‘MLB: The Show 17’ makes pitching a cinch in Retro Mode

Unlike how EA Sports has handled its monopoly on NFL games with Madden, Sony’s venerable MLB: The Show series tries keeping things fresh, and most importantly fun, each season. One of the cooler aspects of this year’s incarnation is Retro Mode. As the name suggests, it hearkens back to a simpler time when taking the virtual mound didn’t require an in-depth knowledge of ball physics and batting styles to strike someone out — just a little luck. A post on the PlayStation Blog says that it’s “pretty much a one-button mode.” Sign me up.

“In an effort to simplify the batter vs. pitcher battle, we’ve taken all the pitching attributes out and boiled them down to velocity, break and control,” Sony San Diego’s Ramone Russell writes. From there, you can throw a fastball or changeup with the X button and pushing the DualShock 4’s left analog stick in a given direction. To put a slider across the plate, you move the analog stick after the pitch is thrown.

Once again, the development team will be doing weekly Twitch streams going deep on individual features. Expect more info on Retro Mode in the form of a vlog on February 7th, and a deep dive via Twitch two days later. Not a fan of a pixelated interface (seen below at the one-minute mark) and simpler controls? Well, there’s always Road to the Show and Franchise modes for all your simulation cravings.

Source: PlayStation Blog

Sky Q will be available without a satellite dish from 2018

For almost thirty years, Sky has operated first and foremost as a satellite television provider. Sure, the company has expanded its empire to include phone, broadband and, more recently, mobile services, but many of its customers have at some point had to wait home while an engineer fixes a receiver dish to the side of their house. Soon, that won’t be the case, at least for Sky Q subscribers, after the provider confirmed it’s ditching satellites for some customers in favour of an internet-connected service.

Sky is remaining tight-lipped over its plans, but 2018 will be when the quad-play provider finally begins providing customers with real choice between online and over-the-air broadcasts (that isn’t Now TV). The company says it’ll benefit “millions of homes currently unable to install a satellite dish,” but will obviously rely on homeowners having a solid broadband connection (which Sky is also keen to provide).

To coincide with today’s announcement, and a future switchover, Sky also announced the launch of My Sky, a new loyalty app that will reward customers with “exclusive experiences and benefits” based on how many services they subscribe to and long they’ve been with the company.

In a financial report released today, the provider said it saw an 18 percent drop in profits over the last six months or 2016 due to Premier League TV costs and a rising number of customers leaving. With BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk all poised to strike, Sky’s new reward programme could help balance subscriber numbers.

Currently, there are over one million Sky Q boxes in approximately 600,000 homes. With over 20 million subscribers, Sky will be keen to migrate existing TV customers away from their Sky HD boxes and onto a service that is ultimately built for streaming. The company has said that the online-only box will be slightly different to its existing Q hardware, but hasn’t shared whether the experience will be pared down in order to deliver everything over fibre.

Source: Sky

Pentax’s new KP DSLR shoots in incredibly low light

Pentax has released the KP, weatherproof, compact DSLR with five-axis body stabilization, extreme low-light-sensitivity and a pretty off-beat design. The standout feature is a ridiculously high 819,000 ISO, a setting that would let you shoot with almost no light. That puts it ahead of every other camera, except perhaps Sony’s Alpha A7II S. In fact, the Pentax KP, like most other cameras nowadays, likely uses a new Sony sensor — so don’t be surprised to see other new APS-C models with that kind of capability soon.

The Pentax KP is also the Ricoh-owned company’s first APS-C camera with five-axis body stabilization (borrowed from the full-frame K-1) bringing it up to par with Sony, Fujifilm and other rivals. As with other Pentax models, it uses “pixel shift resolution,” giving you more resolution and color accuracy as long as your subject doesn’t move around much.

Other features include a 3-inch, vertical-tilt screen, AA-filter-free design, a removable and replaceable grip via an Allen key and customizable buttons. The new body is dustproof and weather resistant, with a very compact design that’s smaller and lighter than the K-3. Apparently some weight was sacrificed for the battery, though, as it can only do 390 shots compared to 560 for the K-3.

There are a few things still holding the camera back for consideration by serious shooters, unfortunately. Unlike contemporary models from Sony, Nikon and others, it doesn’t shoot 4K video, settling for a tepid 1080, 30p max setting. It’s also got the same, older 27-point autofocus system of the K-3 (giving it 7fps shooting), which doesn’t come close to matching newer Sony and Olympus mirrorless models. It’s also saddled with an old USB 2.0 port and weirdly, has no HDMI port, forcing you to buy a dongle instead. Finally, and this is subjective of course, it’s got a pretty homely design compared to drop-dead beautiful models like Fujifilm’s new X-T20 and X-100F.

Still, it might be a hit for Pentax fans looking for very low-light capability. Though the top 819,000 ISO setting is probably very noisy, dialing it down to a lower, but still very high setting should produce usable shots. Once we start to see sample shots at those settings, we’ll know for sure. The KP is scheduled to ship on February 23rd for $1,099 in the US and £1099 in the UK.

The Biggest Advances that have Changed the way we Access Online Gaming

The world of gaming has experienced several major evolutionary periods throughout the last ten years, for example: video games have seen the Unreal Engine reach its fourth incarnation and finally scratch the surface of realistic virtual reality and casino gaming has experienced several similar evolutionary stages – we investigated the biggest advances that have changed the way we access casino gaming:

Smartphones

These powerful, pocket sized computers provide the perfect platform for casino gaming no matter where you might be. You could be at home or on a break at work or even travelling (with someone else driving of course) and you can still access the casino to scratch your gambling itch. A huge step was made for casino gaming with the advent of smartphones and the mobile apps that act as the portal in your pocket.

Rewarding Customers

Land based casinos have had a variety of rewards and complimentary services for many years to entice people to spend time in their buildings. Over the years these have included free hotels, flights, limo services and all manner of other incentives but the biggest reward advances have come to the online casinos. Free bonuses and other bonuses work in exactly the same way as the land based incentives – it encourages repeat trade and draws in new custom to maximise the casino’s customer base.

Poker Table Hole Cams

Poker today is a big deal, televised Poker tournaments have drawn viewers in for some time now but in 1999 there was an innovation that gave viewers a whole new insight on the game: hole cams. Essentially, the players are required to place their hands over a panel that hides the hole cam to allow the viewers to see their hand and understand the game in greater detail – the player might be bluffing their opponents and the viewer gets an insider view on how it’s done.

Video Slots

The traditional slot machine is still as popular as ever but the ‘one armed bandit’ is most commonly found in casinos and very rarely anywhere else. To introduce the concept of slots to a wider market; developers created video slot machines that are found in numerous places from bars to petrol stations. The games retain the original slot machine concept and users can play games with no need to download. Slots nowadays feature advanced graphics and a wide variety of stake amounts to make them accessible to a much wider audience.

Loyalty Cards

Even the high street bookmakers have joined the loyalty card revival and the system has proved itself to be beneficial to both the casino and the customer. The casinos can collate the data the loyalty cards capture such as frequency of betting and average stakes while the customer can access a plethora of benefits for their loyalty.

Progressive Jackpots

This system borrowed heavily from the standard levelling up process found in most video games and allows the gambler to access progressively greater jackpots the more they play or the more they stake. The odds of success may diminish slightly as the jackpots increase but the reward for persistence is so great that the customers rarely notice the reduced chances of winning.

Online Gambling

The feather in the cap of the casinos is undoubtedly Online Gambling. It allows customers to access their favourite games no matter where they are or what time it is in their part of the world. The massively multiplayer gambling opportunities Online Gambling offers is part and parcel of its appeal – real players from around the world competing to win big from the comfort of their own homes; convenience at its best.

Poker Tournaments

Years ago; Poker was restricted to casinos and dingy rooms on back alleys – if anything there was a taboo surrounding the game. Now, thanks to big money, televised tournaments; the customer base for Poker has increased exponentially and the success of the traditional card game shows no signs of slowing.

Hugo Barra joins Facebook as VP of virtual reality

Hugo Barra will head up Facebook’s VR initiatives.

Hugo Barra made an abrupt announcement that he was leaving Xiaomi earlier this week to return to Silicon Valley, and now we know where he’s going next: Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg announced that Barra will be joining the social network to lead its virtual reality efforts, including the Oculus team.

Commenting on the post, Hugo Barra said:

Thanks, Mark! I can’t wait to get started in building that future and join the team soon. It’s been a dream of mine to work in virtual reality even back when AR/VR were just figments of science fiction; now we’re taking selfies in virtual worlds 🙂 I learned from Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun that there’s no greater calling in our industry than taking breakthrough tech and making it available to the greatest number of people.

Really looking forward to doing just that at Facebook — taking VR mainstream — working with you, Brendan, Mike Schroepfer, and the Oculus team!

Facebook is looking to virtual reality as the next big platform, and Barra’s expertise at building products during his time at Google and Xiaomi makes him an ideal candidate to lead the company’s efforts.

Hugo Barra’s next job: Head of Oculus VR

Mark Zuckerberg just revealed the next landing spot for former Google and Xiaomi executive Hugo Barra: Facebook. As Barra revealed a couple of days ago, he’s coming back to Silicon Valley and will “lead all of our virtual reality efforts, including our Oculus team.” This fills the hole left when former Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe stepped down to focus on the company’s PC efforts in December, as Barra becomes the VP of VR at Facebook.

The announcement came along with a pic of Zuckerberg and Barra hanging out virtually, since the new VR exec is still in China. In a comment on the post, Barra said “It’s been a dream of mine to work in virtual reality even back when AR/VR were just figments of science fiction; now we’re taking selfies in virtual worlds,” and stated his plan is to take the technology mainstream.

Joining Facebook as VP of virtual reality (VPVR!) to lead Team @Oculus. So excited! Mark posted about it here: https://t.co/kYgIniSQiM pic.twitter.com/7fYTkniykr

— Hugo Barra (@hbarra) January 26, 2017

Source: Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)

AI is nearly as good as humans at identifying skin cancer

If you’re worried about the possibility of skin cancer, you might not have to depend solely on the keen eye of a dermatologist to spot signs of trouble. Stanford researchers (including tech luminary Sebastian Thrun) have discovered that a deep learning algorithm is about as effective as humans at identifying skin cancer. By training an existing Google image recognition algorithm using over 130,000 photos of skin lesions representing 2,000 diseases, the team made an AI system that could detect both different cancers and benign lesions with uncanny accuracy. In early tests, its performance was “at least” 91 percent that of its flesh-and-blood counterparts.

The algorithm would have to be refined and rigorously tested before put to use in the medical world. You don’t want a glitch leading to the wrong diagnosis. If and when it’s ready for prime time, however, it could do more than save time when you’re at the clinic. Ideally, you could use the algorithm on your smartphone — imagine taking a photo of an unusual mark on your body and getting an initial verdict without leaving home. And since you can train computer vision systems to recognize many object types, you could theoretically apply the technology to other visible conditions.

Via: New Scientist

Source: Stanford, Nature

Gmail will start blocking JavaScript attachments in February

If you want to email a .js file to somebody for any reason, you only have a few more days to do so through Gmail. The service will start blocking JavaScript file attachments starting on February 13th, adding it to its list of restricted file types, which includes .exe, .msc and .bat. If you try to attach a .js file on or after the 13th, you’ll get a notification that says it’s blocked “because its content presents a potential security issue.”

JavaScript files aren’t inherently bad, but people could attach them to emails so that when you click on one, it acts as a downloader for a ransomware or other types of malware. Gmail can detect .js files even if they’re sent as a .zip, a .tgz, a .gz or a .bz2. In case you really have to send one to a friend or a co-worker, the big G recommends uploading it to Google Drive instead.

Source: G Suite updates

Vive Video puts a personal home theater in HTC’s VR headset

We’ve seen VR video theaters for Oculus and PlayStation VR, and now HTC has an upgrade in that department. Vive Video supports all kinds of media: 2D, 3D, 180-degree or full 360-degree, with options to make the environment as much of a realistic theater or distraction-free cinema as you’d like.

Vive owners have already had the Vive Home Cinema app and any number of third party players to choose from, but this one looks a little more polished. The app is available in the Viveport app store, and comes with a teaser for the Invasion! 360-degree video.

Introducing Vive Video, a video player for #VR! With support for 2D, 3D, 180˚ and 360˚ content. https://t.co/RQO7tnVnOU

— HTC VIVE (@htcvive) January 26, 2017

Source: Vive Video (Viveport), HTC Vive Blog

Autonomous Ubers return to California with humans in control

Uber’s run-in with the California DMV has apparently been smoothed over for now. Although the ride-hailing giant has since shipped its real-world autonomous vehicle testing out of the state, several of the offending vehicles are once again street legal in California — provided Uber keeps the self-driving systems turned off and a human driver behind the wheel.

Five self-driving Uber ATC Ford Fusions had their registrations revoked last month, alongside the Volvo SUVs that were loaded onto Uber’s own Otto-branded truck bound for Arizona. An Uber spokesperson confirmed to Engadget that those Fords have since been re-registered with the California DMV and are now manned by human drivers collecting data and mapping the streets of San Francisco — which the company has been doing since as far back as early September. “These cars are being used for Uber’s mapping purposes only,” an Uber spokeswoman also confirmed to CNET. “They are being driven manually at all times and their self-driving systems are disabled.”

While the mapping vehicles will eventually play a crucial role in the infrastructure powering Uber’s autonomous fleet, self-driving early adopters in San Francisco will have to wait a little longer for the regulations to catch up before they can actually hail a ride.

Via: CNET