GameStop starts its own game publishing wing

Now that GameStop has dipped its toes into game publishing, it’s ready to jump in with both feet: the retailer has launched GameTrust, its own publishing division. The new wing will initially handle titles from existing partner Insomniac Games (of Ratchet & Clank fame) as well as Frozenbyte (Trine), Ready At Dawn (The Order: 1886) and Tequila Works (Deadlight). As you might guess, this isn’t a traditional publishing business. GameStop is taking a hands-off approach to the actual content. Instead, it wants to create “exclusive real estate” online and in physical stores to help people discover indie games that might otherwise get missed.

And despite GameStop’s tendency to protect its retail business at all costs, this will include digital releases on top of old-school discs. It’s not clear which distribution platforms GameTrust will reach, but it will produce games for both consoles and PCs, including in VR when relevant.

The move isn’t exactly a shocker. GameStop’s sales continue to drop as the industry moves toward digital releases — it knows that it can’t rely on physical game sales forever, and it has been diversifying its offerings for years. Becoming a game publisher not only gives GameStop something unique to offer at retail, but helps its bottom line even if players are happy with downloading games at home.

Source: Wired

Uber forced to suspend surge pricing in Delhi

Uber has announced that it will suspend surge pricing in Delhi after the government moved to protect locals from overcharging. The city is testing a Chinese-style odd-even rule to combat pollution, so only cars with odd (or even) license plates can drive on certain days. Uber had subsequently imposed surge pricing to encourage more drivers to pick up the slack. The city’s leaders had other ideas, imposing a set tariff to prevent transport firms like Uber and Ola from taking advantage. According to Mashable, Uber fees had increased by up to five times the going rate.

As it stands, Uber says that surge pricing is implemented by algorithm, kicking in only when demand outstrips supply. The higher charges are designed to encourage more drivers to get onto the roads and make a fast buck even faster. It’s a situation that prompted outcry from locals and led to the city regulating prices to ensure people weren’t getting gouged. The new tariff was enforced with career-ending penalties, with violators risking their car and their driving license.

Given the threat to the livelihood of our partners, at the expense of reliability, we are temporarily suspending surge with immediate effect

— Uber Delhi (@Uber_Delhi) April 18, 2016

Uber was its usual passive-aggressive self, saying that it would axe surge pricing “given the threat to the livelihood of our partners.” It also opined that the Delhi government was “interfering with market dynamics,” causing a drop in cars and a “negligible impact on requests.” Although given Uber’s traditionally hostile attitude toward any attempt to make its service safer and cheaper, that wasn’t a huge surprise.

@prasanto Interfering with market dynamics leads to fewer cars and neglegible impact on requests – leading to prolonged surged periods

— Uber Delhi (@Uber_Delhi) April 18, 2016

Delhi’s decision does allow us to watch Uber operating under lab conditions, since we can see what effect flatter pricing will have on demand. If the city’s residents are still able to take cars without much delay, then it could erode the company’s famous line that surge pricing is an important component of its business. That, combined with customer pressure to protect individuals from price gouging could have a big impact on how the company operates worldwide. We’ve asked Uber for its feelings, and will update this if we hear back.

Via: Mashable

Source: Uber Delhi (Twitter)

Taylor Swift Lip Syncs to Jimmy Eat World in New Apple Music Ad

A few weeks after starring in her first advertisement for Apple Music, singer Taylor Swift has partnered with Apple again on a second ad for its streaming music service. In the video, which Swift tweeted earlier this morning, the singer again showcases Apple Music’s “Activity Playlists” feature by focusing on the “Getting Ready to Go Out” category this time around.

At the beginning of the video, Swift navigates to a collection of songs under the “Jukebox Hits: 00s Alternative Rock” playlist and chooses Jimmy Eat World’s song “The Middle” as her background music. She mentions that she “used to listen to this in middle school” and begins lip syncing the lyrics in front of a mirror.

After Swift’s dance-filled jam session comes to a close, the ad ends with the tagline that Apple Music has “every song for every moment,” and reminds those who have yet to sign up that the service has a three month free trial available to any new member.

Getting ready to go out… @AppleMusic @JimmyEatWorldhttps://t.co/vq8LCFOuCO

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) April 18, 2016

Swift’s partnership with Apple on its new Apple Music ads comes nearly a year after the much-publicized dispute between the two, which began when the singer penned an open letter to Apple about its policy of not paying artists during the three month free trial for the streaming service. After Apple reversed course, Swift’s best-selling album 1989 appeared on the service, and she eventually even launched an exclusive tour documentary for Apple Music in December.

Tag: Apple Music
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Flexible lens sheets could change way cameras see

Cameras are already embedded in a lot of devices, but what you could wrap them around things like a “skin?” That’s the premise of “flexible sheet cameras” developed by scientists at Columbia University. Rather than having just a single sensor, the devices use an array of lenses that change properties when the material is bent. The research could lead to credit card-sized, large-format cameras that you zoom by bending, or turn objects like cars or lamp posts into 360-degree VR cameras.

In order to create a wraparound camera, the team first considered attaching tiny lenses to single pixel-sized sensors, a tact that’s been tried before on curved surfaces. However, they realized that when bent, such an array would have gaps between sensors that would produce artifacts in the final image. Instead, they created flexible silicon sheets with embedded lenses that distort and change their focal lengths when bent. The resulting prototype has no blank spots, even with significant curvature, so it can capture images with no aliasing.

The team flexed the prototype sheet — with a 33×33 lens array — in a predictable way, allowing them to produce clean (though low resolution) images. However, if the amount of deformation isn’t known, the system produces random and irregular images. For instance, they created a simulated camera based on a larger, more flexible sheet that produces a hilariously distorted image (above) when when draped on an object.

However, the goal is to eventually measure the amount of deformation with built-in stress sensors, then calculate the sheet’s geometry to produce a clean image. While the current prototype is very low-res, it proves that the concept is viable, so the team plans to “develop a high resolution version of the lens array and couple it with a large format image sensor.” Eventually, the sheet camera could result in sensitive large format cameras that produce very high dynamic range images. If you want to be more futuristic, the tech could even turn household objects and wearables into giant image sensors. Invisibility cloaks for all?

Via: Digital Trends

Source: Columbia University

Oculus and ‘Ratchet and Clank’ studio reveal two more VR games

Insomniac Games and Oculus Studios have partnered to create Feral Rites, a 3D brawler set on a mystical island, and The Unspoken, a player-vs-player spellcasting game, both exclusively for the Oculus Rift VR headset. They’re based in disparate realms of fantasy, from lush jungle temples to the mysterious shadows of big-city alleyways.

Feral Rites is a single-player adventure game about a jungle society that erupts in violence and chaos after the murder of its Chieftain (who happens to be the main character’s father). After growing up in a foreign land, players return to the island to seek vengeance through brutality, at times transforming into a vicious animal to complete story missions and side quests. Players can choose to be a male or female character, and it’s not just for show — each gender has unique combat abilities. Feral Rites uses a gamepad only (no Oculus Touch controls) and is due to hit the Rift in the fall.

The Unspoken is a first-person experience for one to two players, set in a hidden world of magic. It’s basically Fight Club crossed with the Harry Potter game Wonderbook: Book of Spells, featuring more than 25 spells to learn and deploy on other players in one-on-one battles. The Unspoken uses Oculus Touch controls, meaning players move their hands and arms to make magic in a handful of unique city settings. For example, players can transform a pile of garbage into a giant Debris Golem that helps them fight, or use a marker to draw an impenetrable shield. The Unspoken will hit the Oculus Store this holiday season.

Oculus is publishing Feral Rites and The Unspoken, extending its existing partnership with Insomniac Games. Insomniac CEO Ted Price told Engadget in March that working with Oculus is all about experimentation as both companies learn how to design for VR.

“There’s been much more mutual discovery, because we as a developer and Oculus as a hardware manufacturer are still figuring out how to create experiences in VR,” Price said. “It’s a brand new frontier for everybody.”

Insomniac Games is also working with Oculus on Edge of Nowhere, a spooky Arctic exploration game for the Rift and its Touch controls. In the non-VR arena, Insomniac just released a completely reworked version of 2002’s Ratchet and Clank, and it’s building Song of the Deep, an underwater 2D platformer for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC published by Gamestop. Insomniac plans to release Edge of Nowhere on June 6th and Song of the Deep on July 12th.

‘Edge of Nowhere’ and ‘Song of the Deep’ land in the summer

Edge of Nowhere and Song of the Deep sound like perfect games for the summer. Edge of Nowhere is a single-player VR game about the secrets hiding in Antarctica’s ice sheets, and Song of the Deep is a 2D sidescroller that takes place under the sea — that makes two cool titles coming out at the height of the year’s heat index. Insomniac Games and Oculus Studios will release Edge of Nowhere on June 6th for the Oculus Rift, and Gamestop will publish Insomniac’s Song of the Deep on July 12th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

Edge of Nowhere is a psychological thriller with a Lovecraftian vibe, and it’s a remarkable, yet terrifying, experience in VR. Your head controls the camera as explorer Victor Howard searches surreal ice caves and snow-covered mountains for his fiancé, Ava Thorne, who mysteriously disappeared on a previous expedition.

Song of the Deep is the first game to be published by Gamestop, and it tells the story of Merryn, a young woman on a quest to save her father, a fisherman, after he’s lost under the ocean waves. Merryn travels in a submarine, fighting off sea beasts, exploring the underwater ruins of lost civilizations and solving puzzles in a 2D platformer. Her submarine can be upgraded with new weapons and abilities as she seeks out her father.

“Gamestop is publishing Song of the Deep, but we are the intellectual property owners and we also have full creative control,” Insomniac CEO Ted Price told Engadget in March. “It’s been a really straightforward and symbiotic partnership.”

Insomniac is also partnering with Oculus Studios for two new VR games, Feral Rites and The Unspoken, which are scheduled to launch once the air cools down again this year.

LinkedIn’s new app for students tries to make job-hunting easier

There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about how hard it is for recent college graduates to find gainful employment. LinkedIn has become a major source for job hunting and networking, but it’s more focused on current professionals rather than those just entering the workforce. The company’s changing that a bit with the new LinkedIn Students app for iOS and Android. It essentially pulls in all the data in the LinkedIn network and focuses it on those soon to be leaving college to help them find positions that make sense given their backgrounds.

Once you download the app, you’re promoted to enter your education info and background — from there, you’ll go through five steps in the app every day to keep up with your job search. The app suggests roles and positions based on your education, sends you curated job-hunting articles, lets you see which companies are hiring graduates from your school, shows job listings relevant to your major and year of graduation and serves up other LinkedIn profiles from recent alumni with your major. It’s all meant to help you find jobs that might work for you and suggest positions you might not have considered already.

How useful this app will actually be remains to be seen, but there’s no doubt that LinkedIn has a massive amount of career-related data. Providing a way for students who are close to graduating to tap into that data in a way that’s more relevant to their job search could be useful. It’s also a simplified set of tools for students — the company says it’ll be shutting down a variety of other tools for students in favor of LinkedIn Students. If you want to give the app a shot, it launches today on iOS and Android.

There was gonna be a ‘Guitar Hero’ MMO

In the five years following the first Guitar Hero, Activision sought to flood the market with variations on the theme. But if the company hadn’t swung the axe in 2011, we were even going to get a massively multiplayer online version of the title. Unseen 64 has unearthed footage from the early stages of Hero World, a planned replacement for DJ Hero 3 that was designed to unify the entire World series in one place. It should come as no surprise that, as the bottom fell out of the plastic-musical-instrument genre, the idea was axed, even if it did have some pretty exciting ideas.

The biggest one was that the MMO would tie in to both a Facebook mini-game (this was all taking place in 2010, remember), and each full-body Hero title on every console. The concept behind Hero World was that all of the various console games would connect into this shared universe. On the desktop, your avatar would run a small music venue that needed to attract as many non-player characters each night as possible. You’d do this by “hiring” Guitar Hero players on the console to come and “perform” at your location. Blah blah, virtual economy, blah blah, social interaction, blah blah.

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You’d also have to defeat AI characters who wanted to muscle in on your turf, although the baseball bats and shovels weren’t part of the game. Instead, you’d participate in PG-friendly conflict through the medium of a dance-off. Freestyle Games (makers of DJ Hero) were unable to spare the resources to actually make this game, so production was outsourced to Virtual Fairground. Activision’s decision to axe the Hero name (at least for the time being) had the knock-on effect of bringing Fairground to its knees. That, combined with Guitar Hero Live’s lack of success means there’s very little chance of this game ever returning from the dead.

Via: Kotaku, Gamasutra

Samsung’s crazy Good Lock UI is now available for Galaxy S6, S6 edge, S6 edge+, and Note 5

Samsung’s brightly-colored Good Lock user interface made its debut on the Galaxy S7 last month, and the manufacturer is now making the UI available on last year’s flagships as well. The Good Lock app is now available for download on the Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 edge, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge, Galaxy S6 edge+, Galaxy S6 Active and Galaxy Note 5.

Users in United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Singapore and Korea can head to Galaxy Apps to download the alternate UI. Good Lock makes sweeping changes to TouchWiz’s traditional lock screen and notification shade, introducing bright colors and animated scrolling lists.

Samsung has mentioned that it will roll out bi-weekly updates to the UI, adding new features as requested by users. Should you not be satisfied with what’s on offer with Good Lock, you can uninstall the app to switch back to the stock TouchWiz interface.

• Here’s what it’s like to use Samsung’s Good Luck UI
• Good Lock UI on Galaxy Apps

Alleged Moto G4 and G4 Plus leaks reveal fingerprint sensor, redesigned rear

We’re finally getting a first look at what Lenovo has to offer with Motorola’s budget G series this year. Images of the Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus have leaked over the weekend, revealing a home button with an embedded fingerprint sensor and a redesigned camera housing at the back.

From NoWhereElse:

The front fingerprint sensor was corroborated by Evan Blass in a different leak, and it looks like we’ll be treated to an “evolution” on the design front:

Moto G4 Plus pic.twitter.com/zPvlEkE2X5

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) April 15, 2016

for the moto g4 plus I can only go on what I see. And it was pretty darn nice. Expect a nice looking evolution in moto’s design language

— Malcolm Williams (@mwilliams4555) April 15, 2016

There’s no mention of the specs on offer, but Roland Quandt of WinFuture suggested that both devices would have the scme 5.5-inch displays, with the camera being the differentiator:

Moto G Plus: 5.5in, 16 MP cam, 16 GB. 280 Euro. Moto G 4th Gen: 5.5in, 13 MP cam, 16 GB. 240 Euro. both black or white. available May. boom.

— Roland Quandt (@rquandt) April 16, 2016

With a launch slated for May, we should be hearing more about Motorola’s upcoming devices over the coming weeks. While there’s no confirmation, we may get to see the Moto X3 at around the same time.