Horizon Zero Dawn review: The best-looking game on PS4 by far

There is something hugely satisfying in booting up an all-new intellectual property in gaming, not least one that has been subject to a fierce hype machine for the last couple of years. Even more satisfying to find out it’s good. Scrub that. It’s great; truly, splendidly great.

The games industry has been buried underneath an avalanche of sequels in recent times. And while we love many of them, eagerly looking forward to plenty of others too, playing something new is refreshing.

Horizon Zero Dawn is new, different and unreservedly a hit. A splendidly great one at that.

Horizon Zero Dawn review: Extraordinary depth

Well, it is when it gets going, anyway. The game takes an age to get to the meat. It feels like you’ve been playing one long tutorial for the first six or so hours. But persistence is rewarded and as that’s our only real quibble, it’s a minor one.

When the main plot kicks in and the open world map becomes truly open, you suddenly get it. Developer Guerrilla Games has crafted a fascinating fantasy setting quite unlike any other, and while the wealth of lore takes some getting used to, there is an extraordinary amount of depth that most game franchises take years to establish.

It is a massive role-player set in a land far, far in the future. Mankind has survived apocalyptic events but has reverted to a tribal, basic lifestyle – adopting bows and arrows (mainly) and, for all intents and purposes, living like native Americans of our own past.

There is a heavy science fiction element too, with sometimes huge mechanical dinosaurs and beasts roaming the landscape. They both look amazing and serve to give Horizon Zero Dawn a different dynamic to many RPG peers.

Sony Computer Entertainment

Combining the high tech mechanoids with distinctly low-tech surroundings is a masterstroke. It makes the whole game feel completely original, even though, at times, the gameplay borrows heavily from other influences.

Horizon Zero Dawn review: The Focus

Throughout the third-person action role-player you play as Aloy, a strong, positive female character that clearly has a long future in videogaming ahead of her.

Sony Computer Entertainment

Aloy has previously been shunned by her tribe, for reasons you will discover along the way, and made into an outcast. This provides her, and therefore you, with the tools to survive and hunt in the wilderness, partly played through tutorial missions, partly through an 80s movie-style montage.

She also, as a small girl, stumbles upon what she names “the Focus”. It essentially looks like a cabbie’s Bluetooth earpiece, but allows her to see the wild robots in another light, with their flaws highlighted and travel routes visible as glowing neon graphics. It also helps the developer accentuate in-game objects and moments without breaking the simple majesty of the fantasy world. Clever.

When using the Focus, it feels and works a bit like Geralt’s Witcher vision in The Witcher 3 and isn’t the only nod to that highly acclaimed title. Encounters and optional missions found on the side of the road echo it. And crafting, modifying equipment and weapons, plus gathering plants and herbs are familiar too.

Sony Computer Entertainment

They also bring to mind the more recent Far Cry games. Indeed, we spent a long time hunting small animals in our first 10 hours of Horizon play – as they also roam the lands – purely to expand our inventory slots. We did the same in Far Cry 3, 4 and Primal. Zero Daw’s expansive open-world map even has Far Cry-style icons dotted around for different hunting zones and the like.

Horizon Zero Dawn review: Borrowing from the best

But borrowing from its influences is no bad thing, especially when these gameplay mechanics and features are much liked already – as long as there’s enough originality and clever development accompanying them.

Sony Computer Entertainment

That’s where the combat comes in. In Horizon Zero Dawn it’s a joy to behold. Aloy can shoot arrows, place traps, lob bombs from a sling and take on mechanoids and humans alike up close with her spear. All of these combat options flow naturally and are simple to control.

Fights end up being fast-paced but never frenzied, and the clever use of just a few buttons on the controller ensure you are never worrying about finger dexterity over on-screen action.

There are some awesome boss battles too. Artificial intelligence in Horizon is excellent, with the more common machines having enough nous to surround you when in groups or second-guess some of your tactics, depending on how complex a beast they are.

Sony Computer Entertainment

Major bosses, however require careful planning to take on and, like us, you might be respawning at a previous save point often.

You especially find them during dungeon crawls, in massive machine-based lairs, which also adds to the variety and scope of the game. They add visual variety too, giving you totally different eye candy than the mainstay of the outdoors landscapes. Both, however, are simply stunning.

Horizon Zero Dawn review: Beautiful to behold

Horizon Zero Dawn is by far and away the best looking game we’ve seen on the PS4 – among the best looking games full stop. At times it is breath-taking, with HDR TVs being exploited to great effect whether on a standard PS4 or PS4 Pro.

Sony Computer Entertainment

The latter console also gets 4K checkerboard images, making the game look even more outstanding. The action is locked to 30 frames per second, which ensures that it moves smoothly throughout, but the draw distances and detail are magnificent. We found ourselves dwelling in each new zone we explored, simply to take in the surroundings. We’re sure you will too.

It’s also rare to find human faces that move so believably. All of the people you meet and talk to seem convincing, not just hokey, random NPCs (which many actually are). The script is sometimes a little overwritten, but the delivery and facial rendering are excellent.

Verdict

We’ve held high hopes for Horizon Zero Dawn since we first saw it at E3 2015. The premise always seemed interesting, but we didn’t even know what kind of game it was going to be back then.

The final release has exceeded our expectations. It is a visual masterpiece when running on a PS4 Pro, and is even one of the best-looking games for PS4 on the standard console. Its depth and playtime of more than 40 hours also puts it up there with some of the greats, while the combat system never gets tired.

Because it’s an all-new IP and idea, every area we explored or creature we encountered has delighted. And we get the idea there is plenty of extra scope for future expansion now that the game lore has been established.

A new franchise has surely been born, therefore and we’ll be more than happy to see Aloy again sometime in the future. Yep, it’s that sequels thing again, but on this occasion we’re more than happy to accommodate. Because Horizon Zero Dawn is, quite simply, the most stunning looking game on PlayStation 4.

Horizon Zero Dawn is only available for PlayStation 4 from 1 March, priced £44 on Amazon.co.uk, and from 28 February priced $60 on Amazon.com

Artificial synapse could be key to brain-like computing

If you’re going to craft brain-like computers, it stands to reason that you’d want to replicate brain-like behavior right down to the smallest elements, doesn’t it? Sure enough, researchers have managed just that. They’ve developed an artificial synapse that imitates the real thing by both learning and remembering whenever electrical signals cross — most previous attempts at this can only manage one action at a time. You only have to discharge and recharge the synapse at specific voltages to program it, and it promises to be far more power-efficient than conventional approaches to brain-like operation.

The battery-like hardware is built from two flexible films whose terminals are linked by a salty water electrolyte. It behaves like a transistor, with one terminal regulating the electricity flowing between two others. While it’s not exactly natural, it’s largely made out of carbon and hydrogen, and should be compatible with a real brain’s chemistry — the voltages are even the same as those that go through real neurons.

The ultimate aim is to create neural networks that exhibit more of the properties of their fleshy equivalents, and they’ve achieved some degree of success. There’s only one synapse so far, but the team has shown that a simulated array of them could accomplish real computing tasks with a high degree of accuracy: the network could recognize handwritten numbers after training on three data sets. The biggest challenge is shrinking the synapse so that it achieves true synapse-like efficiency (they’re still using 10,000 times more energy than a real synapse needs to fire). If scientists can get anywhere close to that, though, you could see neural networks that are not only low-power, but are safe enough to interact with real biology — think AI-driven implants.

Source: Stanford, TUe

Tiny ‘engine’ turns natural gas into hydrogen

Here’s the dilemma with hydrogen: fueling your car with the stuff is faster than charging an EV, but making and distributing it is inefficient and polluting. A team from the Georgia Institute of Technology has created a four-stroke “engine” that converts natural gas (methane) into hydrogen from just about anywhere, while capturing the CO2. It could one day hook up to your natural gas line, letting you fuel your car from home in a non-polluting way like you can with an EV — pleasing both green tech boosters and oil companies.

The Georgia Tech team’s device is called the CO2/H2 active membrane piston (CHAMP) reactor. Much like with a four-stroke engine, methane and steam are drawn into a cylinder when the piston goes down, as shown in the diagram below. It then rises and compresses the mixture to a temperature of around 400 degrees Celcius (752 F).

That causes a catalytic reaction, with no spark or explosion needed, that forms hydrogen gas (H2) and carbon dioxide (CO2). The H2 is absorbed by a membrane and exits the reaction chamber, while the CO2 is “adsorbed” in a so-called sorbent bed, where it combines with a catayst. A further cycle pulls the CO2 gas back into the cylinder and expels it in a concentrated form, where it can more easily be captured and stored.

The device uses just two molecules of water for every methane molecule, making it less wasteful than current processes. Furthermore, it operates at relatively low temperatures compared to the 1,800 degree F needed for industrial reforming, so it can be scaled up or down for household or commercial operations. “The reactor is scalable and modular, so you could have one module or a hundred modules depending on how much hydrogen you needed,” said Georgia Tech professor Andrei Fedorov.

Hydrogen infrastructure is complex and expensive (it’s a highly explosive gas), but such a device could take advantage of the natural gas lines many homes have already. You’d just hook it up and it would produce hydrogen as needed, powering your fuel-cell car or a backup home fuel-cell battery. In other words, it would be the equivalent of Tesla’s Powerwall and home charger, but in a hydrogen gas form. (Honda has already built such a device, but it was large, complex and expensive.)

As with much research, it’s not perfect yet. Capturing CO2 is one thing, but there’s no commercial tech yet for storing it permanently. And the researchers didn’t mention how efficient their system is, thermodynamically speaking, at converting methane to hydrogen.

Even if were available today, EV tech already beats it in terms of efficiency and pollution. And by the time the CHAMP devices are commercially developed, we’ll likely have cheaper, faster-charging and higher-capacity batteries. Nevertheless, hydrogen technology is not going away, because the oil and gas industry really, really needs it to work — with electric cars renewable energy becoming cheaper and better, we’ll soon run out of reasons for oil and gas.

Source: Georgia Tech

The Etch A Sketch gets an LCD makeover but retains its magic

We’ve all labored over an Etch A Sketch at some point in our lives, painstakingly turning the two knobs to create a single-line black drawing on the gray screen. It’s a classic toy that hasn’t changed much over its sixty years of existence, because it hasn’t needed to. Regardless, Spin Master’s decided to mix things up a bit, replacing the aluminum powder mechanism with a black LCD screen. Now, you can use a handheld stylus to create drawings in rainbow colors. But at least you still erase it the same way.

If the Freestyle reminds you of a BoogieBoard eWriter, you would be correct: Spin Master teamed up with the company to create the new Etch A Sketch, and it uses the same technology and design as BoogieBoard products like the Magic Sketch and Play n’ Trace.

However, a few changes were made to make this undeniably an Etch A Sketch product. BoogieBoards usually have a button on top to clear the surface, but that was removed and replaced by the classic “shake” action. The unit on display at Toy Fair was a little sensitive and sometimes lost the drawings on it when I shifted it around to take pictures, but Spin Master assured me this issue will be fixed before launch.

Since the white buttons usually found on the lower corners of an Etch A Sketch aren’t needed to draw, they’ve been swapped out for two rubber stamps that can make marks on the black screen like circles, stars and hearts. Unfortunately the stamps fell out of their slots easily — hopefully these too will be fixed before it ships. Most of your drawings will use the included stylus, which slots into a hole on the top of the Freestyle when not in use and stays attached with a string so kids don’t lose it.

With these new twists on a classic formula you’d think it would cost significantly more than a standard Etch A Sketch, but the Freestyle will cost a modest $20 when it’s released later this year. And don’t worry, — if you prefer to go old school, Spin Master will still be selling the classic model as well.

EE looks to drones and big balloons to tackle 4G ‘notspots’

One of EE’s biggest challenges is connecting rural customers. The UK network’s 4G coverage is slowly improving, but there are still countless subscribers stuck in so-called “notspots.” To help, EE is working on drones, balloons and trucks that can provide temporary access in a pinch. They’ll never replace a traditional base station, but in the case of an emergency — a flood or severe power outage, for instance — they could offer a crucial line to the rest of the world. In the future, these “air masts” could also provide ongoing internet access, similar to Alphabet’s Project Loon, while EE wrestles for planning permission to build new, permanent network hubs.

At the moment, all three solutions are in a patent-pending prototype stage. The largest and most impressive is a kite-balloon hybrid developed in partnership with Allsopp Helikites. It’s tethered to the ground, so unlike Project Loon it can’t surf the skies and perform cross-country routes. The connecting line does mean, however, that it can be sent up in tricky weather conditions, and leverage the wind for stability and lift.

The balloon contains a 5 watt small cell solution provided by Nokia. It uses a satellite connection, managed by Avanti, to provide 4G coverage (tested up to 50mbps) to nearby EE customers. The network provider is also working with Parallel Wireless on a “meshed small cell solution,” which allows a connection to “hop” along multiple EE balloons and other infrastructure sites. Such a system would only be used for the most far-flung locations, however, or when a satellite connection isn’t available.

EE’s modified drone uses similar network technology. The six-blade copter, provided by Uvue, is smaller than the balloon and therefore limited to an hour in the air. The upside is that it’s faster to deploy and simpler for engineers to manoeuvre. EE hopes that it will be used by the emergency services, for instance in search and rescue missions, to quickly relay information between teams. In the future, EE chief executive Marc Allera thinks it could be used to deliver 4G connectivity “on-demand” too. If you’re climbing up a mountain, or surfing on a remote beach, the idea is that you could summon a drone to stream some video to your friends.

EE is confident in the technology, but admits that both its balloon and drone prototypes need regulatory approval first. The balloon model should be easier to get off the ground, one spokesperson said, because it’s tethered, while the drone model will require discussions with both Ofcom, the UK’s media regulator, and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

At a showcase event in London, EE also unveiled a rapid response vehicle (RRV) for the emergency services. Thirty-two of these are being built to support the ESN (Emergency Services Network), a lucrative government contract which EE won in 2015. Based on a Mitsubishi L200, these rugged off-roaders contain a satellite and an extendable mast on the roof. They can be set up in 30 minutes and provide coverage for up to 10 kilometres, depending on the geography and the strength of the satellite link.

The custom trucks are being tested now and will be live, according to Allera, “within the coming weeks and months.” A balloon will be deployed “within the year,” followed by a broader range of aerial solutions “for coverage and capacity” within the next three years. It’s an ambitious goal, given no other network has come close to deploying this sort of hardware in the sky. A mixture of all three could finally fix Britain’s 4G “notspots,” both for emergency services and the average Joe trying to refresh Twitter.

Source: EE

Newly discovered star remnants are the brightest ever seen

The European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory discovered a pulsar that’s a thousand times brighter than researchers had previously thought possible. Officially dubbed NGC 5907 X-1, the pulsar is 10 times brighter than the previous record holder. This means that in one second it puts out the same amount of energy our Sun releases during the course of 3.5 years. The pulsar, or spinning remains of what used to be a massive star, is also the furthest ever observed. Its light traveled 50 million light years before the spacecraft noticed it.

The ESA says XMM-Newton observed the pulsar several times over the course of 13 years and the discovery resulted form a combination of combing through its archives and the NGC 5907 X-1’s pulses every 1.13 seconds. Researchers say that before now, it was thought that only black holes 10 times the size of the Sun could achieve this brightness, but the regular pulsations and the fact that this object is made up of star remains proves otherwise.

This pulsar’s spin rate has also changed over the course of several years. NGC 5907 X-1 sped up from 1.43 seconds in 2003 to 1.13 seconds in 2014 based on archived data. The change isn’t uncommon, but researchers say it was likely caused by the pulsar rapidly consuming matter from another object. The discovery is also causing scientists to reconsider how they classify and observe stars that are so bright.

“This object is really challenging our current understanding of the ‘accretion’ process for high-luminosity stars,” said Gian Luca Israel, a scientist from INAF-Osservatorio Astronomica di Roma, Italy. “It is 1000 times more luminous than the maximum thought possible for an accreting neutron star, so something else is needed in our models in order to account for the enormous amount of energy released by the object.”

Source: ESA

Apple Patents Avatar Creation App That Can Place Digital Versions of You in Messages and FaceTime

Apple today has been granted a patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office regarding an “avatar editing environment,” which is the company’s patent terminology for a Mii-like app that users can visit to craft a digitized likeness of themselves to use throughout the Apple ecosystem. The patent was originally filed back in October 2011 but was just published by the USPTO today (via Patently Apple).

Apple’s patent explains that its avatar editing environment would let users create “a representation of their alter ego.” This includes a collection of editing features such as different eyes, ears, mouth, skin color, hair, teeth, smile, facial expressions, eyebrows, hair, beard, glasses, hats, and even more items related to the expression of each person’s unique identity and fashion.

While Apple’s new patent sounds like a basic Avatar editing system, the company’s wording goes into deeper detail about how far and wide the digital personalities might be implemented across its services. The editor would primarily be its own application on iOS devices, but the patent also notes that Apple could add it as an online addition to its website and give its API to developers so they could implement the avatars into games, social networks, and more.

Once an avatar is created, the user would then discover the character can be placed — and even animated — in a number of iOS locations, including in Messages, Address Book, and FaceTime. In Messages, users could set a specific animation of their avatar to trigger in response to certain events, so while you’re waiting for a text from a friend your avatar could be animated on their screen to be tapping its foot in impatience, or sleeping. In execution, some of Apple’s avatar features sound similar to the popular Bitmoji app.

The patent also describes a feature where a user’s face would be replaced in video chat, likely within FaceTime, by the avatar that they have created with Apple’s editing system. The character would then be able to track and replace the user’s expressions, eye movements, head, and body language, much like the technology created by Faceshift, which Apple acquired two years ago.

Like all other patents, the avatar editing environment described here is unlikely to see the light of day any time soon, if ever. Although the patent mentions that users could manually and automatically generate an avatar, it never directly specifies if that would include using a future iPhone’s advanced camera system to map the user’s face and generate a close approximation in digital form.

According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the iPhone 8’s front camera will be able to fuel experiences just like that, and might lead to gaming-enhanced 3D selfies and even experiences in augmented and virtual reality.

Tag: patent
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iPhone 8 Said to Have 3GB of RAM and 64GB/256GB Storage Options

The widely rumored 5.8-inch iPhone with an edge-to-edge OLED display will match the iPhone 7 Plus with 3GB of RAM and come in two storage options, 64GB and 256GB, according to Chinese research firm TrendForce.

The report, which outlines several already-rumored features, said the so-called “iPhone 8” will not have a fully curved display due to production and drop test issues with 3D glass. Instead, the high-end device will adopt the same slightly curved 2.5D cover glass used since the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in 2014.

TrendForce said Apple will remove the Home button on the iPhone, as widely rumored, and integrate the related functions into the display. If that fact is accurate, it suggests rumored 3D facial recognition capabilities could supplement rather than fully replace Touch ID, which could be embedded into the display.

TrendForce itself expects the “iPhone 8” to incorporate 3D sensing technology that can be used for facial recognition and augmented reality features.

The research note said the 5.8-inch iPhone will be accompanied by updated 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch models with LCD displays. The 5.5-inch model will allegedly have the same 3GB of RAM as the iPhone 7 Plus, while the 4.7-inch model is said to have 2GB of RAM. Both models are expected to include up to 256GB of storage.

Rumors are generally shaping up to suggest the 5.8-inch iPhone with an OLED display will be a significant upgrade, but the model could cost upwards of $1,000 in the United States. Meanwhile, the 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch models are expected to be iterative but less expensive upgrades to the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.

Last year, TrendForce accurately predicted the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus would be available in 32GB, 128GB, and 256GB storage capacities.

Related Roundup: iPhone 8 (2017)
Tag: TrendForce
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New Touchscreen for ‘Apple Watch Series 3’ Said to Enter Production Later This Year

The tentatively named “Apple Watch Series 3” will feature a new glass-film touchscreen in place of the current touch-on-lens solution, with shipments to begin in the second half of this year, according to Taiwan-based DigiTimes.

While it remains unclear if the switch to a film-based solution will have any obvious consumer-facing benefits, this is more interestingly the first rumor to surface about the supply chain ramping up for the next Apple Watch.

The timeline matches a Chinese report last month that claimed the third-generation Apple Watch will be unveiled in the third quarter of 2017 with battery life and performance improvements. The report said Series 3 models, to be manufactured by Quanta, will lack any significant hardware changes.

Few other details are known about the next Apple Watch models, which could feasibly launch alongside the “iPhone 8” in September.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and other sources have claimed the Apple Watch could gain an LTE chip for cellular capabilities as early as 2017, while a supply chain report last year said Apple may switch from OLED to micro-LED displays for the Apple Watch in the second half of 2017 at the earliest.

Micro-LED displays have benefits such as thinness, lightness, improved color gamut, increased brightness, and higher resolutions. The panels do not require backlighting like traditional LCD displays, but they can be difficult and expensive to mass produce. Micro LEDs range in size from 1-micron to 100-micron.

Apple has filed patents for a number of ideas that could eventually be included in an Apple Watch, such as a heart rate identification system, modular bands, haptic feedback band, and a band with a built-in charger. More significant health and fitness features could be added pending further FDA approvals.

Ahead of Apple Watch Series 3 models, Apple is expected to introduce new bands at its rumored iPad Pro-focused event next month.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch Series 2, watchOS 3
Tag: digitimes.com
Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)
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Spaceflight Bill paves the way for a UK spaceport in 2020

Space isn’t just big, it’s big business. According to the government, the UK’s space industry is already worth more than £13.7 billion to the economy, but one thing’s missing: The infrastructure needed to send the next satellite or experiment up into the void from British shores. Plans to grow the commercial space sector have been under way for some time, and several potential sites for the UK’s (and potentially Europe’s) first spaceport have already been proposed. But before you can shoot for the stars, you have to regulate, which is the intention of the Draft Spaceflight Bill introduced today.

The publication of the bill follows the announcement earlier this month of a £10 million fund to support UK companies in developing launch capabilities. The Draft Spaceflight Bill isn’t nearly as cool as it sounds, though, because it tackles the more boring regulatory framework we need before rockets can blast off from local spaceports. We’re talking spaceflight licences, restricted launch zones, insurance requirements, astronaut training and other safety obligations — that sort of stuff.

Once there’s an agreement on what rules need making, the finer details will be worked out in secondary legislation, and the government thinks it’s feasible we’ll have an operational UK spaceport in 2020. It’s a good thing we already know Brits make cracking astronauts then.

Source: UK government (1), (2)