The ‘Ocarina of Time’ soundtrack is coming to vinyl
In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, music had a pretty big role. For instance, all it took to summon a rainstorm or change the time of day was playing a few notes on an the titular musical instrument. And now you can get in line to buy those iconic tracks and more on 180 gram vinyl. Hero of Time is scheduled to release second quarter of next year and will set you back $40 plus shipping. Rather than just pressing the MIDI score from the Nintendo 64 game to wax, however, a 64-piece orchestra performed the tunes. I see what you did there, iam8bit.
It’s a bit odd that it took this long for someone to give the score the fancy treatment on vinyl, to be honest. But the art — that bridge from the Lost Woods, though — and overall design might make up for the wait. Want to hear it in concert? Then maybe see if the (unrelated) Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses is playing a city near you.
Source: iam8bit
Killing children in ‘What Remains of Edith Finch’
Young Calvin Finch sits on a swing perched atop a steep seaside cliff while the afternoon sun warms the waves, grass and trees. Calvin’s left leg is in a cast, but he easily swings his feet back and forth, pushing higher and higher over the cliffside. He wants to do a full circle on the swing set; he knows it’s possible if he tries hard enough. Back and forth, back and forth. Cast kicking, he climbs higher, parallel to the ground and shooting back down, swinging his legs even harder. And then, with a final determined kick, he does it.
Calvin flies around and around, branches of the tree above him scratching his face and body, leaves and twigs falling to the ground. Suddenly, on the last high-velocity rotation, Calvin lets go of the chains, and his body soars over the cliff, cast and all. For a moment, he flies above the water, toward the setting sun. And then, he’s dead.
“I think there’s something inherently surreal about childhood,” says Ian Dallas, the creative director of What Remains of Edith Finch, a first-person video game set to debut on PC and PlayStation 4 in spring 2017. Dallas is the person who dreamed up the seaside cliff, the swingset and little Calvin Finch’s untimely, unintentional death.
What Remains of Edith Finch is obsessed with death. It feels more like a collection of short stories, each one about the mysterious demise of someone in the Finch family. The Finches are cursed: Beginning in the early 1900s, family members have been killed in strange, seemingly impossible ways, often at young ages. Today Edith Finch is the last of her name, and she’s convinced something is amiss in her life, so she travels to her family home in Washington to dig through her ancestral history.
Edith prowls through rooms and secret passageways that have been preserved like tombs for generations, with family members’ possessions frozen in time. One of these shrines is Calvin’s bedroom, once shared with his twin. Calvin’s side is bright and playful, featuring a space-exploration theme, including stairs that lead to a spaceship cockpit and an astronaut helmet.
Under the helmet is a letter from Calvin’s twin, explaining who Calvin was, how he lived and how he died. This is where the cliffside scene takes over the screen and players become Calvin, sitting on the swing set, kicking his legs as the letter is narrated over the tranquil scene. Press the controls forward and his legs pump forward; press back and his legs swing back.
It’s no secret that these motions will lead to Calvin’s death. What Remains of Edith Finch’s conceit is perfectly clear: This family is cursed, and these people will die. Yes, even the children. Still, the cliff is so peaceful and the motion so intoxicating that it feels OK to make Calvin swing higher and higher. Even though the player is effectively killing Calvin, everything feels right.
This is the tone that Dallas wanted to infuse into What Remains of Edith Finch: surreal joy and childlike wonder.
“It helps to set the players’ expectations up in the way that we want,” Dallas says. “There’s a reason we ended up with a lot of stories that ultimately deal with children. It was a little tricky with the Finch family tree, making sure people lived long enough to be able to have kids.”
Dallas isn’t a sadist with a penchant for fictional murder. What Remains of Edith Finch respects death in the same way it respects life. Every one of the death scenes is a sort of happy, fulfilling victory for the starring character, rather than a tragic end.
“There’s death but there’s also — in each of these stories, you as a player are coming into contact with the unknown because you have no idea what’s going to happen,” Dallas says. “Each story is completely different. But they all end in death.”
In this way, What Remains of Edith Finch holds a mirror to reality. Real life is filled with billions of unique stories that all, ultimately, end in death. But the game’s approach to these scenes — making each passing joyful, intriguing and beautiful — is cathartic, rather than morbid.
Dallas’ studio, Giant Sparrow, wants to make the world stranger. It started with The Unfinished Swan, a breakout independent game published by Sony Santa Monica in 2012, when Dallas and his team were still in school. Now, Giant Sparrow is working with Annapurna Interactive, the new video game publishing endeavor from the film studio behind Her and American Hustle.
While designing What Remains of Edith Finch, Dallas was inspired by HP Lovecraft and Jorge Luis Borges, short-story writers with a penchant for strange, supernatural horror scenes. The game is also (accidentally) reminiscent of another recent indie hit: Gone Home.
“It’s a young woman coming back to her family home in the Pacific Northwest in relatively modern times,” Dallas explains. “That’s a small pool. For us, I think it’s particularly great because the game is so different than Gone Home. When people come in with that expectation — any time people have an expectation, that gives us an opportunity to circumvent that and give them a little bit more of the unknown, which is so hard to find in the real world.”
The real world is insistent on making people feel comfortable, Dallas continues. What Remains of Edith Finch aims to infuse a little discomfort into our everyday lives.
“I would hope that people have a memorable experience,” he says. “I think, in order to have something memorable — when I think back on my own life, the things that I remember are usually not when things are going well. Often, there’s like some disaster but then it ends up being OK.”
It’s simple to make people uneasy in a game about killing children. Balancing that discomfort with happiness is where things get tricky. Giant Sparrow made sure to beta test What Remains of Edith Finch with parents, especially new ones; these people tend to have a different reaction to the game than childless players, Dallas says. They’re simply more sensitive to images of children dying — which is one reason What Remains of Edith Finch doesn’t talk about death directly. It shows death, but it doesn’t focus on the concept. Instead, it highlights the journey: the sun’s warm rays on the grass; the beautiful tree; the euphoria of swinging.
“All of these stories are about people being successful,” Dallas says. “They’re not the victim. Generally, they’re the people that are out there, causing the problem. They’re all pyrrhic victories — each story, it’s become this definitive, Finchian moment of knowing that you’re about to do something terrible, but marching joyfully to your inexorable end.”
Adobe Updates Lightroom for iPhone With One-Handed Editing Interface
Adobe today announced a new update out now for its Lightroom iOS and Android apps, bringing an all-new photo editing experience to mobile that improves the app’s ease of use thanks to a new one-handed interface. To create an improved editing experience Adobe talked to professional and casual photographers, who helped hone Lightroom’s new toolset.
First, the company has organized similar tools into relevant categories so it’s faster and easier to find tools that are normally used together. The company’s biggest priority was to introduce a system that was functional to operate with just one hand. As such, users can now see the entire image while editing it and have access to “often used tools,” such as viewing before and after iterations of a photo, without needing a second hand.
Lightroom mobile 2.6 represents a significant evolution of editing on mobile devices. We wanted to improve the ability to quickly find and access tools and ensure the fastest way to enhance and edit images on a phone. Our design team reached out to photographers of all skill levels to help us figure out how people edit with Lightroom mobile, what’s missing, and how we could make it even better. This update represents our first release taking advantage of this research.
Lightroom for iPhone is also gaining a new info section so users can add in titles, captions, and copyright onto an image. A “professional mode” within the app’s capture interface will let users set more granular controls over an image’s exposure and focus so it’s easier “to capture the shot you want.” Lightroom for iPad is getting all of the iPhone app’s updates except the new editing and info sections, but the company hopes to update the tablet app with these features “soon.”
On the Mac, Lightroom is gaining a “reference view” in the Develop Module that makes it simpler to compare two images side-by-side so you can make them visually consistent with one another. The company said this should help when trying to make a large amount of images from a single event aesthetically similar, or could help with “setting the white balance appropriately in mixed lighting conditions.”
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for iPhone is available to download from the iOS App Store for free [Direct Link]. Users can find the update for Lightroom on the Mac in the Help > Updates section of Adobe’s Creative Cloud app.
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European Union Moves Forward With Plans to Eliminate Roaming Charges Next Year
European Commission members met on Wednesday to discuss draft rules intended to eliminate roaming charges in the European Union as of June 15, 2017.
(Image: TapSmart)
The Commission said it is determined to put an end to roaming charges commonly billed by carriers when a customer calls, sends messages, or uses data on their mobile device while abroad in the European Union, outside of their primary country of residence, subject to proportionate checks for abusive usage.
European regulators have proposed a “Roam like at Home” solution that would allow travelers to call, text, and browse the web on their mobile devices when abroad in the European Union for no extra charge than the price they pay at home. It is not intended to be used for permanent roaming.
“Roam like at Home” is aimed at people who travel in the European Union for work or leisure. “They spend more time at home than they do abroad, and they make most of their calls, texts and use data in their home country,” the Commission explained.
Example: with his €70 per month contract, Tim living in Netherlands gets unlimited calls, texts and data for his smartphone. When he travels abroad on holidays, he will have unlimited calls and text. For data, he will get twice the equivalent of €70 worth of data at the wholesale roaming data price cap, i.e. 0.85 cent/MB according to the Commission wholesale proposal, meaning more than 16 GB in this case. While roaming, he will get twice the volume he has paid for.
The latest draft further clarifies consumer rights, such as ensuring that customers abusing a carrier’s roaming policy are not subject to over-intrusive background checks and establishing a minimum alert period of 14 days before roaming charges can be imposed on customers who exceed fair usage.
The revised rules also introduce safeguards to ensure carriers remain competitive. Customers can be asked to prove they live or have “stable links” to a specific country before “Roam like at Home” is included in their contract, while those roaming excessively can be sent a warning message and/or small roaming charge.
If, over a 4-month period, billing data suggests that a consumer has been more abroad than at home, but also consumed more data while travelling in the European Union, the operator can send a warning message. This message will warn the consumers that they have two weeks to inform their operator about their travel situation, or to change their travel or use patterns. Only a very small roaming charge […] can then be applied.
The proposed surcharges for customers who exceed fair usage are €0.04/minute per call, €0.01 per SMS, and €0.0085 per MB of data usage.
The draft legislation has now been sent to representatives for each European Union member state, who will meet on December 12 to vote on the text. Afterwards, the European Commission will be able to adopt the rules.
EU member states include Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
In September, the Commission said the European government agreed to its proposal to end roaming charges in Europe. This week, the Commission said it will be steadfast to ensure an agreement is reached as soon as possible.
Tags: European Commission, Europe
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New Photos Offer an Inside Look at Apple Campus 2
Apple shared some updated photos and information on its spaceship-shaped second campus with employees, which French site MacGeneration managed to get a hold of. The photos give a detailed view of the exterior building, and give us one of our first glimpses at its interior.
Apple Campus 2 has been in development for more than two years, and is nearing its completion date. We’ve seen a series of monthly drone videos cataloguing progress at the site, and as of December, much of the main ring-shaped building is finished, with Apple now working on landscaping.
Just recently, Apple installed the glass panels for the atrium of the main building, which will be used as a cafeteria for employees. Along with the cafeteria, there will be vast outdoor eating spaces covered with greenery native to California.
The floor-to-ceiling doors of the atrium are each made from 10 glass pieces and are similar to the giant glass doors that were introduced in Apple’s San Francisco Apple Store. The doors open an entire side of the building to let in light and air for an outdoor feel.
To install the doors, Apple has used cranes outfitted with suction cups to hold the glass in place while it’s secured into the building.
The ceiling of the ring-shaped building is equipped with a series of skylights that will let in natural light, while cutouts in marble walls will house speakers in some areas. Close attention has been paid to the smallest of details, and Apple says in just one access tunnel, it’s taken 60 workers five months to lay small tiles on the curved walls. Ledges extending out over windows block light, as do built-in window shades.
Outside, full-sized trees and other plants are being installed. Ahead of being added to the campus, many of the trees were grown at a local nursery. Apple has said more than 3,000 species of trees will be on the campus, including many fruit trees.
Apple plans to finish construction on the campus in the first quarter of 2017, though landscaping work will extend into the second quarter of the year. Apple CEO Tim Cook has said employees will begin working at the campus in early 2017.
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Asus ZenPad 3S 10 review – CNET
The Good The Asus ZenPad 3S 10 has a sharp, clear HD screen and its design is both comfy and cool. The fingerprint scanner adds extra security. Comes with a good amount of storage for its price.
The Bad The speakers are easy to block when holding in landscape orientation. Games take their time to load.
The Bottom Line The Asus ZenPad 3S 10 is a fantastic portable video watcher with enough storage to get you through long flights at a reasonable price.
The iPad Air 2 is one of the best tablets you can buy. And it’s a better tablet than the Asus ZenPad 3S 10. But if the iPad Air 2’s $399 (£379 or AU$719) starting price is too rich for your blood and you’re a fan of the Android OS, you might want to give the Asus a try.
The $299 (£300) Asus is cheaper, great for watching video and comes with twice the amount of storage as the base level iPad Air 2. That means twice as many Netflix TV shows to download. It’s not officially available in Australia but its price converts to about AU$535.
It also has a microSD card expansion slot to increase its storage and a sleek, compact feel that makes it pleasant to hold for long binge sessions. I’m not going to tell anyone to make the Asus their first choice, but if you have simple needs and are looking to save some cash, the ZenPad 3S 10 is a smart buy.
Here’s what’s good
- Build is comfortable, compact and sleek
- Smooth performance
- Large, sharp HD screen
- Expandable microSD card slot (up to 128GB)
- Charges quickly via USB-C
- 10.7 hour battery life
- Comfortable to hold
An great screen for a great price.
Josh Miller/CNET
Here’s what’s bad
- Not as fast as the Apple iPad Pro 9.7 or Google Pixel C
- Speakers on the edge are easy to block when holding the tablet
- Screen is more prone to heavy reflections than the iPad Air 2
The stylish, compact design is one of its best feature.
Josh Miller/CNET
Screen screening
The Asus ZenPad 3S 10 has the same screen resolution as the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 and iPad Air 2, and while they all compare favorably in sharpness, there is notable difference in color.
The Samsung tablet’s display is vividly saturated with rich colors and deep blacks. While that makes for a more dramatic image, it’s almost too colorful– like it went a little overboard with the Instagram filters. In comparison, the Asus’s range of color is more subdued and lifelike, similar to the iPad Air 2’s screen.
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There’s a USB-C port in-between the two speakers.
Josh Miller/CNET
Speaker trouble
The crisp HD screen on the Asus ZenPad 3S 10 is perfect for HD video, but its speakers are a different story.
AC Worldwide Star Wars speakers Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
If you’re a serious Star Wars fan, or you know someone who is, here’s a new conversation piece for your moisture farm.
Made by AC Worldwide, these wireless speakers are shaped like the heads of three of the greatest Stars Wars characters ever to go into hyperspace: Darth Vader, C-3PO and an anonymous Imperial Stormtrooper (did you really expect a name?). Each head is rendered in detail and delivers loud and satisfying sound for both music and phone calls. There are even a few Easter eggs to keep an entire cantina entertained.
Shiny, scary people
If you’re already reaching for your wallet, you’ll first need to clear a lot of space on your bookshelf. Ranging in height from 11 to 12.6 inches (naturally, Vader’s head is the tallest) the speakers seem almost as large as the heads of the actual characters. But if you already have a giant Lego Millennium Falcon on your dining table, I suspect you won’t mind their size.
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Each speaker’s profile accurately captures each character’s, well, character. Vader’s visage is just as chilling as it would be roaming the corridors of the Death Star, the Stormtrooper embodies a nameless terror and C-3PO is so shiny you can see your reflection in his forehead.
The eyes of each character glow when you turn them on and set up a Bluetooth connection. Touch controls on the front of each speaker adjust the volume and bass, control music playback options, initiate a Bluetooth (versions 4.0) pairing, and accept (and hang up) calls. The controls were easy to use, even though I’d prefer buttons that you can actually press down. Around back are the power switch, a USB port (for charging a phone), a microphone (for making calls), a port for the wall charger (to power the integrated battery) and a port for connecting a 3.5mm auxiliary cable.
Star Wars sounds
There’s an especially cool effect when you make a Bluetooth connection. Instead of a boring tone you’ll hear familiar sounds from the films. The Vader speaker plays the Sith Lord’s signature mechanical breathing, the Stormtrooper says, “Go about your business, move along” followed by blaster sounds and the self-effacing C-3PO remarks, “I do believe they think I’m some sort of god” to the tune of the Star Wars theme. (Vader also plays sounds of a lightsaber battle when you disconnect him.)
Touch controls are on the front of each speaker’s base.
Andrew Hoyle/CNET
Music and more
You can connect each speaker to a music device via Bluetooth, NFC or an auxiliary cable. When connected to your phone through Bluetooth, they double as a speakerphone for making calls. I connected each to my iPhone 6 quickly and jumped straight to playing music without any hassle. Though I didn’t try it, you can connect two speakers to the same music device for stereo sound.
Sound quality from the 10-watt subwoofer was fine during the brief period I used the speakers, and the volume gets ear-shatteringly loud. Call quality over the speakerphone wasn’t quite as sharp, and it felt weird ordering lunch through Darth Vader’s mouth. Music will mute automatically if you get a call while you’re listening to tunes. The 2200 mAh battery is supposed to deliver up to five hours of music playback.
Available (not) a long time ago
For now at least, the speakers are sold only at retail stores in the UK. Look for them at Selfridges, Harrods and London Disney Stores. You also can buy them on AC’s website, where you can arrange for international shipping.
Vader sells for £169 or $211 (about AU$295) and the others for £149 or $186 (about AU$250). A selection of international plug adapters come in the box, as does a felt carrying bag.
This huge 200GB SanDisk microSD card can be yours for just $64
Should you be on the hunt for some more storage for your smartphone or tablet, you’ll want to check out this whopping 200GB SanDisk microSD card, which can be yours for just $64. We’ve covered similar deals on these SanDisk cards in the past, and now there’s yet another opportunity to pick one up for less.
This class 10 removable storage can be used in a portable device or with an adapter for a laptop. The choice is yours. It’s definitely worth checking the manual for your smartphone or tablet to see if this capacity is supported before you hit purchase.
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Chromecast buyer’s guide
Chromecasts are cheap enough to get them all, but we can guide you to make sure you get the one you need.
Streaming media isn’t a new idea. Internet radio and video sharing sites have been around for over a decade, and smartphones might not have become as popular (some say necessary) as they are today had Apple and Google not worked together in 2007 to bring H.264 YouTube streaming to the first iPhone. We want to watch and listen to the things we like on our own schedule, and we all want it to be easy to do while still looking and sounding great.
While there are dozens of different ways to stream media from the internet to your TV or stereo, Chromecast remains one of the most popular options because of the way you initiate things. Clunky and slow user interfaces are replaced by your phone or your web browser with the ability to handoff control between devices and to allow multiple people to get in on the fun. You are comfortable with the way your phone works, and you know how to use the tools it has. Adding in one button to send media streams to the television is just better than most anything else. Add in a low cost of entry and you have a recipe for success.
If you’re thinking of buying a Chromecast, the first thing you’ll want to do is make sure you pick the right one. That’s where the Chromecast buyer’s guide comes in. In five minutes you’ll be able to make the right choice and get the device that suits your needs the best.
Chromecast Audio
If you are looking for a way to get music from the internet — whether it be a subscription service like Spotify or Google Play Music or audio from YouTube or even music stored on your phone — the Chromecast Audio is a great way to do it.
It’s an audio-only device, so if you want to send video or images you’ll need to look at other options in our guide. But it’s a dedicated audio streamer done right. With a 24-bit audio decoder and both 3.5 mm and optical audio output jacks, you’ll be able to send high-quality audio to just about any speaker setup available. Setup is easy — provide power and plug an audio cable from the Chromecast output to the input jack on your receiver or powered speakers and you’re done. You can even run the output through a small bookshelf amplifier to create a complete stand-alone audio system that sounds a lot better than the price tag would suggest.
Best cheap Chromecast Audio speakers
The Chromecast Audio is small and lightweight, uses very little power and delivers premium sound to almost any speaker or stereo system. If you’re looking for a way to play music from the internet on the system you have now or just plugging into the back of a small stand-alone speaker the Chromecast Audio is the best way to do it.
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Chromecast
The Chromecast is the device that started Google down the path of streaming media. We’re currently at version two of the hardware, and there isn’t another way to get online video onto your TV screen that’s this easy or this inexpensive.
Setup is simple. Plug the Chromecast into an available HDMI port on your TV or receiver, provide USB input for power (either directly from the TV or through the included power adapter) and use the Google Home app to get your Chromecast onto your Wi-Fi and able to be seen from your phone or laptop. Speedy and robust 5GHz ac Wi-Fi means you’ll be able to stream HD content (up to 1080p) smoothly and easily. Fallback to 2.4GHz Wi-Fi is available if you have a lot of interference on your network so you won’t miss a thing. And as mentioned, watching a movie or show on the best screen in your house is as easy as tapping a button on your phone screen.
More: Chromecast vs. Chromecast Ultra. Which should you buy?
Unless you have a 4K TV and a fast connection to the internet to stream UHD HDR content, the Chromecast is the right tool to get the job done cheaply and easily.
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Chromecast Ultra
The premium offering in Google’s Chromecast lineup, the Chromecast Ultra can deliver full UHD (4K) content in HDR to your high-end television, and it’s as easy to set up and use as the rest of the Chromecast family.
The Ultra costs a little more, but everything about it is an improvement over the regular Chromecast. You’ll need a better processor and more power to deliver demanding UHD HDR content. The standard 5GHz/2.4GHz Wi-Fi option is available, but the Ultra also has a Gigabit Ethernet port built into the power supply (which you’ll need to use because your TV can’t deliver enough power for the Ultra) if you want the backhaul and speed a wire can offer. You’ll also need to have a fast connection — 20Mbs sustained not peak — and have a service like Netflix that can deliver UHD content. Using the Ultra is the same as the regular Chromecast — as easy as tapping a button.
Everything you need to know about 4K streaming on Chromecast Ultra
The Chromecast Ultra is for people who have high-end equipment and the internet speed to bring 4K streams to their television. But it’s also a great way to be “future-proof” because your next TV will be 4K.
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No matter what your needs are, there’s a Chromecast that can fill them and is in your budget!
Chromecast
- Chromecast and Chromecast Audio review
- Chromecast Ultra vs Roku
- Chromecast vs Chromecast Ultra: Which should you buy?
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