‘Dragon Quest XI’ spawns the best and worst special edition consoles

Square Enix is on a bit of a merchandising mission in the lead up to the July release of Dragon Quest XI in Japan. For its latest trick, it’s partnered with Nintendo and Sony to today announce two new Dragon Quest consoles.

The first is the black 2DS XL, with a matte silver slime bulging up from its lid, and a small Slime icon on the inside. There’s also stencil work on both the lid and base, which matches the gray software theme. It’s understated and rather lovely, and will be released on July 29th priced at 22,480 yen (about $200) in Japan.

The second, a Dragon Quest PlayStation 4, is the antithesis of the Nintendo console. Styled with all the subtlety of a Thanksgiving Day Parade, it’s a standard slim PS4, albeit in a deep blue, emblazoned with a giant gold Emblem of Erdrick and a smaller slime. The DualShock 4 also has the same artifact festooned across its touchpad, and a slime on its right grip.

Sony

The chintziest detail is left for last, though — a gold slime USB cover that droops over the front of the console. It’s all a bit much. The Dragon Quest Heroes PS4 from a couple of years back had a similar USB cover, but all of the logos and icons were presented in grays and silvers and worked well with one another. Despite all this, I still kind of want both of the new consoles.

The Dragon Quest PS4 and 2DS XL are currently only slated for Japanese release. Given the successful infiltration of the West with Builders, it’s not impossible that we might see some of this hardware in the US. Square Enix has commited to releasing more Dragon Quest titles outside of Asia after all. If not, there’s always importing. (The 2DS is region locked, the PlayStation 4 is not). Or, you could always settle for Hori’s crazy Slime DualShock 4:

Via: Arkotype (Twitter)

Source: Nintendo (JP), Sony (JP)

Apple-Backed Didi Chuxing Earns Record $5.5B in China Tech Funding, Looks to Driverless as Future

Ride-sharing company Didi Chuxing has raised more than $5.5 billion from investors in China, marking the largest amount of funding earned by a technology company ever in the country. Didi, which Apple invested $1 billion into last year, is believed to use its new funding to expand beyond China, invest in artificial intelligence initiatives, and even look into various driverless and automated vehicle technologies (via Bloomberg).

Specific investors for this round of funding were left unidentified, but people familiar with the investments suggested the likes of SoftBank Group, Silver Lake Kraftwerk, China Merchants Bank Co. and one arm of Bank of Communications Co. were all backing Didi. The company’s total valuation is said to have been raised from $34 billion — which it earned after acquiring Uber’s business in China — to now sit at $50 billion.

Tim Cook catching a ride with Didi Chuxing president Jean Liu
The funding places Didi ahead of Xiaomi’s $46 billion valuation, and makes the company the world’s second most valuable startup after Uber’s $68 billion.

Ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing raised more than $5.5 billion from investors, scoring the largest round of funding ever for a technology company to bankroll an expansion beyond China and into driverless technology.

That price tag would surpass smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp.’s and make Didi the world’s most valuable startup after Uber. Didi amassed $10 billion in cash and equivalents last year, but the deal yields more ammunition as it prepares to challenge Uber and Alphabet Inc. in automated driving, and buys the company time to carve out new revenue streams.

Didi’s expansion beyond hailing cars is believed to become “increasingly important,” due to China’s increasingly strict regulations regarding qualifications for the users who drive Didi vehicles. In places like Beijing and Shanghai, the company’s drivers are required to be local residents, preventing what is estimated to be thousands of potential Didi Chuxing drivers from nearby towns and countryside to work for the startup.

As a potential major pillar of its expansion, Didi executives hope that investing into driverless technology research will assist in overcoming hurdles related to China’s human driver restrictions. The further Didi investigates and tests driverless technologies, the more data Apple receives on the subject, since the companies are now working together and sharing notes related to autonomous innovations one or the other might make.

Cheng and President Jean Liu hope that adopting driverless technology will help overcome such hurdles in the future. Didi wants to take advantage of data on 400 million users across some 400 cities to aid research into AI and autonomous vehicles. It opened an artificial intelligence lab in Mountain View, California last month, called Didi Labs. And it’s already lured dozens of stalwarts in the field including former Uber auto-security expert Charlie Miller, known for remotely hacking into a Jeep Cherokee in 2015.

While Didi works on implementing driverless rides for its users, Apple is said to be working on a self-driving platform of its own, with a deadline of late 2017 when the company will officially decide on the “feasibility” of its progress on the tech at that time. Just this week, a Lexus SUV was spotted leaving an Apple facility in California, coming equipped with various sensors and cameras and believed to be one of the vehicles Apple is using to test self-driving cars on the road.

Tag: Didi Chuxing
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Apple’s Echo-Like Smart Speaker With Siri and AirPlay Could Debut as Early as WWDC

Apple is widely rumored to be working on a Siri-based smart home device with a speaker, and Australian leaker Sonny Dickson has shared new details about its possible design and features on Twitter and with MacRumors.

Apple’s smart speaker could take design cues from the Google Home
Dickson said that Apple is currently “finalizing designs” for the Amazon Echo and Google Home competitor, which he expects to be marketed as a Siri and AirPlay device. “It is believed to carry some form of Beats technology,” he added, while noting that the device will run a variant of iOS software.

It is believed to carry some form of Beats technology, and is expected to run an variant iOS

— Sonny Dickson (@SonnyDickson) April 27, 2017

Dickson later told MacRumors that the device, allegedly codenamed B238 internally, will feature a Mac Pro-like concave top with built-in controls. His source, which he told us is “someone inside Apple,” described the device as “fat” like the Google Home with speaker mesh covering the majority of the device.

Dickson was told Apple’s smart speaker could be unveiled at WWDC 2017 in early June, but as always, the company’s plans could change.

In September 2016, Bloomberg reported that Apple’s smart home device had entered prototype testing, including both a larger and a smaller model in line with Amazon’s current Echo lineup. However, at the time, the report cautioned that Apple’s early efforts do not guarantee that a finalized product will be released.

The report said Apple’s smart home device would be able to control appliances, locks, lights, and curtains through Siri voice commands. It added that some of the prototypes in testing include facial recognition sensors, backed by an earlier CNET report claiming the device could have a built-in camera for facial recognition.

Dickson is best known for leaking various iPhone and iPad parts from overseas sources, such as these iPhone 5c rear casings in 2013, but his latest information supposedly comes from a source directly within Apple, an area where his track record is less established. His sources have proven incorrect at times.

Related Roundup: WWDC 2017
Tags: Siri, AirPlay, Amazon Echo, Google Home, Sonny Dickson
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NASA’s inflatable greenhouse could feed astronauts on Mars

One of the biggest problems we still have to solve when it comes to sending humans to live on the moon or Mars is food. The spacefarers can’t exactly take years’ or a lifetime’s worth of food with them, and not every plant can grow in native Martian conditions. To conjure up a possible solution to the issue, NASA scientists at the Kennedy Space Center are developing an inflatable cylindrical greenhouse for outer space with the University of Arizona. The Prototype Lunar/Mars Greenhouse project uses what’s called “bioregenerative life support system” that mimics Earth’s environment to be able to grow plants outside our planet.

The support system will introduce the carbon dioxide astronauts exhale into the greenhouse and will release the oxygen plants produce into the human settlement. It will pump oxygenated water with the appropriate nutrients across the plants’ root zone, collecting and storing what’s left at the end. The idea is to use water humans bring from Earth. However, if they’re staying on the moon or on Mars forever, NASA has to find a water source in their new homes.

While plants here at home grow under the sun, the greenhouse will likely have to be buried underground to protect the plants from radiation. Early Martian or moon settlers can either use LED lights or capture solar light and beam it underground using fiber optic bundles. Both kinds successfully grew plants during the researchers’ test in an 18-x-8-foot prototype,

Eventually, the team could create greenhouses in various sizes for different plants, depending on what they decide astronauts should bring. For now, they’re planning to develop computer models to simulate future tests and to control the environment inside the greenhouses.

Source: NASA, University of Arizona

Home Depot left customers’ unprotected personal data online

It’s been awhile since hackers broke into Home Depot’s servers and stole 56 million customers’ credit card information back in 2014. But recently, a tipster pointed business watchdog site Consumerist to a web address under the HomeDepot.com domain. The unprotected page stored photos of various home improvement projects…and 13 Excel spreadsheets filled with customer data. All told, it had names, phone numbers, and physical and email addresses for up to 8,000 people. And all those files sat there unprotected, unencrypted and discoverable by search engines for an unknown period of time.

Home Depot has since removed the files from the site, according to Consumerist. The spreadsheets didn’t contain credit card data, bank account information or Social Security numbers — all of which are legally protected, and land whomever exposed it in legal hot water. In other words, leaving this non-financial/non-SS personal information accessible on the internet (however indirectly) isn’t necessarily illegal.

It is, however, terrible for an exposed user’s privacy — and could potentially leave them open to future scamming. Names, phone numbers and physical and email addresses are all details that could be used in a phishing attempt to pretend familiarity while asking for more crucial information.

The personal data left online were all complaints logged for Home Depot’s MyInstall program, which the company offers to help customers communicate with contractor installers. It included product types, installation services and the name of the person servicing the complaint — yet more details that could have further helped scammers pretending to contact customers on an official basis.

To be clear, this wasn’t a breach of security, just an unfortunate patch of customer data erroneously left open to the public.

“The information was out there, and as hard as it would have been for anyone to find, it shouldn’t have been. This was an inadvertent human error that we addressed as soon as we discovered it. Although the data was low-risk, we take the matter very seriously,” a Home Depot spokesperson told Engadget over email.

Unfortunately, even though the data wasn’t released as the result of a deliberate hack, it was still available for an unknown period of time. We won’t know the ramifications of this mistake unless someone attempts to take advantage of any of Home Depot’s 8,000 unlucky customers affected.

Source: Consumerist

Facebook creators will profit from people stealing videos

Facebook’s video platform has grown like a weed, mainly thanks to auto-plays and a significant rise in accounts presenting other people’s work as their own. In 2015, the company introduced a video matching system aimed at curbing the practice, and now it’s taking that one step forward with the promise that original video creators can profit when other people pirate their creations.

According to Facebook, the updated version of its Rights Manager tool will still tell rights owners when their work has been stolen, but it can now also automatically act on their behalf too. When a video is flagged, creators can decide whether they want the system to block offending content immediately after it’s been uploaded, monitor the pirated video’s metrics in order to make a more informed decision or simply decide at a later date.

Rights owners will also be given the option to claim ad earnings against video content that matches their own. Facebook is still in the early days of testing ad breaks midway through videos, but if a flagged video does generate an advertisement, the original creator can claim a share of the cash. YouTube employs a similar policy, allowing rights holders to profit from videos flagged by Content ID.

It’s a notable step by Facebook, as it attempts to lure viewers away from YouTube and Twitch towards its own News Feed and Live platforms. It knows that if creators can’t trust it to filter copycats, they may not consider posting there at all. Facebook says the updates are already rolling out and will be available globally in the coming weeks.

Via: Recode

Source: Facebook Newsroom

Feud Between Apple and Qualcomm Continues as Apple Stops Paying iPhone Royalties Completely

About two weeks ago, Qualcomm reported that Apple suppliers were underpaying royalties in the second fiscal quarter of 2017, as a way for Apple to regain the unpaid royalties owed to the company by Qualcomm. At the time, Qualcomm wasn’t sure whether or not Apple would continue to pay royalties at all, and today the manufacturer — which provides LTE modems for iPhones — has said that Apple will not pay its iPhone suppliers for royalties related to sales in Q1 2017.

Furthermore, Qualcomm stated that Apple has “indicated it will continue this behavior until its dispute with Qualcomm is resolved.” The royalty cut-off hurts Qualcomm because the manufacturer’s licensing deals are directly with iPhone suppliers.

The total loss of royalty revenue is estimated by Qualcomm to be about $500 million, which is expected to hit the company hard in terms of share prices and investors watching the dispute between the two companies. In its report adjusting the financial guidance for the third quarter of 2017, Qualcomm’s previous estimate of $5.3 billion – $6.1 billion in revenue has been marked down to $4.8 billion – $5.6 billion, amid the ongoing suing and counter-suing actions taking place between Qualcomm and Apple.

In a statement, Qualcomm general counsel Don Rosenberg said that the company will continue to “vigorously” defend its business model as the legal dispute continues.

Qualcomm Incorporated today announced that it has been informed by Apple Inc. that Apple is withholding payments to its contract manufacturers for the royalties those contract manufacturers owe under their licenses with Qualcomm for sales during the quarter ended March 31, 2017. Apple has indicated it will continue this behavior until its dispute with Qualcomm is resolved.

“Apple is improperly interfering with Qualcomm’s long-standing agreements with Qualcomm’s licensees,” said Don Rosenberg, executive vice president and general counsel of Qualcomm. “These license agreements remain valid and enforceable. While Apple has acknowledged that payment is owed for the use of Qualcomm’s valuable intellectual property, it nevertheless continues to interfere with our contracts. Apple has now unilaterally declared the contract terms unacceptable; the same terms that have applied to iPhones and cellular-enabled iPads for a decade. Apple’s continued interference with Qualcomm’s agreements to which Apple is not a party is wrongful and the latest step in Apple’s global attack on Qualcomm. We will continue vigorously to defend our business model, and pursue our right to protect and receive fair value for our technological contributions to the industry.”

The legal dispute between the two companies follows a complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission, stating that Qualcomm used anticompetitive tactics to remain on top of the LTE modem supply chain for smartphones. Another contributing factor to the bad blood between the companies centers around Apple’s decision to start using modem chips from Intel in some of the iPhone 7 devices launched last year, instead of tapping Qualcomm exclusively like it usually does.

Apple claimed that Qualcomm was charging unfair royalties “for technologies they have nothing to do with,” since the manufacturer provides only one part of the whole of the iPhone. “Despite being just one of over a dozen companies who contributed to basic cellular standards, Qualcomm insists on charging Apple at least five times more in payments than all the other cellular patent licensors we have agreements with combined,” the Cupertino company stated in its lawsuit.

Tags: lawsuit, Qualcomm
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Life may seed from planet to planet in TRAPPIST-1 system, study finds

Why it matters to you

If life exists on one planet in the relatively nearby TRAPPIST-1 system, it could potentially inhabit many.

In February, NASA announced the discovery of seven Earth-sized exoplanets in the TRAPPIST-1 system, three of which orbited in the habitable zone. Now, researchers from the University of Chicago have concluded that, if life does exist in that solar system, it could feasibly be transferred from planet to planet.

It won’t be easy for this to happen though. Sebastiaan Krijt, one of the researchers behind the study, told Digital Trends that a number of conditions have to align. “Life must develop on one of the planets, an impact has to eject life-bearing material from that planet, and this material needs to avoid being sterilized during the initial impact, the transfer to, and the impact onto another habitable planet,” he said.

The concept of life seeding from one planet to another (known as lithopanspermia) has been speculated for decades. Some experts even argue that life on Earth may have originated elsewhere, brought here by an asteroid many millions of years ago. Having previously discussed the idea with his co-author, Tim Bowling, Krijt decided to test out the hypothesis in the TRAPPIST-1 system after February’s announcement.

The researchers ran several simulations of rocks being expelled from the TRAPPIST-1 planets, which are relatively tightly packed within the sun’s habitable zone. In total they tallied 100,000 simulated trajectories and found that, with the right conditions, life could feasibly transfer in a period as short as 10 years.

Still, Kirjt admits there’s a lot of uncertainty and the likelihood of all the conditions being met is rare. “What our research suggests however, is that surviving the journey between planets should be much easier in a compact system like TRAPPIST-1 than in, for example, our own solar system, because the timescales associated with transport in TRAPPIST-1 are orders of magnitude shorter,” he said.

A paper detailing the study was published this week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Pixel and Pixel XL will get guaranteed updates until Oct. 2018, security patches through Oct. 2019

Pixels will receive at least two platform updates.

Last year, Google provided a timeline for when the Nexus 6P and 5X will stop receiving guaranteed updates. The company is now doing the same for the Pixel and Pixel XL. Like the Nexus devices, the Pixels will pick up guaranteed platform updates until October 2018, which will be two years from their release date. The phones will continue to receive software patches through October 2019.

The update schedule is exactly the same as what we’ve seen for the Nexuses last year, but with the Pixels being sold as premium devices, there was a belief that Google would continue to support them for longer. With the company now providing a specific timeline, that doesn’t look to be the case. That said, the Pixels are guaranteed two platform updates — the Android O update later this year, and the Android P update that will eventually make its way to devices sometime in 2018.

Google may continue to deliver updates after that time — it has done just that in the past — but there won’t be any obligation to do so for the Pixels. You’re still getting guaranteed updates for two years, and security patches through the end of 2019.

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How to use Game Tools on the Samsung Galaxy S8

What are Game Tools and Game Launcher and why are they so important this time around?

Samsung introduced Game Tools on their phones starting with the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, and then retroactively added the feature to the Galaxy S6. Turning on Game Tools on those phones activated floating button, which provided easy access to a bunch of really handy settings for screen recording and avoiding distractions during gaming marathons.

With the Galaxy S’s unique 18.5:9 aspect ratio, pretty much every game is going to feature ugly letterboxing by default.

A notable feature on the Galaxy S8 is the switch from physical buttons to on-screen navigation control. Samsung has integrated the Game Tools icon into the navigation bar when you’re playing a game, keeping it always at close hand without a clunky floating button. It’s a subtle but significant change that keeps everything in a standard location without distracting from the on-screen action.

With the Galaxy S’s unique 18.5:9 aspect ratio, pretty much every game is going to feature ugly letterboxing by default. Samsung has addressed that with an option to scale and adapt games to fill the full screen built right into the Game Tools Menu. Other options let you disable notifications, turn off the home button’s functionality during gameplay, as well as turn off touch sensitivity around the edges of the curved screen — all crucial features for not getting distracted while playing.

How to turn on Game Launcher

If you’re planning to play games on your Galaxy S8, you’ll definitely want to turn on Game Launcher, which unlocks the Game Tools menus during gameplay.

Tap the Settings icon from your app drawer.
Tap Advanced features.
Tap Games.
Tap the toggle switch to turn on Game Launcher.

To actually set up and configure the Game Tools settings, you’ll need to actually launch a game and access the Game Tools menu.

How to use Game Tools while playing

Accessing the full suite of Game Tools options while you’re playing a game is really easy — simply swipe to reveal the navigation buttons and you’ll see two extra buttons flanking the standard home, back, and recent apps buttons.

The one on the left is the Game Tools main menu, while the one on the right can be set up as a shortcut to take screenshots or record video. If you’re planning to record video, you’ll want to tweak those recording settings there ahead of time.

The key features included in the Game Tools menu are:

• Full Screen — Arguably the most important button in the menu. By default, games will play with letterboxed black bars on the top and bottom or sides (depending on orientation). Turning on Full Screen will scale up your games to make use of the full screen, edge to edge. Toggling this will force the game to restart.
• No alerts during game — Pretty straight forward. This disables notifications from popping up and ruining your flow.
• Hard press button lock — Disables the ability to accidentally tap the digital home button.
• Edge touch lock — Disables touch sensitivity around the curved edges of the screen to help you avoid accidental touches.
• Screen Touch Lock — Pauses the game and locks the screen. Swipe to unlock the screen and return to the game.
• Screenshot — Tap to quickly take a screenshot while in the heat of the action. Sure beats trying to press the power and volume-down buttons!
• Record — Lets you quickly record gameplay videos as you play, with options to record yourself via the front-facing camera and microphone for creating your own Let’s Play videos and live streams.

These settings will remain in place across all your games, so you won’t have to individually turn on Full Screen mode with all your games.

Opposite the main Game Tools menu is the shortcut button, which gives you quick access to one of three actions: take a screenshot, start and stop recording video, or turn on Screen Touch Lock. It’s very easy to setup and can be changed on the fly as needed.

Long press the Shortcut button.

Select your preferred action.

If you’re planning to record and share your gameplay footage, you’ll want to head into the video record settings to set up things just the way you want. You have the option of including a profile image or logo on your video capture, or turn on the front-facing camera for that classic Let’s Play picture-in-picture video format. You’ll also want to set the video resolution, but be aware of that there are recording limitations — the Galaxy S8 is able to record up to 4GB per recording, which equates to 80 minutes of gameplay at 1080px resolution, its highest setting.

And that’s it!

Have you been gaming on the Galaxy S8? What do you think of the Game Tools and how does the experience hold up against previous phones you’ve owned? Let us know in the comments!

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