Apple Seeds Second OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan Beta to Public Beta Testers

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming OS X 10.11.6 beta to public beta testers, one day after releasing the second OS X 10.11.6 beta to developers. OS X 10.11.6 has been in testing since May 23 and the second beta comes three weeks after the public release of OS X 10.11.5, the fifth update to the El Capitan operating system.

Beta 2 is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store for those who are enrolled in Apple’s beta testing program. Mac users who want to join the program can sign up on Apple’s beta testing website.

OS X 10.11.6, like most of the previous updates to the El Capitan operating system, appears to be minor in scale, focusing mainly on bug fixes and security improvements that are not immediately obvious to testers and developers. No outward-facing changes or major bug fixes were discovered in the first two developer betas.

Related Roundup: OS X El Capitan
Tag: OS X 10.11.6
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FIFA 17 release date, trailer and Frostbite Engine graphics revealed

Electronic Arts has released a teaser trailer for the next FIFA game and the biggest revelation so far is that the graphics have been completely overhauled.

That’s because FIFA 17 has been rebuilt from the ground up using the Frostbite graphics engine, as seen in Battlefield games and, more recently, Star Wars Battlefront.

In addition, EA has revealed that the game will be available from 27 September in North America, 29 September everywhere else – a week after the release of the best Pro Evolution Soccer game we’ve seen in years. PES 2017 itself has had a major graphical refresh, with Metal Gear Solid 5’s Fox Engine being used for that game.

We’ve already played a first-look build of the new PES but will have to wait until E3 2016 starts to get our hands-on FIFA 17. Thankfully, that’s this weekend coming.

READ: PES 2017 preview: First extended play of potential FIFA beater

It will debut during the publisher’s pre-E3 press conference – EA Play – on Sunday, 12 June. That starts at 9am BST and you can watch the livestream at ea.com/play2016.

For now, sit back and watch the teaser trailer, which does have some sneaky peeks at what will be possible with the Frostbite Engine when it comes to rendering footy players.

Let’s hope the gameplay matches what are bound to be incredible visuals.

OnePlus 3 specs all but confirmed in detailed leak, here’s what to expect

Despite the OnePlus CEO showing of pictures taken with the OnePlus 3 and an official release date already dished out, the leaks keep flowing. The latest has all but completely revealed the OnePlus 3 specs.

Spotted by Hungarian site Napidroid, the GFXBench test details what’s claimed to be the specs of a OnePlus 3, also named A300x. This is filled with specs including camera details that corroborate with the photos shown by the OnePlus CEO.

The leaked specs include, as previously rumoured, a 5.5-inch 1080p display. The very capable Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 CPU will be running the handset at 2.2Ghz with Adreno 530 GPU and will be backed by a jaw-dropping 6GB of RAM plus a generous 64GB storage.

The cameras are listed as 15MP and 7MP. Since these aren’t sensor sizes, usually, this is likely a rounding issue. The OnePlus CEO already shared photos taken on the OnePlus 3 and the data showed that was on a 16-megapixel camera. Also the front facing selfie camera has leaked before as an 8-megapixel shooter.

The system running the phone was listed as Android 6.0.1 with the OxygenOS, as expected. It was also listed as having one SIM slot and there was no mention of a fingerprint reader.

OnePlus is due to unveil the OnePlus 3 at a VR event aired to its Loop headset owners on 14 June at 17:30 BST.

READ: OnePlus 3: What’s the story so far?

Napidroid

Life-drawing at the Royal Academy with an iPad Pro

As the model in front of us drops her dressing gown to reveal her naked body, we realise the enormity of what we are about to do. We’ve drawn before, the odd doodle here and there, but never at a life-drawing class, and certainly not in the famous Life Room at the Royal Academy in central London.

The room, which has seen the likes of Turner and Constable learn their trade, hasn’t traditionally been open to anyone. When the Royal Academy was started almost 250 years ago by a group of artists, sculptors, and architects, it could take some students up to 10 years to be allowed in to the Life Room to draw a subject. Yet, there we were about to give it a “go”.

Taking a class with the iPad Pro

We’ve been allowed to bypass the basic skill qualifications and years of learning (over 800 people applied for the 14 places in 2016) because we are here to learn how to draw using with the iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil.

Teaching the class is Mark Hampson, head of fine art processes at the Royal Academy, and probably one of the bravest lecturers at the RA to allow a gaggle of amateurs into the building.

To capture the experience, we are using Procreate for iPad. The app (£4.49/$5.99), best described as Photoshop for drawing artists, even goes as far as describing itself as “the most advanced painting app ever designed for a mobile device”.

The painting app allows you to sketch, paint, change brushes, work over multiple layers, create any colour, choose your canvas size, and that’s just the start.

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Layering your drawings

It is the layers feature that Hampson is most interested in to get us started. Working through a series of tasks to build up a drawing, it is one of the features of Procreate that we like the most.

We’ve never used the app before, but it’s easy to get to grips with balancing a wide range of options with an interface that is simple and intuitive to use.

We first start by plotting key points of the body using the “6B pencil” brush. Once we’ve done with that, we move on to a new layer, which Hampson calls “energy”. Here the task is to draw the model in front of us without taking the Pencil off the screen. It’s much harder than it sounds, but certainly frees our creativity.

The next layer encourages us to express our abstract creativity. Procreate features 12 different brush collections, each with a further eight defined brushes within each collection. Beyond that you can take things further by changing the size and the opacity of the brush. Brushes range from charcoals to abstract to more traditional options that recreate watercolour or oil painting.

The abstract brushes are as abstract as you might expect. We opted for Polygons, Opticon, and Spicule for our drawing. It’s an effect that to create on paper would have taken hours, and yet here we are in the Royal Academy creating (for better or worse) the effect in seconds. When we go wrong there is an undo button that goes back hundreds of steps, while a pinch to zoom feature allows us to work the image at close range.

One of the best ways to create a life-drawing, Hampson tells us, is to not only look at the shades and light on the body, but to look at the negative space around the body. That’s our next layer before moving on to attempt the same trick for inside the body too.

Multiple layers and around an hour later and, unbeknown to us, we’ve created our first life drawing without picking up a piece of paper or a physical paint brush or piece of charcoal.

Mark Hampson’s five tips for drawing like a master

1. Look at the model more than your paper

There is no point in having a figure in front of you if you don’t learn from it. Take the time to familiarise yourself with its weights, proportions and pose.

2. Focus on the wood not the trees

Don’t obsess about capturing isolated details and treat the drawing as a cohesive whole. Give equal attention to everything you draw.

3. Don’t avoid the difficult bits

Fragments and close ups can be interesting but are often embraced as an excuse to avoid facing up to the challenges of drawing heads, faces, hands and feet.

4. Practice may make perfect, but…

… technical perfection rarely makes great art. Learn to develop the differences and imperfections in your drawing. Creative interpretation is more valuable than sedulous aping. Experimentation is essential in developing a unique style and approach.

5. Not every drawing you make will be a masterpiece

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Correcting, erasing, and on occasion abandoning a failing drawing is worthwhile. There is no shame in starting again sometimes.

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Sharing made easy

When we’ve drawn things on paper sharing them has perhaps been the hardest part. You’ve got to be physically there. Here Procreate plays its digital card allowing you to not only export the drawing in a number of different formats, but also as a video that has silently recorded your drawing efforts from the moment you created the canvas.

The end result, which is automatically sped up by the app, is a fascinating insight into how you’ve journeyed through your creation, mistakes and all.  

Fit for exhibition

Ours probably isn’t, but we’ve learnt a lot and found that for beginners the iPad Pro is a great place to start.

So can the iPad replace paper? That’s a question we put to Hampson over a drink in the RA member’s bar afterwards and the answer is, as you would expect, politically answered.

Hampson, who has only been using the iPad Pro for drawing for a couple of weeks, tells us that the freedom the iPad delivers is certainly welcomed and that it brings a wealth of different possibilities to the artist’s arsenal.

Best games coming in 2016: Top PS4, Xbox One, Wii U and PC trailers for upcoming games

With E3 2016 soon to start and game release schedules ramping up as we enter the second half of 2016, it’s a great time to be a gamer.

Whether you have a gaming PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One or Nintendo Wii U there are plenty of amazing games coming that you’ll want to keep an eye out for. And if you own multiple platforms, you’re very fortunate indeed.

We’ve put together the current trailers for some of the biggest games still to be released this year, in order to give you an idea of what to pop on your wishlist. Some are multi-format, some exclusive to one machine or another. All are well worth a watch.

We’ll also be updating this round-up regularly, especially with E3 trailers as they are released, so bookmark and come back often. All games are listed in order of release date.

READ: E3 2016: All the launches, games and consoles to expect

Resident Evil: Umbrella Corps

Release date: 21 JuneFormats: PS4, PC

Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE

Release date: 24 JuneFormats: Wii U

Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Release date: 28 JuneFormats: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Wii U, Xbox 360, PS3, PS Vita, 3DS

No Man’s Sky

Release date: 9 AugustFormats: PS4, PC

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Release date: 23 AugustFormats: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Madden NFL 17

Release date: 23 AugustFormats: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Xbox 360, PS3

FIFA 17

Release date: 27 September (US), 29 September (UK & ROW)Formats: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Xbox 360, PS3

Final Fantasy 15

Release date: 30 SeptemberFormats: PS4, Xbox One

NBA 2K17

Release date: September (TBC)Formats: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Xbox 360, PS3

Mafia III

Release date: 7 OctoberFormats: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Gears of War 4

Release date: 11 OctoberFormats: Xbox One

Battlefield 1

Release date: 21 OctoberFormats: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Civilization VI

Release date: 21 OctoberFormats: PC

WWE 2K17

Release date: October (TBC)Formats: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Xbox 360, PS3

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

Release date: 4 NovemberFormats: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Dishonored 2

Release date: 11 NovemberFormats: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Gran Turismo Sport

Release date: 15 NovemberFormats: PS4

England isn’t windy enough for new turbines, claims industry boss

Every country has its stereotypes, but England will always be famous for its terrible weather. You’d think a land labeled for its cold, wet and windy conditions would be ideal for generating energy, but it turns out that isn’t the case. The head of the UK’s wind industry trade body, Hugh McNeal, has even gone on record to admit that England simply isn’t windy enough to justify the creation of any more wind farms.

McNeal’s revelation comes in an interview with The Telegraph, in which he talks about the challenges faced by renewable energy companies in the UK after the government cut subsidies in April. He makes the case for onshore wind farms, noting that developers need to convince ministers that they are the cheapest way to generate new energy, but new developments in England would be “very unlikely,” beyond those that have already received funding and are waiting to be built.

“We are almost certainly not talking about the possibility of new plants in England. The project economics wouldn’t work; the wind speeds don’t allow for it,” McNeal told the newspaper.

Scotland, on the other hand, is enjoying lots of new wind energy investments. In October, Dong — Denmark’s largest energy company — confirmed it had been given the green light to build the world’s largest offshore wind farm in the Irish Sea. A month later, Norway’s Statoil said it would install five 6MW turbines off the coast of Peterhead, making it the world’s largest floating wind development.

While wind — and solar, to a point — might be not ideal in England, there are plans for alternative sources of renewable power. Tidal Lagoon Power aims to build the world’s first lagoon power plants, creating six giant structures — four in Wales and two in England — that capture energy from powerful coastal tides. The company believes it could generate as much as 8 percent of the UK’s total power, offering the government a predictable source of clean energy that has very little risks associated with it.

Source: The Telegraph

The robot-made shelter that adapts to human movement

I peer up at the clouds and squint as raindrops splatter my glasses. Up above, far beyond my reach, is a sparse canopy woven together by an extraordinary mixture of carbon and glass fibers. They stick, curve and cross over one another to form wide hexagonal discs, spreading out across the lawn like a fleet of flying saucers. As I walk underneath, I reach out and touch the pillars that keep the entire structure afloat. They’re narrow at the base, but shoot upwards and outwards like saplings craving sunlight.

The unusual shelter has been set up at the V&A Museum in London as part of a new “Engineering Season” that runs until November. It was created by a group from the University of Stuttgart in Germany: Achim Menges, an experimental architect and professor; Jans Knipper, a structural engineer and professor; Moritz Dorstelmann, a research associate and doctoral candidate at the university; and Thomas Auer, a climate engineer.

It’s called the Elytra Filament Pavilion, and it takes inspiration from the hardened “elytra” wings used by flying beetles. While they’re shooting through the air, these insects raise their forewings into a flat, open position, revealing a pair of softer and more powerful sails underneath.

Credit: Getty Creative

“The shell of the flying beetle is a very light structure, because, well, the beetle has to fly,” Knipper says. “It’s also a system which consists of two layers, which are connected by fibers to create a load-bearing, strong system. We took this idea from the elytra and adapted its orientation and the layering of the fibers to make a very light, wide system at the V&A.”

The carbon and glass fibers allow the team to mimic the elytra’s design on a much larger scale. Each hexagonal piece weighs around 35 kilograms, making them easy to pick up and attach to the structure. “They’re interesting materials because they start off soft and flexible,” Menges says. “But then they cure when they are infiltrated with resin, becoming some of the stiffest and strongest materials that we have at our disposal.”

Those properties are useful because the team wants the pavilion to evolve over time. Sensors inside the glass fibers are able to measure the forces and structural stresses weighing on the canopy. Thermal imaging cameras can figure out where people are standing and moving underneath, either to find shade or avoid Britain’s nastier weather patterns. All of this information will be stored and analyzed to determine how the structure should change at what the museum is calling “events.”

A robot’s helping hand

The events will be shaped by a robot neat the back of the pavilion. Walking over, I can see it lurking behind a transparent cover, winding stringy fibers around an enormous steel hexagon. The machine has been developed by Kuka, a German company that develops factory robots for automakers like Audio and BMW, as well as brands like Adidas and Carlsberg. When a new event occurs — three are scheduled for June 17th, 18th and September 22nd — the team will look at the data that’s been collected and identify a spot for expansion. The robot will then generate a new, custom roof piece.

The robot takes about three or four hours to complete each segment. The carbon and glass fibers are stored in cylindrical rolls before being wound onto the steel scaffolding. Menges says the robot can figure out the exact shape and pattern required for the structure “almost by itself,” using its knowledge of the pavilion and what’s required to keep it upright. When the piece has been completed, the metal skeleton is then collapsed and taken out, ready to be used as the framework for another piece.

The process is fast and flexible. The team hopes that the robot and the lightweight materials will inspire people to rethink how structures can be built. So often they’re long, arduous processes involving huge construction crews and machinery. Architects design the building with a single look and purpose in mind; success is dependent on it looking and functioning the same for many years. The Elytra Filament Pavilion, meanwhile, takes an adaptive and free-spirited approach to design and manufacturing.

“It’s a form of feedback between what has already been built and what may come next,” Menges explains. “So it’s very interesting to think about an architectural system that doesn’t come to a determined end. Something that can sense its current state, that can gather its own data and then expand, contract or reconfigure on the basis of that. It’s nowhere near as intelligent as natural growth, but it begins to work in that direction.”

I happen to be visiting the pavilion on a cold, dreary morning, peppered with showers and the occasional gust of bone-biting wind. The pavilion offers little shelter — there are no walls or doors — so I beat a hasty retreat inside the V&A Museum. During the summer months, I can imagine the pavilion being a comfortable, exciting spot for visitors to take a break from the rest of the V&A’s offerings. The shape and materials are eye-catching, and I could watch the robot work for hours. The structure’s true beauty, however, should reveal itself later in the year. Like a garden or national park, the pleasure will come from seeing how it’s grown since last time.

“We really don’t know what is going to happen, where it’s going to grow, or what exactly the form of the next element is going to be,” Menges stresses. “This is what makes this (project) a really exciting endeavor, and also makes it interesting to come back and see what has happened.”