WSJ: Nintendo is selling way more Switches than it expected

We already knew that the Switch was Nintendo’s fastest-selling console ever, but we now have an idea as to how many units it’s pushing out. The WSJ says Nintendo plans to double production from 8 million units to 16 million for its 2017 fiscal year (starting in April) in order to keep up with higher-than-expected sales.

Before it started shipping, analysts figured Nintendo would sell just 5 million units in its first year, due to the relatively high $300 price tag and lack of a free game with the console. However, strong early reviews and the widely-praised Zelda: Breath of the Wild launch title pushed sales to 1.5 million in the first week alone, and Nintendo could ship as many as 2.5 million units in the first month, the WSJ says.

It’s still pretty early to gauge demand for an entire year, obviously, and week two sales reportedly slowed dramatically in Japan after Nintendo shipped 329,152 Switches in the first seven days. However, that can likely be chalked up to supply problems, as the console is sold out almost everywhere around the world at the moment.

If the WSJ report is accurate (and that’s a big “if,” as it’s based on anonymous supply chain sources), then that bodes well for sales later in the year and beyond. High enough numbers will motivate third-party developers to build games for the console in addition to (or instead of) other platforms like the PS4 and Xbox One. That in turn will drive further demand, ensuring that Switch sales remain strong after the early fervor dies down. After all, the Wii U sold around 3 million units in its first 6 weeks, but went on to sell just 13.5 million units total.

Source: WSJ

The Morning After: Friday, March 17 2017

It’s the end of the week and we have talked to Buzz Aldrin about VR and Mars, tried to fund a documentary about what happened to the Tony Hawk game series, all while attempting to ignore Google Home’s Beauty and the Beast ads. Ignoring ads from an internet company? It’s a tale as old as time.

The second man to set foot on the moon thinks colonizing Mars is humanity’s destiny.

Buzz Aldrin turns to VR to explain how we can get to the red planet

Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 astronaut, may now be 87, but he’s keeping his mind focused on the next space frontier. For decades now, he’s thought about how to get astronauts to Mars, becoming more vocal about his plans in recent years. He’s also a fan of virtual reality as a medium to communicate his vision: He partnered with NASA to build a Mars Hololens experience last year, and now he’s hosting a 10-minute VR experience that walks you through his vision of how to get to Mars.

Now it’s up to CongressTrump’s budget proposal means big cuts for NASA, climate change programs

The president’s proposed 2018 budget has been revealed. As expected, it not only pulls money away from many arts and social services programs, but it also contains plans to cut funding for a number of scientific endeavors. The EPA budget would drop by 31 percent, eliminating international climate change initiatives and grants that help local governments fight pollution. NASA would also lose four climate change initiatives, its Office of Education and the planned Asteroid Redirect Mission.

The wonderful world of drone tanks

A Russian military contractor is building a 20-ton unmanned combat vehicle

A Russian weapons company named after the inventor of the AK-47 has revealed that it’s building a new type of unmanned combat vehicle. The company states that its upcoming drone tank will carry both machine guns and anti-tank missiles. While it has yet to release a prototype, we have a vague idea of what to expect from the company’s previous work: the BAS-01G Soratnik. Weighing a fraction of the proposed new tank at just seven tons, the Soratnik is a machine gun mounted infantry support vehicle equipped with anti-tank missiles. With a top speed of 25 miles per hour, the mini-tank can be operated from a range of up to six miles and is even able to carry out certain tasks autonomously.

Add warmth to your digital instruments.
Elektron’s Analog Heat upgrades your synth and drum machine

The proliferation of digitally-modelled analog synths has lowered the barrier for cash-strapped, musicians hoping to become the next big synth group like S U R V I V E (the band responsible for the Stranger Things theme). Cheaper synths and drum machines are great, but because they don’t decay like analog instruments, they also lend themselves to everyone sounding the same. For anyone looking to add more warmth and variety to her sound, Elektron’s $750 Heat comes equipped with eight analog distortion circuits that can be tweaked to your liking.

$75k to make ‘Pretending I’m a Superman: The Tony Hawk Game Story’
Crowdfunded documentary will dig into the ‘Tony Hawk’ series

The Tony Hawk game series is responsible for bringing skateboarding to an entire generation of gamers, but what was it like behind the scenes? Now, a former producer is crowdfunding a documentary exploring the ups and downs of the series, from start to finish. There are different contribution levels, but for $7k you can go all the way and secure an exclusive session with Tony Hawk himself.

A physicist and film expert are working to restore the decades-old films.
Watch these declassified nuclear test films on YouTube

There’s something both beautiful and unnerving about a mushroom cloud. The United States conducted around 216 atmospheric nuclear tests between 1945 and 1992, many taking place in Nevada and the Pacific Proving Grounds. Now, rare videos of those detonations are declassified and available to the public for the first time.

Hush.

Google Home is playing ads for ‘Beauty and The Beast’

Whether you care about the live-action remake or not, Google Home will tell you all about it. Recently, the smart speaker’s users have noticed that the disembodied Assistant will give you a rundown of the upcoming, live action Beauty and the Beast when you ask for a summary of your day’s events. It seems widespread beyond the folks who pointed it out on Reddit and appears regardless of if you’ve shown interest in the movie.

“Alexa, where the hell are my AirPods?”
Amazon’s Alexa sets up home in your iPhone

Now you can talk to Amazon’s intelligent assistant whenever you use the Amazon app on your iPhone. Alexa will be able to do much more than just deal with your Amazon account, like play songs from Amazon Music, give you news updates, or even tell a (bad) joke or two. According to Amazon, the one thing you won’t be able to do just yet is to ask Alexa to open your door locks with your voice.

But wait, there’s more…

• A Twitter user is suing James Woods for misidentifying her as a Nazi
• Google’s new algorithm shrinks JPEG files by 35 percent
• SXSW: Ron Howard on his Einstein show and digital filmmaking
• SXSW: Intel wants to be a tech ‘enabler’ for the fashion industry

Apple to Build Two Additional R&D Centers in China

Apple announced today that it will set up two additional research and development centers in China, to go with the two locations in the country that it announced last year. The new R&D centers will open in Shanghai and Suzhou, the company said in a statement on its Chinese website on Friday.

Apple hopes the centers will help it to attract graduates from institutes such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Shanghai Jiaotong University, and has partnered with schools in the region to offer internship programs, in the hope of developing experts to work closely with its regional supply chain.

Shanghai, China

“We are looking forward to working with more local partners and academic institutions through the expansion of R&D centers in China,” said Dan Riccio, senior vice president of hardware engineering at Apple. “We are honored to have access to excellent talent and a positive entrepreneurial spirit in the region, where our developers and suppliers will be working together.

Apple’s attempt to boost its presence in the country began last September with the opening of its first R&D center in Beijing’s Zhongguancun Science Park, often referred to as “China’s Silicon Valley”. Another R&D center, this time in Shenzhen, was announced the following month.

Apple has pledged to invest more than 3.5 billion yuan ($508 million) in research and development in the country, in a bid to address dwindling returns on its Chinese iPhone business as consumers opt for low-cost mobile alternatives. Apple has also experienced pushback in other areas of its China plans, including the closure of iTunes and iBooks Stores.

Apple is expected to have completed construction of all its research and development centers in Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Suzhou later this year.

Tag: China
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Google’s new algorithm shrinks JPEG files by 35 percent

For obvious reasons, Google has a vested interest in reducing the time it takes to load websites and services. One method is reducing the file size of images on the internet, which they previously pulled off with the WebP format back in 2014, which shrunk photos by 10 percent. Their latest development in this vein is Guetzli, an open-source algorithm that encodes JPEGs that are 35 percent smaller than currently-produced images.

As Google points out in its blog post, this reduction method is similar to their Zopfli algorithm that shrinks PNG and gzip files without needing to create a new format. RNN-based image compression like WebP, on the other hand, requires both client and ecosystem to change to see gains at internet scale.

If you want to get technical, Guetzli (Swiss German for “cookie”) targets the quantization stage of image compression, wherein it trades visual quality for a smaller file size. Its particular psychovisual model (yes, that’s a thing) “approximates color perception and visual masking in a more thorough and detailed way than what is achievable” in current methods. The only tradeoff: Guetzli takes a little longer to run than compression options like libjpeg. Despite the increased time, Google’s post assures that human raters preferred the images churned out by Guetzli. Per the example below, the uncompressed image is on the left, libjpeg-shrunk in the center and Guetzli-treated on the right.

Source: Google Research Blog

Sony will soon stop PS3 production and shipments in Japan

Sony is ready to lay the PlayStation 3 to rest, a little over 10 years after the first model was released. Gematsu and Japanese website Gamestalk have discovered that the company will “soon” stop the PS3’s production in its home country. Sony made the revelation on the 500GB black PS3’s product page, which is the only remaining model still in production in Japan. The tech and gaming giant didn’t mention specific dates, but a game shop in Kurume, Fukuoka tweeted that it received a notification that production will end this month. Once all the remaining units are gone, shipments will also stop — anybody who wants the console will have to look in the second-hand market.

Sony has been taking steps to retire the console since last year. It released the last first-party PS3 title in October. In August this year, the console will no longer be able to access PS Now. The PS3 turned 10 in November 2016, and since Sony consoles have a 10-year life cycle, this doesn’t really come as a surprise. Still a sad news for fans who continue to game on the PS3, though. After the production stops, the company is bound to stop rolling out updates and supporting its titles on the PS Store, as well.

Source: Gematsu, Sony Japan, Gamestalk

Backblaze has some advice if you need to destroy the data on an SSD

Why it matters to you

You’ll want to follow this advice on data destruction if you’re getting rid of an SSD.

The switch from spinning hard disk drives (HDDs) to solid-state drives (SSDs) has brought significant increases in speed and improved battery life. Those are the advantages. Disadvantages include higher cost and therefore typically smaller storage capacities.

Another area where SSDs differ from HDDs is how best to make sure that all of your data has been removed when you pass them along to someone else or throw them away. That’s an important question today when so much of our private information is stored both locally and in the cloud, and cloud storage and backup solutions company Backblaze has some advice.

More: Seagate dazzles the Flash Memory Summit with a massive 60TB solid state drive

Backblaze starts out with a discussion of what not to do. First on the list is don’t bother with degaussing an SSD; while putting a strong magnetic field in close proximity to an HDD will wipe out its data, the same isn’t true for SSDs. While HDDs store information magnetically, SSDs do not, and so that method is useless.

Next, while using a drill or hammer to damage parts of an HDD will usually be enough to make the data unrecoverable, SSDs are different. They store their data in chips and not platters, and so destroying just part of an SSD isn’t sufficient. Finally, you can’t simply erase or reformat the free space on an SSD to make sure all of the data is gone as you can on an HDD.

And so what does work, according to Backblaze? The easiest method is to encrypt an SSD, which of course only applies if the SSD is still working and plugged in. If it is, then rather than erasing the data, encryption simply makes it incredibly difficult to recover — especially if you then reformat the SSD before sending it off to wherever it’s headed.

Another method is to shred the SSD. That’s an expensive proposition, however, as shredders capable to ripping an SSD apart have prices running into the thousands of dollars. And, if you decide to go this route, then you’ll want to make sure it’s capable of breaking the SSD remnants into half-inch widths or smaller to ensure that information can’t be recovered.

Ultimately, if you can find another use for your SSD and keep it in your possession, then that’s always a logical choice. Contacting the manufacturer is another good step to take — they sometimes have utilities that might be helpful. But in the end, particularly if the SSD is built into a machine and can’t easily be removed, then encrypting the drive before formatting it seems to be the simplest and most straightforward option.

Teenage paranormal thriller ‘Oxenfree’ now fits in your pocket

Spooky adventure game Oxenfree has made its way to mobile. Developer Night School’s sidescrolling tale debuted on PC and Xbox One early last January, with a stop on PlayStation 4 last May that added, among other things, a New Game+ mode. Now it’s available for iOS devices. At the minimum, iPhone 5S and iPad Air running iOS 9.1 or newer. The iTunes listing says that the game has been reworked a bit for the platforms and features “custom touch controls.” Sounds like it should make working through the game’s radio and cassette puzzles a little more tactile. To celebrate launch week Night School has knocked 20 percent off the regular price, bringing it down to $3.99.

If you grab it, make sure to play with headphones on — the game’s soundtrack is simply too good to ignore. Why? Well, my coworker Jessica Conditt’s description should be reason enough: “[It’s] an electronica daydream that fades into a bumping nightmare; it’s the aural interpretation of the sun setting over an abandoned, beachside military base packed with deadly secrets.” Need even more convincing? Peep the YouTube embed below. And if you really like it, it’s available on vinyl from iam8bit.

Boo!

Our supernatural thriller, OXENFREE, is out now on the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and Mac!

Download here: https://t.co/MIINY60DWZ pic.twitter.com/rlsgJB8omN

— NIGHT SCHOOL (@nightschoolers) March 16, 2017

Via: IGN

Source: iTunes

Amazon ups its Smile donations to 10 percent for one day

If you need a good reason to pull the trigger on that Amazon purchase, then try telling yourself it’s for a good cause. Today only (through midnight PT), the retailer’s AmazonSmile program will donate 5 percent of the purchase price from eligible products to the charity of your choice.

It is late in the day, but it is good to remember that you can participate and trigger a contribution anytime, simply by using the AmazonSmile website and selecting a charity to receive the contribution. The increased donation (it’s up 10x from the regular amount), comes as a thank you for customers ranking Amazon #1 in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) with a score of 86.

Source: AmazonSmile

Gmail on desktop now lets you preview video attachments

A minor, but handy update comes to Gmail on the desktop today: videos sent as attachments can now be played right in your browser window, eliminating the need to actually download them to your hard drive and play them through a media player. Of course, you’ll still be limited to Google’s somewhat heavy-handed 50MB size limit on attachments, but you can always work around it by uploading bigger files to Google Drive.

Speaking of which, according to the official G Suite blog, the infrastructure behind the service is the same code that runs video previews in Google Drive and keeps YouTube humming, so video previews could be rolled into more G Suite applications later.

The video preview features started rolling out Thursday, and Google says they’ll be available to all users in the next 15 days.

Source: G Suite Updates

Apple launches permanent App Store section to showcase indie games

Why it matters to you

Apple’s dedication to promoting indie games could lead to the release of unique games that previously wouldn’t have stood a chance on the App Store

Apple is making it easier for independent games to get noticed by App Store users with its newly launched Indie Showcase. The curated section will receive consistent updates, and act as both a beacon for new and unique indie games, as well as best-of lists similar to Apple’s Editor’s Choice lists.

All of the highlighted games will be hand-picked by the team that has spotlighted worthwhile games, both free and paid, since the App Store launched in 2008. Leading up to the official unveiling and launch of Indie Showcase, Apple spent the last two weeks promoting an eclectic batch of indie titles at discounted rates on both the home and games pages. Prominently featured titles included the critically acclaimed Device 6, Super Hexagon, and Mushroom 11, a well-received PC indie that came to iOS recently.

More: ‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’ mobile app lets you manage your gear while on the go

Speaking with Polygon, Mushroom 11 creator Itay Keren said, “By setting up this showcase and reserving this desired spot on their store, Apple is essentially taking a stand to insure the creativity, sustainability and diversity.”

Placement on the App Store often has a direct correlation with the success of a game. The Indie Showcase initiative ensures that games from small studios are given a chance to thrive in a saturated market filled with free-to-play juggernauts like Clash Royale and titles from large developers like Nintendo’s Super Mario Run.

As of publication, Surgeon Simulator, Botanicula, The Escapists, and Prune — four indie games — occupy spots in the top-10 paid chart across the entire App Store.

It’s unclear at this time how often Apple will rotate games in and out of the showcase, but we know that it’s set to be a permanent and noticeable fixture with a myriad of categories to shine a light on a wide variety of titles. As of now, there’s categories for new indies, great sound design, gameplay, narrative, innovation, a deals section, and a top-25 list.

Apple doesn’t let developers pay for preferential statement on the App Store, so the playing field has never necessarily been unfair, but the Indie Showcase is still a step in the right direction for everyone that’s interested in widening their game selections.