Have a PC? Play ‘Quake Champions’ during 10-day open tech test

Why it matters to you

PC gamers eager to get their hands on the multiplayer-only Quake Champions game can gain access for 10 days straight without the need for an invite code.

Quake Champions will be opened to all PC gamers from May 12 to 21, Bethesda said on Monday. The company is calling this event its Large Scale Tech Test, and an access code will not be required to play. The game will remain open to play 24/7 during the 10-day event.

Because the Large Scale Tech Test will be open to anyone, players of Quake Champions won’t be bound to a nondisclosure agreement. This will allow all players to stream, capture, and share anything regarding the upcoming shooter. Up until May 12, Bethesda is exclusively providing all information regarding Quake Champions.

In addition to the upcoming open beta, players new and old to Quake Champions will experience a new 4v4 team-based mode called “Sacrifice.” Bethesda doesn’t say much about this new mode other than that players will form teams and choose a Champion “to work together to dominate the Arenas.” It will join the current Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch modes.

Throughout the closed beta process that began on April 6, Bethesda sent out additional access codes to hopeful PC gamers each week. The Large Scale Tech Test will be the first time Bethesda throws open the Quake Champions doors to any willing PC gamer, so expect some initial delays.

Content-wise, there doesn’t appear to be anything new in regard to maps and Champions heading into the Large Scale Tech Test. The map list still consists of Blood Covenant, Ruins of Sarnath, and Burial Chamber.  The Champions roster includes Ranger, Galena, Scalebearer, Slash, Nyx, Clutch, and Anarki.

Bethesda’s Quake Champions is a multiplayer-only game for the PC that carries the torch passed on by Quake III Arena/Quake Live. It incorporates the multiplayer characters from Quake, Quake II, and Quake III Arena while introducing new “Champions” to the Quake mythos. The three maps introduced so far indicate that id Software will be heavy-handed in the Cthulhu-inspired gothic environmental design.

The first Quake hit the PC gaming scene in June 1996,and was one of the first titles to rely on polygons instead of traditional, flat sprites. Players take on the role of Ranger in “Operation Counterstrike” to take down an alien code-named Quake (aka, Shub-Niggurath). Its invasion is the result of humans tampering with teleportation technology.

Quake’s didn’t find huge success in the single-player campaign, but in its multiplayer capability. While players could battle each other in both multiplayer and campaign maps on a network, they could also play strangers online. Of course, the technology was in its infancy at the time partially due to the dependence on quirky dial-up modems, but Quake’s huge multiplayer success opened the doors to other games following down the online path, including Quake II and Quake III Arena.

Quake Champions is slated to arrive in 2017, and with the Large Scale Tech Test starting May 12, the game appears close to hitting retail. It will follow Quake 4, released in 2005, which was handled by Heretic/Hexen developer Raven Software.

MSI and SteelSeries partner to keep all of your gaming PC’s RBG lights in sync

Why it matters to you

PC ganers can now keep the RGB lighting on their SteelSeries keyboard and mouse in sync with their MSI motherboard.

If you’re building a gaming PC, then chances are you’ll want some color to go with all that power. Nothing adds color like LED lighting, and nothing makes that lighting more exciting than synchronizing effects across various system components.

A number of companies have technology that keeps lighting in sync between, say, a motherboard, GPU, and case. Now, there’s a partnership between two separate companies, MSI and SteelSeries, to get their RGB lighting technology in sync as well.

Specifically, MSI and SteelSeries are utilizing the latter’s SteelSeries Engine3 (SSE3) software to control the RGB lighting on MSI’s Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard. There’s no word in the companies’ announcement on whether any of MSI’s other motherboards will be plugged into SSE3.

The Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard offers RGB lighting across a number of components, including the I/O cover and heat sink. The LED lights offer up to 16.8 million colors and 17 effects, and can be controlled by MSI’s own Mystic Light app that runs on PCs, smartphones, and tablets. Some of the effects that can be enabled including breathing, wave, flashing, meteor, lighting, and rainbow.

Some of the functionality enabled by the partnership allows the SSE3 application to control the colors and effects of the MSI lights via macros and key/button bindings. Once the MSI motherboard is synced, it can work in parallel to the lighting provided on SteelSeries peripherals such as gaming keyboards and mice.

SSE3 provides a number of features, including PrismSync and GameSense. The latter feature allows users to use RGB lighting effects to indicate in-game situations such as health status and the amount of ammunition available. Some of the SteelSeries products that support SSE3 are the Rival 700 gaming mouse and the Apex M500 keyboard.

Using the SteelSeries integration doesn’t stop gamers from also making use of MSI’s own RGB lighting software. Rather, it’s just another way to allow gamers to customize their gaming rigs and gain access to new ways to keep up with their gaming status.

Huawei Honor Note 9 leaks and rumors

Why it matters to you

Looking for a phone with a big screen? The Huawei Honor Note 9 is shaping up to offer one of the bigger screens out there.

The Huawei Honor Note 8 was launched in August 2016, so it’s about time we start hearing rumors about a follow-up — the Huawei Honor Note 9. Well folks, based on what we’re hearing from the rumor mill, the Honor Note 9 is shaping up to be quite a device.

As rumors trickle in, we’ll continue to update you on all the latest information about the Honor Note 9. Here’s everything we know about the upcoming phone so far.

Design

The latest leak pertaining to the Huawei Honor Note 9 actually comes in the form of an image that claims to show the back of the phone — and if it’s accurate, the Honor Note 9 could be an absolutely mammoth phone. The image comes courtesy of GizChina.

Not only can we see that the phone is big, but the photo also makes clear that the Honor Note 9 will feature a dual camera on its back — unlike its predecessor, the Honor Note 8. The back also houses a fingerprint sensor and a dual LED flash.

The photo also shows that the device will have a full metal body — which is great for those looking for a durable device. Given the fact that there’s a fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone, we can also assume that we won’t see any hardware buttons on the front. Hopefully that means it will have a large display.

The latest report from The Tech Point certainly suggests a large display, as per leaked images of the Honor 9 in its black color variant. And not only will it be big, but it’ll be headphone jack-less, much like the iPhone 7. So if you’re looking to plug your earbuds into a 3.5mm audio jack, you better look elsewhere.

Specs

Unfortunately, we don’t yet have any solid leaks about the specs of the phone, but we can make a few assumptions — namely that the phone will feature a new Kirin 960 chip. It’s also expected that the phone will feature a 2K display, although we’ll have to wait until we hear more rumors or until the phone is released to confirm that.

We’ll update this post as we hear more on the Huawei Honor Note 9.

Updated on 05-08-2017 by Lulu Chang: Added rumor that the Note 9 will not have a 3.5mm audio jack.

Instagram now lets you share photos, access Explore tab from mobile site

Why it matters to you

Even if you don’t have enough data or a strong enough connection for the full Instagram app, you can now share photos using the mobile site.

Far be it from Instagram to abandon its mobile roots, but the photo-sharing app certainly isn’t averse to some edits of its own, especially when that means reaching a larger user base.

The Facebook-owned social network recently gave its mobile website a huge upgrade, adding some of the most important components of its app, including photo sharing and even a stripped-down version of the Explore tab. That means that users in countries with slower networks (think India, parts of Africa, and other high-population but relatively low-tech regions) will be able to access the joys of Instagram, even if they can’t download the full app.

Previously, logging onto the mobile version of Instagram.com didn’t offer all that much functionality. Options were more or less limited to looking around — you could follow, search, and check out your notification center, but you couldn’t post anything. While you still can’t post from the desktop version of the website, that’s no longer true of the mobile site. Beginning in March, Instagram slowly began to introduce sharing, as well as the Explore tab, to its mobile version.

Keep in mind that you still can’t upload videos or send direct messages, but it certainly seems as though Instagram is getting closer to making its service a bit friendlier to areas of the world with expensive data and spotty connections. After all, parent company Facebook has proven just how useful lightweight versions of its apps are, so it comes as little wonder that Instagram is (sort of) following suit.

As Instagram told TechCrunch, “Instagram.com (accessed from mobile) is a web experience optimized for mobile phones. It’s designed to help people have a fuller experience on Instagram no matter what device or network they are on.”

So are we going to see an Instagram Lite in the coming months or year? Only time will tell.

Amazon’s next Echo, which will make calls, may be announced this week

The next Echo will probably let you talk to someone besides Alexa.

People have been saying that the new Amazon Echo will have a touchscreen and let you make video calls since early 2017. We’ve also seen some very official-looking renders of what is being touted as the next Echo, complete with a big screen, a video camera, and a speaker chamber. Today the Wall Street Journal jumps in and says everything we’ve heard is true. And we might see it as early as Tuesday (May 9).

This is probably going to happen. And soon.

More importantly, what does this mean for Amazon customers and Alexa? A touchscreen brings a whole new way to interact with Amazon’s assistant, and that might make things complicated or make them awesome. And Amazon has no infrastructure in place to make video calling a thing, so are they building that out or will they partner with someone like Microsoft or Kik?

Enquiring minds want to know. But for now, all we can do is wait.

Amazon Echo

• Amazon Echo review
• Echo Dot review
• Top Echo Tips & Tricks
• Tap, Echo or Dot: The ultimate Alexa question
• Amazon Echo vs. Google Home
• Get the latest Alexa news

Amazon

This is what Google’s new Fuchsia operating system looks like

Google is developing an entirely new operating system, and we now know what the interface looks like thanks to fresh leaks.

It was first revealed last year that Google has a new operating system in the works. It’s called Fuchsia. And Fuchsia has already been given an early user interface with a card-based design, according to Ars Technica, which posted a video and images of the yet-to-be-announced software. The interface is reportedly called Armadillo. It was actually first discovered by Kyle Bradshaw at Hotfix.

• Google Home just became the perfect sous-chef for your kitchen
• Will Google launch its own Bluetooth headphones soon? (Probably not)
• Google Waymo offers self-driving car rides to public for first time

Unlike Android OS or Chrome OS, both of which are based on Linux, Fuchsia is built on Magenta, a new kernel created by Google. Meanwhile, Armadillo is built in Google’s Flutter SDK, which is used to create cross-platform code capable of running on multiple operating systems. Ars Technica has compiled the Armadillo system UI, and it seems like Fuschia is intended to be a smartphone or tablet OS.

With Armadillo, different cards can be dragged around for use in a split-screen or tabbed interface. They even appear to offer up Google Now-like suggestions. Unfortunately, there’s not much else to go on. We don’t yet know what Google plans to do with Fuchsia. Will it replace Android and Chrome OS? Is it just a project Google is testing out? These are just a few of our unanswered questions.

But with Google I/O right around the corner, we may learn more about Fuchsia soon. We’ll keep you posted.

Instagram’s mobile website can do almost as much as the app

Instagram’s web version has usually played second fiddle to its phone apps. While you could check out photos or look at your notifications, you weren’t going to use it in place of native software. You might want to take a second look, though, as Instagram has upgraded its mobile website to add some of the core features that you take for granted in the app. The social network quietly added photo sharing in March, and just introduced the Explore tab. You still can’t apply filters, post videos, handle direct messages or view Stories, but all the basics are there.

The company tells our TechCrunch colleagues that this is about providing a “fuller experience” regardless of the “device or network” you’re using. To put it another way, it’s Instagram’s parallel to Facebook Lite. This helps people in developing regions use the service without having to download a relatively huge app (the iOS version currently sits at 101MB) over a slow connection, and extends compatibility to phones that have modern web browsers but can’t download the app for one reason or another.

And just like with Facebook Lite, there are strong incentives to reach this wider audience. If Instagram wants to keep up its rapid growth for as long as possible, it can’t just stick to people with fast data and the latest devices. It has to court the many millions of people that have just enough bandwidth and mobile computing power to post a snapshot. This expansion also reduces the chances that an upstart service will take Instagram’s potential users.

Source: TechCrunch

Amazon’s not-so-secret touchscreen Echo could launch this week

Well, it looks like Amazon’s touchscreen Echo is real after all. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company is expected to unveil the device as early as Tuesday (that’s tomorrow). As last week’s leaks indicate, it’ll have a 7-inch display with a camera on top and a speaker underneath. It’ll function much like the Echo does today, but with a few new features thrown in. One such function is apparently the ability to make internet-based telephone calls. As the WSJ reports, it could even function as an intercom in between Echo devices or between Echo owners.

The new touchscreen Echo would be the fifth such device from Amazon. There are three speaker-only models: the original Echo, the smaller Echo Dot and the portable Tap. The company also recently unveiled the Echo Look, a camera-speaker combo that gives you fashion tips (The Look is currently only available via invitation however). The Wall Street Journal reports that the touchscreen Echo is expected to retail at more than $200. By comparison, the Look is $200, the original is currently priced around $150, the Tap is $130 and the Dot is $50.

Even though Amazon is a pioneer in the smart speaker category, it’s faced some competition lately. Google released its own rival called Google Home last year, while Microsoft has partnered with Harman Kardon to create a Cortana-powered speaker called Invoke. Plus, there are rumors that Apple plans to unveil its own Siri speaker at this year’s WWDC.

Still, Amazon has a few years head start, with massive support from an array of third-party services and applications. Combined with continued investment in Alexa and in AI, Amazon is poised to be the leader of the pack for the foreseeable future. Even if this latest touchscreen Echo looks like a tiny mall kiosk.

Source: Wall Street Journal

T-Mobile quietly retires its ‘Free Data for Life’ iPad promotion

With all the carrier pricing battles going on these days, T-Mobile has quietly scuttled its “Free Data For Life” promotion, which offered a decent (by 2013 standards) 200MB of cellular data per month for new iPad owners who activated their devices on its network. A T-Mobile support page says the promotion is no longer available as of May 7th, 2017, but anyone who signed up prior to that date will still be getting a 200MB monthly allowance from T-Mobile for as long as they keep the device.

Besides giving new iPad owners (and Verizon or AT&T phone subscribers) a taste of T-Mobile’s network, the promotion reportedly jumpstarted iPad Air sales for the Un-carrier once Apple started selling the devices unlocked. Although the deal ran for about three and a half years, the company stopped promoting it alongside the most recent iPad upgrades. According to a statement sent to T-MoNews, the company recognizes that 200MB of data doesn’t go very far in 2017’s media-heavy internet and the carrier is now hoping to push users to its unlimited T-Mobile ONE plan. While those plans do offer unlimited LTE data for tablets as a $20 monthly add-on, users will have to go all-in with T-Mobile’s phone service to get that price.

Via: 9to5Mac

Source: T-MoNews

NVIDIA’s AI may keep watch over smart cities of the future

Artificial intelligence is pushing into every area of our life with deep inroads to our mobile devices, our video games, and even our own brains. Video surveillance could the next step if NVIDIA’s new video analytics platform, Metropolis, is successful. The initiative, announced just ahead of the annual GPU conference this week, will use learning AI to analyze the massive amount of data from surveillance video for “public safety, traffic management and resource optimization.”

According to NVIDIA, there are already hundreds of millions of surveillance cameras around the globe, with the number expected to rise to the 1 billion mark by 2020. Human beings have a hard time sifting through the flood of moving images, storing the majority of it on hard drives for later viewing. NVIDA thinks that deep learning AI can help video analytics much more accurately than humans or even real-time computer monitoring. The company has partnered with more than 50 companies that make security cameras, including Hikvision. “The benefit of GPU deep learning is that data can be analyzed quickly and accurately to drive deeper insights,” said Shiliang Pu, president at the Hikvision Research Institute in China.

A city with cloud-connected, AI-powered surveillance systems in place could find missing persons, notify residents of nearby emergencies, alert police to crimes in progress or even send out traffic congestion warnings. It could also track and monitor our behavior — both legal and otherwise — along with gathering personal data for advertisers. Tomorrow can be both exciting and scary at the same time. Whether the city of the future keeps us safe, keeps us in line or something in-between will depend on how we implement emerging technology like this now.

Via: VentureBeat

Source: NVIDIA