How BioWare will fix ‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’

The internet’s reaction to Mass Effect: Andromeda has been overwhelmingly negative. Whether the game’s pitiful user ratings on review sites are actually representative of what most players think is a question for another day, but it’s fair to say that the game had more than a few technical issues at launch.

Animation glitches, framerate drops and other bugs have marred the launch window, while general complaints about gameplay oddities have also been frequent. Things got so bad that BioWare promised an update on support last week. Today, we have the details on the patch, and planned future additions to the game.

Coming this Thursday is a patch that “addresses technical fixes” like crashes and improves peformance, and also adds the following tweaks to gameplay and systems:

• Allowing you to skip ahead when travelling between planets in the galaxy map
• Increasing the inventory limits
• Improving the appearance of eyes for humans and asari characters
• Decreasing the cost of remnant decryption keys and making them more accessible at merchants
• Improving localized voice over lip sync
• Fixing Ryder’s movements when running in a zig zag pattern
• Improving matchmaking and latency in multiplayer

An exhaustive set of patch notes is available at BioWare’s site.

Following Thursday’s release, BioWare says it’ll roll out a number of additional patch to improve “several areas of the game. Those include a deeper character creation tool, fixes for character appearance and hair modelling, improved “male romance options for Scott Ryder” and better conversations with the trans character Hainly Abrams. That final update is welcome — Abrams’ dialog has been the source of criticism in recent weeks.

Those updates will also come with performance and stability fixes, and BioWare says it’s “looking at adding more cosmetic items to single player for free.”

The updates will hopefully go a way to improving the overall experience for fans of the series. Whether they’ll do enough to overcome the game’s structural and narrative shortcomings is another question.

Roadside assistance is T-Mobile’s latest connected car freebie

T-Mobile’s SyncUP Drive dongle has enabled drivers to add 4G LTE connectivity, vehicle diagnostics and GPS monitoring to their older cars since the service rolled out in November. Now, the carrier is adding another feature that should serve subscribers well in cases of emergency: free roadside assistance. T-Mobile has teamed up with AllState Motor Club Roadside Assistance to provide tows, jumps and tire changes via the SyncUP Drive app. In addition, the Uncarrier is also offering a new payment plan that lets you get the $150 Drive dongle for a downpayment of $48 and 24 monthly installments of $2. That is, if you sign up for a 2GB or higher data plan.

Of course, T-Mobile isn’t the only major network to offer a service for vehicles. AT&T and Verizon already have competing options that also plug into the onboard diagnostics port of compatible cars. But today’s announcement gives T-Mobile a slight edge over its rivals, with a service that could be truly useful to drivers in critical situations. Existing SyncUP users will have to update their apps to access the new service and enroll with AllState Motor Club before they can use it.

Source: T-Mobile

Alphabet bests Uber in self-driving car reliability

It’s no secret that Uber’s young self-driving car program still needs work, but how does it stack up next to efforts from others? Not so well, it seems. California’s Department of Motor Vehicles has published stats showing that Alphabet’s Waymo is well ahead of the pack. While Uber’s autonomous system disengages about once every mile, Waymo’s only requires human intervention once every 5,128 miles. Nissan’s system, meanwhile, disengages once every 146 miles.

While this sounds like a condemnation of Uber’s technological chops, it’s more a reflection of the vast experience gap between the two. The ridesharing company had just over 20,000 miles of autonomous driving under its belt before its cars were temporarily kicked out of California, while Waymo had over 635,000 miles… in 2016 alone. This doesn’t let Uber completely off the hook (Nissan’s better disengagement rate came after 4,099 miles), but it would have been hard-pressed to compete with Waymo when it had just a fraction of the self-driving time.

The difference helps provide some context behind Waymo’s lawsuit against Uber. If you believe the allegations, Uber was catching up by pilfering technology that had taken thousands of hours to perfect. Whether or not that’s true, the stats show that Uber has a long way to go before it fulfills its dream of running an entire fleet of driverless cars.

Via: The Guardian

Source: California DMV (1), (2)

Netflix reveals ‘The Defenders’ arrival in security footage

Netflix has a healthy roster of Marvel shows at the moment with the likes of Iron Fist, Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. Those worlds are about to be consolidated, as the titular characters are set to team up for Netflix’s The Defenders later this year. Today, we found out when exactly that’s going to happen thanks to a cryptic teaser video.

The 15-second clip was posted earlier today, but has since been removed (although it’s been re-uploaded by unofficial sources). The black and white video is stylized as elevator security footage and shows the four heroes just standing there. Aside from Jones noticing the camera and destroying it, not much happens in the video, but it’s the details that give us some real information.

The video ends with a timestamp of “08:18:20:07” displayed in the upper right corner, suggesting that the series will premiere on August 18th. That suspicion is confirmed by visiting http://23.253.120.81 (based on the IP address in the top left of the video). This takes you to a website for the fictional New York Bulletin, where Daredevil’s Karen Page works. At the very bottom of the page, the site’s footer confirms that all episodes of The Defenders will be available on Netflix beginning August 18th.

As we already know, this new series doesn’t mean the end of the shows it’s based on. Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos said this past summer that after The Defenders, the existing Marvel shows and upcoming Daredevil spinoff The Punisher will get new episodes, likely in 2018 at the earliest.

Via: The A.V. Club

Source: YouTube

Revamped Mac Pro to Address Current Model’s Shortcomings in VR and High-End Cinema Production

In the midst of a flood of reveals and announcements surrounding the Mac Pro and iMac, Apple today gave a hint as to what the upcoming Mac Pro will be able to accomplish for high-end, professional users. Although little information was given about the revamped Mac Pro, Phil Schiller described it as the “highest-end” desktop system the company has created yet, and that it will be “designed for our demanding pro customers.”

TechCrunch asked Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, what the boost in the “pro” aspect of the Mac Pro will mean for the company’s power users. In response, Federighi mentioned software capabilities in the virtual reality space, as well as tasks centered on high-end cinema production.

I ask who, exactly, the pro customers are that needed the more powerful GPU in a Mac Pro most.

“There’s certain scientific loads that are very GPU intensive and they want to throw the largest GPU at it that they can,” says Federighi. “There are heavy 3D graphics [applications] or graphics and compute mixed loads. Those can be in VR, those can be in certain kinds of high end cinema production tasks where most of the software out there that’s been written to target those doesn’t know how to balance itself well across multiple GPUs but can scale across a single large GPU.”

Virtual reality is a noticeable shortcoming of Apple’s current Mac Pro line, as well as its iMac desktop computers. Although Federighi doesn’t go into any more detail about how VR support might function on the Apple ecosystem — including which headsets will be supported, and what software will take advantage of VR — it’s an interesting tidbit of information regarding the upcoming Mac Pro line launching sometime after this year.

In regards to virtual reality and augmented reality, in recent reports Apple has been more closely aligned with development on the latter technology, which doesn’t require a cumbersome headset and can be used with technology already on modern smartphones, as it was in Pokémon Go. Still, specific hardware has been rumored to be in the pipeline by Apple, most recently including an Apple-branded pair of AR glasses that would connect to iPhones and “show images and other information in the wearer’s field of vision,” but they’re predicted to be far from launch.

Apple has filed a collection of patents focused on virtual reality headsets that could in theory function with an all-new Mac Pro, but such filings have slowed down in recent years among Apple CEO Tim Cook’s well-known preference for AR over VR. Over the past few months, Cook has referred to AR as everything from a “profound” piece of technology that could “amplify” human contact to an idea that could result in a paradigm shift as “huge” as smartphones.

Rumors currently suggest that Apple’s AR glasses could launch in 2018, but any news regarding an Apple-branded VR headset have been quiet for over a year. As such, it’s likely that the upcoming Mac Pro will support third-party VR headsets from companies already in the market.

Related Roundups: Mac Pro, Apple VR Project
Buyer’s Guide: Mac Pro (Buy Now)
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Microsoft Launches New iOS Camera App ‘Sprinkles’ With Machine Learning Features

Microsoft recently debuted a new iOS app called “Sprinkles – Camera with Fun Ideas” [Direct Link], which launches alongside the recent explosion of camera-centric application updates that offer various filters, emojis, lenses, and captions for users to mess around with. The app officially launched on April 1, suggesting the company intended it as an April Fools’ prank, but it’s only recently begun to be noticed online, and as of writing remains on the App Store’s “New apps we love” section.

Sprinkles has a slight advantage above its competitors from Facebook and Snapchat thanks to Microsoft’s AI and machine learning abilities, which can “do things like detect faces, determine the photo subject’s age and emotion, figure out your celebrity look-a-like, suggest captions, and more” (via TechCrunch). The app can tell when a subject is frowning, for example, and automatically input a relevant caption, like “turn that frown upside down.”

Similar to Snapchat, Sprinkles will include filters and emojis related to the day of the week or the time of day that will surface on their own each time the user opens the app. Sprinkles acts in a similar vein to Apple’s recently announced app “Clips,” in that it isn’t a social network itself, but allows users to create images and videos and share them elsewhere on Facebook, Twitter, text, or email.

Sprinkles is a camera with fun ideas. Snap a pic and automatically get new ideas for witty captions or add your own quip. Captions are unique to what’s in the picture, so try different things such as coffee, food, pets, and selfies! Have fun with face-detecting Smart Stickers that fit your face perfectly. Choose from hundreds of Emojis and stickers and find even more with a quick web search. New captions and Smart Stickers are added frequently, because fresh fun is the best fun.

Microsoft is known to create apps specifically tailored for iOS devices, last year having launched “Microsoft Pix” on the App Store as a way for users to automatically adjust their photos using smart AI. In November, the company even debuted its classic Solitaire game for PCs as a standalone iOS and Android app that included Klondike, Spider, FreeCell, Pyramid, and Tripeaks.

Tag: Microsoft
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Apple Apologizes About Mac Pro’s Lack of Upgradability, Ensures It’s Still Committed to Pros

Apple recently invited a small group of reporters to Cupertino for a roundtable discussion about the future of the Mac.

Apple revealed to them a relatively minor spec bump to its current Mac Pro lineup, but the bigger news was that it’s working on a “completely rethought” Mac Pro that will feature a modular design. The all-new Mac Pro, which won’t launch until at least next year, will be Apple’s highest-end, highest-throughput system.

Apple said the new Mac Pro will be accompanied by an Apple-branded external display geared towards pro users. Apple appears to be reversing course after discontinuing the Thunderbolt Display, and reportedly exiting the display business. It most recently partnered with LG on the UltraFine 4K and 5K displays.

Apple also said that it’s working on new iMac models that will be unveiled later this year, but it remained tight-lipped about what to expect. Meanwhile, Apple said the Mac mini remains an “important” product in its lineup, and one that it will continue to sell, but it did not reveal any plans for future updates.

It isn’t often that Apple pre-announces new products in its pipeline, but there were growing concerns that Apple no longer cared about professional users, and this is Apple’s way of proving otherwise. Apple stressed that it remains committed to the Mac and pro users throughout its entire media briefing.

Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller apologized about the “pause in upgrades and updates” to the Mac Pro, and promised that Apple will have “something great” to replace it, according to TechCrunch. The Mac Pro went 1,202 days without an update prior to today’s spec bump, per the MacRumors Buyer’s Guide.

“If we’ve had a pause in upgrades and updates, we’re sorry for that — what happened with the Mac Pro — and we’re going to come out with something great to replace it.”

Schiller also apologized about the current Mac Pro’s lack of upgradability and expandability, per Daring Fireball:

We’re not going to get into exactly what stage we’re in, just that we told the team to take the time to do something really great. To do something that can be supported for a long time with customers with updates and upgrades throughout the years. We’ll take the time it takes to do that. The current Mac Pro, as we’ve said a few times, was constrained thermally and it restricted our ability to upgrade it. And for that, we’re sorry to disappoint customers who wanted that, and we’ve asked the team to go and re-architect and design something great for the future that those Mac Pro customers who want more expandability, more upgradability in the future. It’ll meet more of those needs.

Schiller said Apple chose to be more transparent with today’s news because it “cares deeply” about pro users that “invest so much” in the Mac:

“We’ll talk about what’s going on and frankly be a little more transparent with some of the things we’re doing, some of the places we’re going, because our pro users desire that and we care deeply about them and we’re dedicated to communicating well with them and helping them understand what we’re doing and what we’re up to. We want to be as transparent as we can, for our pro users, and help them as they make their buying decisions. They invest so much in the Mac, we want to support them, and we care deeply about them. So that’s why we’re here.”

The overall tone was that Apple is committed to the Mac, even if the iPhone accounts for some two-thirds of Apple’s revenue.

We’re committed to the Mac, we’ve got great talent on the Mac, both hardware and software, we’ve got great products planned for the future, and as far as our horizon line can see, the Mac is a core component of the things Apple delivers, including to our pro customers.

In the end, the comparatively small but vocal community of pro users was loud enough that Apple likely felt it needed to respond now, rather than keep its plans for new products under wraps until later. It’s exciting news for Apple’s pro customers, even if some patience is still required until Apple’s roadmap materializes.
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New Mac Pros Added to Apple Store, But 8-Core Model Currently Unavailable Online

Following a surprise Mac Pro update today, Apple has now listed the repriced configurations on its online store. Essentially, this is just a pricing adjustment: the former $3,999 model is now the $2,999 base model, while the previously built-to-order 8-core model with dual D700 GPUs is now the high-end stock configuration.

The base model Mac Pro with a 3.5GHz 6-core Intel Xeon E5 processor, dual AMD FirePro D500 GPUs, and 16GB of RAM is available to purchase now for $2,999 online and at select Apple Stores in the United States, Canada, and select other countries. Online orders ship in as little as one business day.

The higher-end model with a 3.0GHz 8-core Intel Xeon E5 processor, dual AMD FirePro D700 GPUs, and 16GB of RAM is listed as “currently unavailable” online, with no purchase button yet. Just moments ago, the model was listed as available in “30 business days,” but Apple has removed that timeframe.

Today’s spec bumps have raised the entry-level Mac Pro to a 6-core processor with 16GB of RAM for $2,999, compared to the former base model with a quad-core processor and 12GB of RAM. Likewise, Apple used to sell a high-end 6-core Mac Pro for $3,999, but has today bumped that model to 8-cores for the same price.

There are no other hardware changes to either model, but upgrade pricing for built-to-order configurations is now cheaper. Upgrading from 6-core to 8-core or 12-core, for example, used to be $1500 or $3000 respectively, but it is now $800 or $2000 respectively. AMD FirePro graphics upgrades are likewise cheaper.

The news came today in a collection of announcements that Apple unveiled to journalists near its headquarters in Cupertino, including a confirmation of new pro-level iMac models coming later in 2017 and a promise that the Mac Mini is still “important.”

Apple also announced that it is working on a “completely rethought” version of the Mac Pro, as well as a pro display that works with the system, but Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller admitted that “you won’t see any of those products this year.”

Related Roundup: Mac Pro
Buyer’s Guide: Mac Pro (Buy Now)
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Intel Kaby-Lake G processors could incorporate HBM2 memory

Why it matters to you

Although just a rumor for now, this expanded seventh generation of processors could see the first integration of Intel and AMD hardware.

Intel may have a new seventh-generation line of Kaby Lake processors in the works, purportedly called Kaby Lake-G. The new processors are said to use a blend of 14nm and 10nm hardware, alongside HBM2 memory and a discrete graphics chip on a separate die.

Although unconfirmed by Intel at this time, the hardware giant has in the past said it was looking toward more “heterogeneous” designs which blend various processor technologies on a single chip. With that in mind, Benchlife (via WCCFTecH) claims to have seen Intel slides which suggest a new expansion of the seventh-generation processor lineup aimed at laptops and embedded solutions.

Purportedly two designs are planned so far: a 65w chip and a 100w alternative. Each features four cores and will feature a GT2 graphics chip connected to the main processor through a PCIExpress x8 bridge, with High Bandwidth Memory 2 (HBM2) on the CPU chip used as the graphics processor’s (GPU) VRAM.

More: Intel pledges that Cannon Lake chips will be a ‘full generation ahead’ of rivals

Most curiously, the design is said to have no on-board cache, which is a real departure from processor designs of recent years. It is said to utilize a separate platform controller hub (PCH) which incorporates extras like networking, Wi-Fi, SATA drivers, USB control, touchscreen compatibility, and BIOS functions.

One question raised by this rumored design leak is whether AMD has any involvement with it. At the end of 2016, we heard tell that Intel had begun licensing AMD graphics technology. AMD is the only graphics card maker so far that has shown itself capable of integrating graphical hardware with HBM memory, which it did in its Fury line of graphics cards. While HBM2 is a new generation of that, Intel’s surprise adoption of it does hint at possible AMD collaboration.

Regardless, if the rumors are true, this will be one of the largest chips that Intel has produced in some time, measuring in at 58.5 x 31 mm — far bigger than current desktop designs, which are 37.5 x 37.5mm.

Best app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time

Everyone likes apps, but sometimes the best ones are a bit expensive. Now and then, developers make paid apps free for a limited time, but you have to snatch them up while you have the chance. Here are the latest and greatest apps on sale in the iOS App Store.

These apps normally cost money, and this sale lasts for a limited time only. If you go to the App Store and it says the app costs money, that means the deal has expired and you will be charged. 

More: 200 Awesome iPhone Apps | The best Android apps for almost any occasion

Fake a Text Conversation

This app will let you simulate a fake text message conversation that can get you out of potentially awkward situations. You can add photos to it, and then a screenshot of the conversation is saved to your camera roll.

Available on:

iOS

Simpler Pro

Simpler Pro is a completely redesigned contacts app that makes your address book light, smart, and user friendly.

Available on:

iOS

Lock Notes Pro

Keep your most valuable, private, and secret notes away from prying eyes. Keep them all totally secret and safe. Store passwords, secrets, contacts, and more.

Available on:

iOS

Direction Compass

This is the “must have” tool to locate yourself easily whether it be in a town or city, while out hiking, on a boat, or somewhere else entirely. The map itself is a compass and orients itself automatically.

Available on:

iOS

ScanBee

ScanBee turns your iPhone into a portable scanner. It allows you to scan any document into a high-quality PDF file.

Available on:

iOS

Change

Change is a beautifully well-designed and simple app that helps you convert currencies easily. All you need to do is choose your currency and slide right or left to compare other currencies.

Available on:

iOS