‘Persona 5’ gets a new trailer and release date in Japan
Persona, one of the most stylish and contemporary JRPG franchises, is almost ready to make its debut on the PlayStation 4. Developer Atlus held an event today in Japan for the next instalment, Persona 5, dropping a new trailer and plenty of tantalizing gameplay details. More important, however, is the game’s new release date: September 15th, 2016. For now that’s strictly a Japan date — there’s no word on when a localized version will launch on the PS3 and PS4 in the West. Still, it’s a promising development given the game has been delayed multiple times.
The new trailer is a visual treat, showing the protagonists as they live their dual-lives as high school students and dungeon-crawling heroes. The overall structure is the same as previous Persona games — you’ll be able to explore Tokyo and hang out with your friends to improve various social links, before diving into an alternate, monster-ridden world in order to progress through the main storyline. It’s an eclectic mix, but one that has earned prior entries Persona 3 and Persona 4 plenty of critical acclaim.
(Atlus also teased some downloadable content which will let you dress the Persona 5 cast in the Persona 3 and Persona 4 school uniforms.)
Put simply, Persona 5 looks brilliant. At least in Japan, Final Fantasy XV will have some tough competition when it arrives on September 30th.
Source: Atlus (YouTube)
Traveling the world in Uncharted 4’s ridiculous photo mode
Aside from minor tweaks for brightness and contrast, everything in this National Geographic-inspired gallery was captured entirely within the photo mode of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. While the images don’t contain any story spoilers from the first 11 chapters of the game, if you’re looking to go in completely blind, you should avert your eyes.
Amazing visuals are part of the Uncharted series’ DNA, and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is no exception. The difference here is that the previous three installments didn’t feature a photo mode when they debuted on PlayStation 3. And to be clear, this isn’t even the first PS4 game with a photo mode — that would be Infamous: Second Son — but this is the first one that I want to keep playing. That’s because taking screenshots here is as fun as working through the narrative itself.
Photo mode lets you pause the game at any time and play with camera settings like depth of field, motion blur, film grain and an assortment of filters. Imagine putting a DSLR and Adobe Lightroom into a video game and you’re basically there. I found the opportunity to use almost every option at some point, all in ways that complemented the shot’s composition. Yep, even the “blorange” filter, which, as the name implies, blows out the blue and orange hues in a given scene.
Photo mode has been included in each of developer Naughty Dog’s PS4 releases so far (including Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection of new-gen remasters), and lead programmer Christian Gyrling says it’s something the studio values for several reasons. For one, it gives people a different way of playing rather than just guiding Uncharted protagonist Nathan Drake around ancient ruins in search of long-lost treasure.
The problem is, I’m kind of addicted to it. If the in-game list of statistics kept track of how much time I spent adjusting stuff like field of view and camera angle instead of just overall play time, I’d probably be embarrassed. That leads me to the second reason Naughty Dog puts this feature in its games: Gyrling says that it allows players to further appreciate the work that went into making the game.
I’m inclined to agree. Making progress in the game has been a little slow for me because I’m dropping into photo mode seemingly every time I enter into a new area or spot something cool. The game’s absurd vistas seemingly stretch on for miles, and there’s so much detail at every turn that I can’t help myself.
While I’d love to have a completely user-controlled camera in photo mode and be able to position it anywhere I want, Naughty Dog says that isn’t feasible. Things like mountains or other environmental objects were designed to be seen exclusively from the perspective of the gameplay camera to maintain the illusion that you’re in a living, breathing world.
“If you have a free-form camera,” game programmer Artem Kovalovs says, “you would be able to move the camera to see places that were never actually created, and be exposed to things like holes in the environment [and] ugly seams.” In other words, it’d be like looking at a Hollywood studio’s backlot. The camera limitation isn’t all that restricting, though, as I was able to get creative with the field of view and zoom levels to achieve some truly gorgeous shots. All it takes is a little patience.
Despite the amount of freedom and options photo mode offers, though, Naughty Dog says there are still elements the team wishes it could have included. Chief among them: a Vine-style short-video tool that would allow you to capture an animation and play it back from any angle — something like what last fall’s Tearaway Unfolded offered. Kovalovs says that would have taken a “very large” engineering effort and simply wasn’t doable.
So does photo mode cheat and pump extra processing power into the game’s graphics when you access it? According to Naughty Dog, no. “We don’t do anything special in photo mode outside of making sure everything is visible when you move the camera around,” Kovalovs says. “We didn’t write new rendering techniques specifically for photo mode.”
Based on what I’ve seen, he’s right. Shadows are still a little fuzzy around the edges (a typical tough spot to smooth out on consoles). Conversely, straight lines — another difficult thing to render smoothly — on overhead power wires and the like are free of jagged edges. In short, the game simply looks great at seemingly every turn.
“We don’t expect our artists to make things that will only ever be seen in photo mode,” Kovalovs says. “On the other hand, our artists tend to go crazy with the details regardless.”
Apple’s App Store experiences major search glitch
Starting early Thursday morning, users trying to access Apple’s App Store were met with a broken search tool and undiscoverable apps. According to Cupertino’s own system status, “all users are affected.” Apple is “investigating and will update the status as more information becomes available.” The outage began around 5 AM Eastern time and remains broken as of publication time.
Although Engadget was able to update at least one app on the desktop store, searching for common terms like “Google” returned no search results. Likewise, on the iOS app store, a search for “Adobe” returned unexpected results and How-To guides, but none of that company’s own apps. A search for “Spotify” surfaced Soundcloud as the top result.
The outage appears to be unrelated to Apple’s rumored App Store revamp.
Uber hires more former politicians to fight its cause
One of the ways that Uber is hoping to win over policy makers is to hire other policy makers to act as its representatives. The firm has formed a public policy advisory board that’ll help improve Uber’s service and provide outreach to legislators across the globe. The latest bunch of former politicos to sign up with the ride-sharing startup include two former White House staffers and a retired ex-VP from the European Commission. It’s the latter that’ll be familiar to Engadget readers, since Neelie Kroes (pictured) spearheaded several tech-friendly directives over on the continent. Most notably, she spearheaded the campaign to eliminate roaming charges for mobile users as they travel between member states.
Other members of this new board include Ray LaHood, who served as US Secretary of Transportation between 2009 and 2013. He’ll be joined by Melody Barnes, who headed up the domestic policy council for the Obama administration between 2009 and 2012. This isn’t the first time that Uber has courted major figures from government to switch to its team, either, forming a safety board in the wake of several controversial news stories. Rather than simply improving its background checking procedures, it hired Ed Davis, Boston’s former police commissioner, (amongst others) to advise on how to make its rides safer.
The news was announced by Uber’s chief advisor and former Obama campaign manager, David Plouffe, who revealed that the first meeting of the panel took place this week. He went on to explain that Uber feels that transportation policy has played “second fiddle” to other areas of government, like education, the economy and healthcare. That, he says, is a bad thing because getting people from place to place is a key component of everything else. Uber thinks that it can help, too, since it can “significantly improve transportation in cities at no extra cost to the taxpayer.” Except, you know, for all of the extra police work.
Via: Bloomberg
Source: Uber (Medium)
ICYMI: Google beats MS paint, gamified recycling and more
Today on In Case You Missed It: Google’s 3D painting app, Tiltbrush, has been used to make some beautiful things; a robotics company is gamifying trash sorting in a pilot program; and a 3D copier will let you make a double of any dang thing you like.
If you’re interested, GoPro sent a video camera to space with a rocket launch and the video is petty incredible. As always, please share any great tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Disney scanner identifies gadgets by their electromagnetic field
If someone placed your naked smartphone on a table alongside two identical models, how would you determine which one is yours? If you’re an engineer at Disney Research, you would pull out a little scanner and immediately pinpoint the handset based on the noise it emits. It definitely sounds a little futuristic, but a team of researchers at Disney’s innovation labs found that every single piece of technology has its own unique electromagnetic signal, even if they’re exactly the same make and model, and built a radio scanner to read them.
Disney technicians tested a total of 40 devices, including five fluorescent tube light bulbs, five Lightsaber toys, five iPhone 6 handsets, five Retina MacBook Pro and 20 24-inch Dell LCD displays. Using a custom-built $10 scanner, the team fed the electromagnetic signals into a specialized software that pinpoints 1,000 unique frequency responses to create an EM-ID — a digital fingerprint of each device.
The results were varied but encouraging. For the Lightsaber, the algorithm “perfectly identified” the device 30 times. The Dell displays scored an average identification accuracy of 94.7 percent, followed closely by the five MacBook Pros with 94.6 percent. The lightbulbs came in at 86 percent but the iPhone 6 tests only averaged 71.2 percent, a result that Disney researchers believe occurred because the smartphone has a frequency distribution that can easily overlap with other identical models.
So, what does this mean? Right now, Disney is presenting the technology as a new way to “improve asset management and inventory tracking.” Instead of using RFID tags, which are considered too expensive when compared with a standard printed barcode, organizations could use a device’s own electromagnetic footprint to determine exactly what stock it has without even having to touch it.
Via: Gizmodo
Source: Disney Research
Apple Begins Selling Accessibility Accessories on its Online Store
Apple recently updated its online storefront with the addition of a new “Accessibility” category, which is broken up into sections pertaining to the assistance of individuals with impairments related to vision, physical and motor skills, and learning and literacy (via Amvsement).
There are 15 total products broken up into each of the three sections, with further sub-categories allowing users to shop the online store specifically looking for accessories that support the iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Some of the products include the HumanWare Brailliant BI 32 Braille Display that sits in front of a Mac’s keyboard to allow anyone who is blind the ability to fully navigate OS X — and even iOS — with a lightweight, Bluetooth-enabled braille keyboard.
Some of the other accessibility products offer more creative outlets, like the Skoog 2.0 Tactile Musical Interface for iPad, which lets anyone create music using the multi-purpose buttons on each side of the 5-sided cube. Thanks to the Skoog’s versatility in tapping, squeezing, or twisting to create responsive sound, the accessory is said to encourage “expressive music making for children, parents, teachers, and musicians.”
It was rumored late last year that Apple would begin selling accessibility accessories in its physical retail stores in “early 2016,” but it seems the company decided to rollout a few options to its online store first. For anyone close to an Apple Store location, Apple is offering a Personal Pickup option for the new accessories, as well.
The new product category follows Apple’s ongoing accessibility efforts that encourage the use of its products by as wide a group of people as possible, including those with physical and mental impairments.
Read More: Apple Celebrates Autism Acceptance Month With Two New Videos
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Huawei P9 available at giffgaff for just £369
UK network giffgaff has commenced sales of the Huawei P9 with Leica-certified optics. Ready for purchase online, the unlocked smartphone can be bought for £369. (That’s considerably less than the usual £450 asking price.) Since giffgaff does not deal with contracts, you’ll need to pick up a PAYG SIM that will provide you with the required amount of data.
If you’re unable to fork out for the handset outright, giffgaff has financing options available with the Huawei P9, which set you back a more manageable £17.06 per month for 2 years, with an upfront fee of £25. The carrier has the P9 listed in titanium gray.
See at giffgaff
Huawei P9 and P9 Plus
- Huawei unveils the P9!
- Huawei P9 and P9 Plus hands-on
- Huawei P9 specs
- Huawei P9 unboxing
- Join the discussion in the forums
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11 best drone quadcopters to buy now: Parrot, DJI, Hubsan and more
Drones are filling the headlines as well as the skies these days. From military drones bombing targets to amateur camera drones pestering celebrities, crashing into National Parks or shipping drugs into prisons – they’re everywhere. But they’re not all bad.
Companies like Amazon and Dominos are already testing drone delivery services that could mean the skies are filled with buzzing bots soon.
For now there are plenty of drones that can be used for fun. Some with cameras built-in, some able to mount a GoPro to and some that can move enough weight to carry a baby.
Whatever your need, there’s a drone for it. We’ve rounded up the best drones available on the market right now.
Firebox
Skeye Pico Drone
£40, firebox.com
This is claimed to be the world’s smallest drone. Despite being micro enough to fit into your hand many times over, it can fly with precision thanks to 6-axis flight control and a gyroscope.
But this little daredevil doesn’t just fly, it does tricks too. The drone can manage flips, spins and even aerial dives. If you want to do it all in the dark the LED lights should not only help it be seen but make it look good too.
The Skeye Pico Drone charges in half an hour, flies for up to eight minutes and comes with a controller that works up to 50 metres away.
Amazon
UDI U818A
£46, amazon.co.uk
Mastering drone flight isn’t always easy. But if you’ve spent a fair chunk of change on your flying toy you’ll need to be in control if you want it to last. The UDI U818A should help solve that by not only being affordable and strong but by making flight control simple.
All of the rotors are protected so that even if you do have a bump the drone should be alright to carry on. But crashing is unlikely thanks to a six axis gyro with posture control to make precision flying easy. There’s also a camera should you want to get snaps but at 640 x 480 resolution don’t expect them to be of much use. This drone is more about flying fun.
Pocket-lint
Parrot Bebop
£450, parrot.com
One of the best drones from Parrot is the Bebop. This is meant to sit between professional level drones and toys. There’s a Bebop 2 but this is more pricey for, among other things, more flight time.
The result is an impressive drone with 1080p camera that can be controlled and viewed from a connected smartphone or tablet. That £450 price is for the basic model. It’ll cost your hundreds more for the version with controller for range extension, but you’ll get to fly farther.
Either one is a strong drone that can do tricks, fly indoors or outside and comes with two batteries. It lasts about 10-minutes on a charge in real world use.
Check out out review for full details.
READ: Parrot Bebop review: App-controlled drone pairs high-flying specs and affordable price
Odyssey
Odyssey Toys Pocket Drone
$99, odysseytoys.com
This is a fold away drone that you can carry anywhere. Yup, no worries about packing it correctly in a special bag to protect the wings, this little guy slips into your pocket like a gaming companion should. The controller is a similar size and shape plus they’re both tough – ideal for kids.
Flight time is about 8-minutes so use it wisely and enjoy the HD camera while doing so. Then when it comes to charging it’s USB friendly so any mobile phone charger will do.
Dromida Ominus FPV
£135, dromida.com
Dromida offers its Ominus FPV for those that want a full quadcopter experience at a lower price.
The drone offers an HD camera feed directly to your connected mobile which is used as the controller. That means flying round corners and remaining in control is a possibility.
The Ominus FPV comes in blue, green, red or yellow and works with iOS and Android.
Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 Power Edition Quadricopter
£245, amazon.co.uk
Parrot was one of the first companies to get into the drone business. So with it’s second generation of refined AR.Drone you get a lot of technology for the price.
The quadricopter is controlled via Wi-Fi using an app that’s available for Android and iOS smartphones and tablets. Unlike the first model the AR.Drone 2.0 is able to work inside and outdoors. It can be controlled using the virtual joysticks but is also capable of automatic takeoff, landing and hovering. Plus there’s a button to do a quick 360-degree flip trick.
The Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 Power Edition should last 18 minutes on a charge. But it comes with two batteries that can be swapped while the other is charging so you’ll get a good 36 minutes of use.
Range is limited to 165 feet from the controller device.
A built-in camera relays photos and 720p 30fps videos to the smartphone so that they can be stored, played back and shared instantly from the device. There is also a second camera on the base of the copter that makes landing on certain spots easy. Users also have the option of connecting a small USB stick to record directly.
READ: Parrot AR Drone 2.0 Power Edition review
Pocket-lint
DJI Phantom 3 Standard
£620, DJI.com
DJI is fast becoming the go-to name for hobbyist and professional drone fliers alike. The Phantom 3 is a line offering Standard, Advanced and Professional models.
The DJI Phantom 3 Standard is the most affordable of the three. Despite that it still crams in plenty of next-gen drone tech. The camera offers 2.7k video or 12-megapixel stills and uses a gimbal to offer stable footage.
The drone itself can fly for up to 25-minutes on a charge and will return home or land if the battery gets too low. Pre-set routes can be mapped out so the drone flies them over and over as the user focuses on working the moving camera for the best shot. With the range extender controller the drone can fly up to one kilometre away from the pilot, all controlled via a smartphone app.
Turbo Ace Matrix
£2,284, turboace.com
This is the daddy of drones, made for professional grade filming and photography.
The Turbo Ace Matrix, with its 1 metre wingspan and triple carbon fibre deck build, has a range of 1.2 miles and can stay in the air for 25 minutes thanks to its 8,000mAh battery. The whole thing even folds down for easy transport.
it comes with an 8-inch monitor for viewing what the flight camera feeds back. But that’s just for flying – the unit can have gimbals and cameras plonked on top to carry around for high definition filming and photography.
Google Images
Hubsan X4 H107D FPV
£106, amazon.co.uk
This more affordable drone still manages to cram a camera into its palm-sized body. The transmitter remote has a built-in screen allowing you to control the flight from a first-person perspective. Not that you should need it much with a limited 100 metre range.
The camera is a 0.3-megapixel device that manages a 640 x 480 resolution video feed. This can be recorded if an SD card is inserted into the controller. While it might not be high quality it should be clear thanks to the latest 6-axis gyro sensitivity for balanced flight.
The battery lasts about 7 minutes, claims Hubsan, and recharges to full via USB in 30 minutes.
For those that want a cheaper option there’s the Hubsan X4 V2 H107L which doesn’t have a camera but manages 9 minutes on a half hour charge and costs £28 on Amazon.
Parrot Rolling Spider
£75, parrot.com
This is an affordable fun way to try out drone flying.
The Rolling Spider is part of Parrot’s MiniDrones range. This handheld drone is capable of flying to a range of 20 metres indoors or outside at speeds of up to 11mph. It’s smartphone controlled using Bluetooth 4.0 LE and can take pictures at a tiny 300,000 pixel resolution.
What makes it unique is it’s ability to roll along the ground, like a car, when its wheels are attached to either side. Making it two fun gadgets in one. It can roll up edges onto its back and while flying does 360-degree flips. And it’s engines start when you drop it, keeping it hovering ready for you to control.
The battery lasts up to 8 minutes and recharges back to full in 90 minutes.
The app is Android, iOS and Windows Phone 8.1 compatible.
Blade 350 QX V2
£289, quadcopters.co.uk
This is a brilliant quadcopter as it’s all ready to fly right out of the box and can even carry your GoPro. But it’s not just for the photographic sort, it’s also an aerobatic flier capable of flips and rolls too.
The Blade comes with an anti-vibration GoPro mount, but at that price you’ll obviously have to provide the camera. You can GPS fence the drone in and use a single button to return it to home. Due to carrying weight it should manage a flight time of between 9 and 14 minutes before needing a charge.
READ: Drone aerial photography explained: Here’s what it is and how to do it
Sony smart contact lens will record everything you see, with the blink of an eye
Sony appears to be working on a smart contact lens that is able to record what the wearer is seeing.
A patent was filed for the tech innovation that would help augmented reality take a quantum leap forward. While this is still at the patent stage, if anybody can make it a reality it’s the tech pioneering Japanese.
The patent explains that the contact lens will be able to record video and capture images activated by a blink of the eye. That means the unit will have crammed in: an image capture device, main control unit, storage module, antenna and piezoelectric sensor.
It’s that last sensor which would determine the difference between a normal blink and a take-a-photo blink. Essentially by blinking for a little longer than usual, dubbed conscious blinking, a photo or video would be captured. The lens would even be able to zoom and autofocus.
So how will it be powered? No batteries come included as power would be transmitted wirelessly. This could be via radio waves, electromagnetic induction or electromagnetic field resonance. So it’s all very much a work in progress then.
While this is still in the planning stages, along with similar efforts from Google and other companies, this is something that’s incoming. Augmented reality is a possible future and with it will need to be an always worn screen and camera system. A contact lens is the most discreet way to avoid ugly Google Glass style kit. Now we just have to wait.
READ: Samsung contact lens displays will put AR video and cameras on you eyes
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