Return to Vvardenfell in ‘The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind’

Have you ever been caught up in an Elder Scrolls Online adventure only to look around, yearning for more scrolls of an elderly variety? Well, it looks like your prayers have just been answered as Bethesda just announced that Morrowind is coming to Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) on June 6th.

Imaginatively titled ESO: Morrowind, this expansion takes players back to the island of Vvardenfell, the setting for the seminal Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Existing players can upgrade to the Morrowind edition for $39.99, while new players can get access to both the expansion and existing ESO content for $59.99.

There’s also a digital and a physical collector’s edition, available for $79.99 and $99.99 respectively. While the digital collector’s edition will grant you access to a flurry of exclusive in-game content, the physical version includes a rather badass-looking 12-inch Dwarven Colossus statue, a 176-page book, a map of Morrowind and the obligatory exclusive metallic game case.

So what can gamers expect from this new expansion? Well, Morrowind promises over 30 hours of new story content, a “brand-new” zone (Vvardenfell), a three-team PVP mode (Battlegrounds), a further player class and an additional Trial. Thankfully, it also offers an easy entry point for new players, allowing the uninitiated to jump straight into the Morrowind expansion without having to complete any previous ESO content.

As a purchase includes the original game, newbies will also get instant access to hundreds of hours of older content so they can catch up on what they’ve missed. Like the rest of ESO, this expansion requires no subscription fee. While the game initially launched on PC with the traditional subscription-based MMO pricing model, Bethesda eventually relented, asking gamers just for a one-off payment once the game moved to consoles.

ESO Morrowind is available to pre-order now on PS4, Xbox One, PC and Mac with a pre-order netting players access to ‘The Discovery Pack’ – a collection of exclusive in-game bonus items that includes a cute dwarven war dog pet. For more information on the various different editions available, check out The ESO online store.

Casey Neistat’s Beme service shuts down following CNN deal

And just like that, YouTube star Casey Neistat’s brief stint in mobile apps is over… for now, anyway. As promised, the social video service Beme is shutting down on January 31st following CNN’s acquisition of the app in the fall. You can download an archive of all your clips to preserve them for posterity, but the software will likely have stopped working by the time you read this. The team has hinted that it’s working on “something new,” but you’ll have to look for an alternative if you want to share your life in short snippets.

Beme had a relatively short history, and was defined as much by who was making it as what it did. Neistat first unveiled the app for iOS in July 2015, and it was very much a reflection of the document-everything strategy from his daily video blogs at the time. Its signature trick was the ability to record 4-second clips just by putting your phone to your chest (to cover the proximity sensor), theoretically removing the barrier between you and whatever you were experiencing. With a massive potential audience (Neistat has millions of YouTube subscribers), Beme didn’t have much trouble getting some initial uptake.

The problem: it faced both sagging interest and fierce competition. It wasn’t until June 2016 that a finished public release arrived, and there were major interface revamps as the Beme crew tried to figure out an interface that would keep users hooked. Neistat helped spike demand whenever he mentioned the app in his blogs, but use tended to fade soon afterward. And how was Beme going to lure users away from Instagram and Snapchat, both of which have close-enough video sharing features and much larger communities?

There are some upsides. It’s entirely likely that the lessons learned from Beme will rub off on whatever the developers do for CNN. And even if they don’t, the app may teach other developers a thing or two: having a famous name attached to your project can help its chances, but it still needs to be polished and engaging enough to stand on its own merits.

Source: Marc Wieland (Medium), (Twitter)

Netgear WiFi routers are vulnerable to more security exploits

Netgear’s WiFi router security woes aren’t quite over yet. Researchers at Trustwave are drawing attention to two vulnerabilities that lets anyone recover your router’s administrative password, opening the door to botnets and other hostile takeovers. You’re only susceptible to internet attacks if you’ve enabled administration from outside the network, but anyone who can connect to the local network can take advantage of it. And there’s a real chance that you’re affected — about 31 models are at risk, including higher-end models like the Nighthawk X8 you see here.

The good news? Netgear has been diligent about patching the security hole. As of the report, 19 models (plus a cable modem) already have firmware updates that will fix the flaws. You can also avoid the issue on unpatched routers by manually enabling password recovery and turning off remote management. You won’t have to worry if you’re attentive, in other words. The larger concern is that there are many potential targets. With “hundreds of thousands” of affected routers in the wild (and at least some of them accessible online), it wouldn’t take much for an intruder to cause chaos.

Via: TechCrunch, Tom’s Guide

Source: SpiderLabs Blog, Netgear

ACLU signs on with Y Combinator after $24 million donation

The ACLU, in an average year, fundraises around $4 million. After stridently opposing Trump’s unconstitutional immigration ban last weekend, the civil liberties watchdog was rewarded by the American public with a windfall of donations totalling $24 million — six times its average annual income. On Tuesday, startup accelerator Y Combinator announced that the ACLU is enrolling as part of its Winter 2017 class to figure out how to best utilize this monetary windfall.

The ACLU’s enrollment will give the organization access to YC’s mentorship program which specializes in teaching companies how to best spend their money to attract top talent, make sound infrastructure investments and generally grow both its user base and donor lists. What’s more, enrollment in this program will grant the ACLU access to YC’s network of industry connections afford it the chance to participate in YC’s Demo Day in March. YC will also provide a degree of financing to the civil liberties group, though it will not take an equity stake as it normally would since the ACLU is a nonprofit.

This is an interesting move for Y Combinator, which has been under fire for months for not severing its business ties to Peter Thiel, a staunch Trump supporter and advisor to the administration. YC President, Sam Altman, has defended that decision. “Thiel is a high profile supporter of Trump. I disagree with this,” Altman tweeted last October. “YC is not going to fire someone for supporting a major party nominee. That’s a dangerous path to start down.” That said, public pressure on this issue is clearly having an effect. Over the weekend, Altman published a post on his personal blog calling for tech companies to speak out against the administration’s policies.

Snapchat now creates QR codes for web links

Remember the days when you were supposed to share websites between phones using QR codes? They’re back, but with a modern twist. Snapchat is updating its mobile apps (iOS at first, with Android still in beta) with the ability to create Snapcodes for websites, not just your profile. If you want to share an article or plug your favorite page, your friends only have to capture it to start browsing from within the app.

It’s hard to know if this will be rabidly popular among everyday users. If you just want to quickly show friends a site, why not just send the raw link through text chat? However, it might be particularly helpful for businesses. If an extra-trendy brand uses Snapcodes, it can now point you to the web (where it can make ad money) instead of hoping that you’ll eventually do more than check out its Snaps. Given that Snapchat is reportedly on the cusp of becoming a publicly-traded company, it has a strong incentive to make site sharing easy.

Via: TechCrunch, Sam Sheffer (Twitter)

Source: App Store

Tesla’s Powerpacks are now lighting up California’s grid

“Batteries are boring when they are successful.” That’s Tesla Chief Technology Officer JB Straubel, speaking on Monday to an audience of reporters, employees and government officials sitting in the middle of the new 20-megawatt Mira Loma energy storage station in Ontario, California. Behind him, row upon row of Tesla Powerpacks and industrial inverters filled the fenced-in 1.5-acre lot. Those gleaming white battery boxes, though boring looking, are capable of powering up to 15,000 homes for four hours during peak times, or roughly 2,500 homes for an entire day. This is an important development indeed, because it means utilities won’t have to fire up fossil fuel-powered stations to fill the energy gaps.

Electric utility company Southern California Edison (SCE) teamed up with Tesla to bring one of the world’s largest electron-storing solutions to life in less than six months. In fact, it only took three months to go from groundbreaking to running. The urgency came down to a gap in the grid created by the loss of the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility.

While getting both a large company like SCE and the local government to move quickly on a project is difficult, Tesla had no problem delivering its large batteries to the site; the Powerpack containers and companion inverters are pretty much plug and play. Once the concrete was poured, the companies installed the system and connected it to the grid.

When the energy-storage station went online, the large batteries began pulling power from the grid when there was an surplus. Before battery systems like this were available, any extra electricity created by power stations or from renewable sources was wasted. The utility can then dole out the energy from the Powerpacks during an outage or when the grid is maxed out (read: in the summer when everyone has their AC blasting).

This is a huge step toward reducing the grid’s reliance on fossil fuel-generated electricity. Currently, one major issue with renewable sources such as wind and solar is that if they’re generating more power than the system needs at that moment, it’s wasted. But with battery stations like Mira Loma, those electrons can be stored for later use.

SCE CEO Kevin Payne told the audience during yesterday’s station tour that this isn’t a pilot program or test. “This project is part of our vision at Southern California Edison,” he explained.

And you can expect to see more of these energy-storage stations in the next few years. So when it’s 100 degrees and you’re blasting your AC, remember that some boring boxes in the middle of a field are making it possible while reducing the amount of pollution being pumped into the sky.

iPhone 7 turns around slowing sales for Apple

iPhone sales were bound to start dropping sooner or later, but today’s earnings news from Apple sees a turnaround: iPhone sales are back up after a year. In the first full quarter with the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus on the market, Apple sold 78.3 million smartphones. That’s up about five percent from a year ago, when the company moved 74.8 million iPhones. Historically, a new iPhone model has guaranteed that sales would be up as well — and even though the iPhone 7 is a rather iterative model, it was enough to do the trick.

As the iPhone goes, so goes Apple’s overall financial health. This quarter, revenue of $78.4 billion and profits of $18.4 billion are massive numbers and both increases on a year ago.

The Mac was another winner this quarter — but just barely. The company sold 5.37 million Macs, up a small 1.4 percent over the year-ago quarter. It’s not surprising that the first MacBook Pro refresh helped out the overall line, although it’s a pretty small bump over last year. The iPad wasn’t so lucky, with sales of 13.1 million representing yet another down quarter. That’s 19 percent less iPads than Apple sold a year ago, and we’re now looking at three full years of declining iPad sales. While Tim Cook has continued to say the product is how Apple defines the future of computing, the numbers don’t lie, and it’ll be interesting to see if he addresses the continued drop today.

Apple is continuing to decline to say how many Apple Watches it sells, so all we have to go on there is Tim Cook’s word — the CEO said that it was a record quarter for Apple Watch revenue. However, revenue in the “other products” category (which covers things like Beats, the iPod, Apple TV and accessories in addition to the Apple Watch) declined year over year, so the Watch wasn’t quite enough to make up for losses in other product categories.

The last big part of Apple’s business is is services business, which covers things like Apple Music, iCloud, the App Store and so on. It was a big winner this quarter, continuing the trend we saw in 2016. Apple says that the $7.17 billion in revenue from services is a record, though in terms of overall revenue it’s now just slightly behind the Mac ($7.24 billion) in terms of how much overall cash it pulls in.

As usual, Apple will be holding a call with CEO Tim Cook and we’ll be updating this post with anything else we learn. Elephants in the room include the iPad, when the company might get more AirPods to consumers, and what the response has been to the new MacBook Pro. We’re guessing he’s going to say that customers just love it.

Source: Apple

Trump to announce his SCOTUS pick tonight via Facebook Live

Donald Trump will announce his nominee for the vacant Supreme Court Justice seat tonight via Facebook Live. The stream begins at 8pm Eastern via the POTUS Facebook channel. As CNN reports, both candidates (Neil Gorsuch and Thomas Hardiman) have apparently been told they’re Trump’s favorite for the lifetime seat. Apparently, there will be Apprentice-style staging for the announcement: one prospect will walk away without the job while the world watches. Political theater like this is nothing new for Trump, but turning the presidency into a reality show is sure to ruffle some feathers.

Source: POTUS (Facebook)

Google Makes Chrome Browser for iOS Open Source

Google today announced that the code for Chrome for iOS is being added to its Chromium project and will be available through the company’s open-source repository going forward.

According to Google, Chrome for iOS was previously kept separate from the rest of the Chromium project because of the “additional complexity” required for the platform, such as the need for the browser to be built using the WebKit rendering engine.

Google says the company’s engineers have spent “a lot of time” over the last few years tweaking the Chrome for iOS code needed to upstream into Chromium, a process that was recently completed.

Today, that upstreaming is complete, and developers can compile the iOS version of Chromium like they can for other versions of Chromium. Development speed is also faster now that all of the tests for Chrome for iOS are available to the entire Chromium community and automatically run any time that code is checked in.

Designed as an alternative to Safari, Chrome for iOS is available for free to all users from the iOS App Store. [Direct Link]

Chrome users won’t notice any obvious changes to the browser, but the shift to open source will make it easier for Google to release new versions of Chrome for iOS.

Tags: Google, Chrome
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Apple Reports Record Results for 1Q 2017: $17.9B Profit on $78.4B Revenue, 78.3M iPhones

Apple today announced financial results for the first fiscal quarter of 2017, which corresponds to the fourth calendar quarter of 2016. For the quarter, Apple posted revenue of $78.4 billion and net quarterly profit of $17.9 billion, or $3.36 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $75.9 billion and net quarterly profit of $18.4 billion, or $3.28 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Both revenue and earnings per share were company records in what is traditionally Apple’s strongest quarter due to the launch of new iPhone models.

Gross margin for the quarter was 38.5 percent compared to 40.1 percent in the year-ago quarter, with international sales accounting for 64 percent of revenue. Apple also declared an upcoming dividend payment of $0.57 per share, payable on February 16 to shareholders of record as of February 13.

Apple sold a record 78.3 million iPhones during the quarter, up slightly from 74.8 million a year earlier, while Mac sales rose slightly to 5.4 million units from 5.3 million units in the year-ago quarter. iPad sales continued their recent declines, falling to 13.1 million from 16.1 million.

“We’re thrilled to report that our holiday quarter results generated Apple’s highest quarterly revenue ever, and broke multiple records along the way. We sold more iPhones than ever before and set all-time revenue records for iPhone, Services, Mac and Apple Watch,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Revenue from Services grew strongly over last year, led by record customer activity on the App Store, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline.”

Apple’s guidance for the second quarter of fiscal 2017 includes expected revenue of $51.5–53.5 billion and gross margin between 38 and 39 percent. Revenue guidance is slightly below analyst expectations.

Apple will provide live streaming of its fiscal Q1 2017 financial results conference call at 2:00 PM Pacific, and MacRumors will update this story with coverage of the conference call highlights.

Conference call starts at 2:00 PM Pacific – No need to refresh

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Tag: earnings
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