forget, but the alarms themselves aren’t all that great. The buzzing is quite slow and faint, and there’s no way to turn it off if you’d like it to stop. Withings says a fix for that is coming in the future, but as of now you’ll have to wait for alarms to buzz all twelve times before they stop.

Related: Moto 360 Sport review12

The big news with the Steel is that it can track your steps taken, distance traveled, calories burned and your sleep. It can even recognize different activities like walking, running and swimming. That’s right — unlike many other fitness trackers in this price range, the Steel is water resistant up to 165 feet (or 5ATM). I’m not much of a swimmer, but I’m very happy to know that if I were to go swimming, I won’t have to take my watch off before I jump in.

The Activité Steel doesn’t come with too many extra hardware features. It doesn’t have a heart rate monitor, nor does it have a GPS. It can do the basics, and that’s the whole point of this device. You won’t want to choose the Steel if you’re serious about tracking every little detail in your workout. It can do a very limited number of things, and for the most part it does those things very well.

See also: Fitbit Alta review2

It should also be noted that the Withings app does have the ability to record your heart rate using your phone’s camera. I’ve gotten pretty accurate results from the resting heart rate readings, but if you need something more than that you’ll want to invest in a fitness tracker with an HR monitor built in.

Step tracking on the Steel is very accurate

Step tracking with the Steel is very accurate. It’s right in line with the competition, and it does a great job at not recording big arm movements as steps. I also really love the simple dial on the watch face that shows how many steps you’ve taken for the day. I walked 500 steps with the Steel and counted each one to see if it was far off. I started at 2,499 steps and ended with 3,006, which means it was only 7 off from the real number. I also tested the Steel against the Fitbit Alta, Jawbone UP3, and Activité Pop, and all four fitness trackers gave me similar results.

The Steel automatically records all of your workouts and syncs that information with the Withings companion app on your Android or iOS device. For the most part it does a good job at recognizing when I’m actually on a run and when I’m just walking around the house, though there have been a few slip-ups from time to time. It’s not often that the Steel gets confused though, so I haven’t really found this to be much of an issue.

The Activité Steel will not only record your workouts in the app, but also your sleep. It’s actually very good at detecting when you’re sleeping and when you’re awake, and there’s no need to tap a “sleep now” button like with other trackers. And as for the sleep stats themselves, we’re happy to say the Steel is very accurate. After waking up, the Withings app will be able to show you deep and light sleep, wake ups, and sleep duration. It was able to accurately record my sleep and wake up times pretty much every time, though I did notice it missing a late night bathroom break every once in awhile.

See also: Fitbit Blaze review11

While most other fitness trackers out there come with big, ugly chargers, the Steel is different. It uses a CR2025 button cell battery, which Withings says will get you up to 8 months of battery life. I haven’t had my unit for that long, so it’s tough to give you a straight answer. Your mileage will probably vary depending on how often you use the silent alarm feature, but I’d imagine most folks will be able to get at least 6 months of battery out of this device.

Software

The Withings Health Mate app shows you all of your fitness stats in one beautiful package. It sports plenty of Material Design elements, and it shows your most important information on the homepage, or Timeline. The top third of the app is where you can see a quick glance of your daily activity, and swiping over on this section will bring you to the alarm and weight sections. You can scroll down to see your activity history, and selecting a particular day will bring you to another page where you can see more granular stats.

Health Mate might be prettier than other apps, but it’s not as user friendly

From here, you can choose to view your data in either daily or weekly views, but not monthly or yearly views for some reason. That would have been nice to see, but it’s certainly not a deal breaker.

The app might be prettier than other fitness tracking apps, but it’s not as user friendly. It shows you a lot of information on the screen at one time, and it can get pretty crowded once it starts displaying all of your stats from the past few days. With that said, if you’re the type of person who wants to see as much information as possible at every given moment, the Health Mate app will be right up your alley.

If you’re already invested in another fitness tracking platform, you’re in luck. You can easily share data between the Health Mate app and number of other apps like MyFitnessPal, Google Fit, RunKeeper and Nike+ FuelBand.

Gallery

Should you buy it?

Buy now from Amazon

So, should you buy the Activité Steel? If you’re someone who hates the look of fitness trackers and needs something more elegant, you can’t go wrong with the Steel. You’ll also want to consider this device if you’re trying to exercise more or want to keep an eye on your daily activity from time to time. And if you want to do more than that, you can. Withings offers a variety of companion products like the Smart Connected Scale and Wireless Blood Pressure Monitor which will help bring your fitness tracking to the next level.

This is no smartwatch, nor is it as powerful or versatile as some other trackers out there. But for just $169.95, it’s an absolute steal for what you’re getting.

It’s also worth noting that Withings offers a similar wearable called the Activité Pop. For $50 less, you’ll get all the same fitness tracking features in a more colorful, less premium looking package.

A gaming mouse is a luxury I don’t need, but I still want one

A while ago I assembled a list of eight gaming mice worth buying. They ran the gamut in terms of design, customization and, of course, price. Though all of these mice are still available and I’d gladly recommend any of them, quite a few contenders for the crown have made their debut since I published my roundup. For the past few months I’ve been using the Cougar M550 and the SteelSeries Rival 100 and, while both have a lot to offer hardcore gamers, a “filthy casual” like me also found plenty to like.

Right out of the box the Cougar 550M is a real behemoth, easily filling my palm and extending past my fingertips. The nice thing is that my hand doesn’t need to reach across the whole thing to activate the buttons, as the clickable surface extends about 2 inches back. This definitely helped keep any hand strain at bay, as I barely had to move my fingers to do anything. Of course, this worked best during more lackadaisical activities like web browsing and point-and-click games.

In addition to its size, the 550M is also pretty aggressive in appearance. Its curves evoke more speed than grace, and the prongs at the front remind me of a predator’s claws, as befitting the Cougar name. The scroll wheel is treaded like a tire, and in the center of the mouse is a large button for changing the DPI on the fly. Unlike the right and left buttons, this requires a bit of a forceful push, which is good because you don’t want to hit it accidentally in the middle of a match. The one thing I definitely loved was the thick braided USB cord. Sure, it adds to the overall bulk of the mouse, but I appreciated its durability. Plus, it just feels good to the touch.

The SteelSeries Rival 100 seems almost dainty in comparison, with a softer shape that fits comfortably in my hand. But it’s no delicate flower, either. It’s a solid little puck, with a smooth matte black surface broken only by the glowing SteelSeries logo. The Rival 100 shares the same general button arrangement as the 550M: the standard assortment of left and right buttons split by a clickable scroll wheel, plus two buttons on the left side of the mouse and a central button for adjusting DPI. The Rival 100’s DPI button is far more modest than that of the 550M: The latter is the size of my index finger, while the former is just a sliver.

Both mice work just fine out of the box, but to get the most out of either you’ll want to download their respective drivers from Cougar and SteelSeries’ websites. In some cases, this might even be necessary: An older Toshiba laptop running Windows 10 decided it didn’t want to play nice with the 550M, putting the pointer everywhere but where I needed it to be. Once I downloaded the driver and restarted the computer, everything was peachy.

The Cougar UIX and SteelSeries Engine 3 software essentially offer the same customization features. You can choose the function of each button on the mouse, select multiple DPI settings and pick the color of the lighting. I admittedly spent a little too much time playing with the lighting settings on both, partly because it’s easy but mostly because the LEDs are pretty. The 550M also allows you to set the front- and back-lighting elements differently. However, while I chose a nice turquoise for the Rival 100, I ended up going back to the default orange-red for the 550M; the swoop of shiny tangerine-colored plastic at the back of the mouse enhanced warmer shades but made cooler shades of blue and purple feel incidental, weak.

The default settings for the DPI on both mice are adequate, but if you’re feeling crazy you can always crank up the 550M as high as 6,000 and the Rival to 4,000. But that’s only if you don’t mind your pointer skittering all the way across the screen because you breathed a little too hard on the mouse. High DPI sounds impressive but it’s a lot like a camera’s megapixel count: After a certain point, things don’t noticeably improve and can even get worse. In my case, the DPI was jacked high enough that I had trouble even getting the pointer back on the slider to change it to something more manageable. I eventually stuck with around 1,000 for browsing and 1,600 for gaming, because a mouse is like a race car: I want to go fast, but I still need to be able to slow down enough to make turns.

Button assignment is where the Cougar and SteelSeries UI differ the most, and there’s no clear winner. In terms of ease-of-use and visual panache, I preferred Cougar’s solution, which gives you a diagram of the mouse and lets you drop and drag functions onto each button. The problem is that you’re limited to the functions that Cougar gives you in the menu, which include basic mouse functions like right-click and left-click, media buttons like play and pause, and some gamer-specific functions like a sniper DPI button. What isn’t included is a way to map buttons to specific keys on the keyboard — which is all I really wanted! Instead, you have to resort to programming macros, which isn’t exactly intuitive in the Cougar UIX. The difference in accessibility here is like going from an introductory college course straight to graduate school. It’s not completely indecipherable, but come on.

SteelSeries Engine 3 is a little more opaque in its button-assignment process. You get a diagram of the mouse and can click on each button to change its assignment, selecting from a series of drop-down menus. It’s not exactly the easiest to navigate, but there’s good reason for that: It includes every key on the keyboard. It took a little hunting to find the “space” key but I reassigned the click wheel for Papers, Please so I could toggle inspect mode just a little bit faster. The things I do to make my bureaucratic duties just a little bit easier.

I used both mice on and off for both gaming and daily use. The SteelSeries has been a delight for browsing: I like the way it feels in my hand, and the side buttons feel nice under my thumb as well as being useful for going back and forth on the web. The Cougar is a different matter. While I initially liked the feel of it, it eventually felt just a little too big for long-term use. Even switching to it for a few minutes causes something in my brain to wig out; it’s too big, it’s the wrong shape, it just doesn’t feel right. Even now, I’m using it while I write this post and I feel a general sense of unease every time I need to move the mouse.

It’s a different matter when I was gaming with the 550M. I tried some rounds of Dungeon Defenders 2 with it and everything went rather swimmingly. With the mouse, anyway. I was able to to aim my wizard’s staff and place weaponry just fine, with my biggest problem being that I’m not great at the game. But the Cougar was smooth and responsive and the size just didn’t bother me as much because I was constantly moving my right hand around while my left was busy hammering away at the keyboard. If only it was easier to reassign some of those keys to the mouse!

I switched to the Rival 100 for Papers, Please. It might not be an action game, but it can still get pretty intense, and there’s a lot of mouse work in it. In a way it’s kind of similar to my everyday workflow — bouncing between windows, constantly having to look stuff up — there’s just far less fingerprinting and invasive searches at Engadget. The keyboard action is limited to two toggle functions, so it was nice to be able to just dump those functions on the mouse and not have to program a macro to do it.

For most gamers, programming macros isn’t a big deal. And they’re kind of necessary when you’re juggling all sorts of melee weapon attacks and spells and healing potions and you need to get these things done quickly in the heat of battle. But all a lot of people might want to do is change a button or two. And while the Cougar UIX wins on simplicity, it’s SteelSeries that gave me the flexibility I needed, as well as making a mouse that’s just more comfortable in my dainty casual-gamer hands.

Sony, car makers halt production after Japan earthquakes

Southern Japan has been hit by two serious earthquakes in a matter of days, and those back-to-back disasters may have a significant impact on the tech industry. To start with, Sony has temporarily shut down factories making smartphone camera sensors in Kumamoto and Nagasaki over concerns of possible damage. The company has some inventory to help weather the storm, but it won’t have an update until April 18th at the earliest. Any extended downtime could be a problem for the mobile world — some of the biggest phone makers (including Apple) rely on Sony’s sensors, and any significant snarls could hurt their ability to build phones.

Not that Sony is the only one affected. Other electronics firms are understood to be halting production, and the Japanese car industry is taking its own significant blow. Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan and Toyota have all had to stop productions at plants making everything from in-car displays (in Mitsubishi’s case) to complete vehicles. Even automotive chip maker Renesas has had to put assembly on hold. All told, the quakes could have a ripple effect (however brief) that extends well beyond Japan.

Source: Reuters