Steam Gifting changes crack down on code resellers

Steam has announced a few big changes to its Gifting process, and they could sound good or bad, depending on your stance. It’s putting the Gift to E-mail and Gift to Inventory options out to pasture, replacing it with a system that directly exchanges games from buyer to receiver. It’s most likely an action taken to curtail grey market trades, since resellers tend to buy several copies during sales to sell over time. However, that might also make it impossible for collectors to get old and rare titles. You can at least send gifts months in advance, though, in case you want your friend to receive the game on a special day.

That said, things are now more complicated if you have a lot of friends abroad: the gaming platform says you won’t be able send a gift if there’s a large difference in pricing between countries. That means you can’t send your friends across the globe that cool game during a sale if its price hasn’t been slashed in their region.

According to some NeoGAF forum posters, gifts won’t go through if the price difference is 10 percent or more. That part of the update also implies that you won’t be able to send games to regions where they’re not available, since Steam won’t have pricing to compare. We’ve reached out to the platform to confirm, and we’ll update this post when we hear back.

Even if you didn’t like the other updates in this rollout, you might like the last new feature in the list. You can now get your money back if you sent something the recipient already has. So long as your friend chooses to decline your gift, you’ll get a refund instead of getting the game back in your inventory.

Source: Steam

‘Titanfall’ returns to mobile as a real-time strategy game

Titanfall 2 might not have been the runaway success Respawn was hoping for, but it has a tight-knit community that love its parkour movement and robot-on-robot warfare. Now, with the help of Nexon and Particle City, the franchise is getting a strategy spin-off called Titanfall Assault. Details are scarce, but the pair is promising fast, real-time player-versus-player combat. You’ll be commanding a mixture of pilots and titans, upgrading a virtual “deck” that features both soldier types and tactical, match-shifting Burn Cards along the way. Victory will help you climb the game’s leaderboards and presumably unlock cards to tackle higher-ranked foes.

Respawn, Nexon and Particle City have tried a mobile Titanfall before. Last September the trio unveiled Frontline, a competitive card game similar to Hearthstone and Gwent. It was a strange use of the Titanfall name that didn’t last long. Four months later, the game was canned while it was still in closed beta. Assault sounds like a better fit, focusing on warfare and tight, strategic manoeuvres. Even so, it’s probably best to stay cautiously optimistic about this one. There’s no word on a release date, but if you’re interested you can “pre-register” for updates on the Assault website.

Source: Titanfall Assault

Apple just announced a $1 billion fund to create U.S. manufacturing jobs

Why it matters to you

We still have to see the details, but any major investment like this in U.S. manufacturing has to be good for American workers.

Apple boss Tim Cook announced the company is launching a $1 billion fund to help create advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

In an interview broadcast by CNBC on Wednesday, Cook said the fund would help the tech giant to be “the ripple in the pond, because if we can create many manufacturing jobs around, those manufacturing jobs create more jobs around them because you have a service industry that builds up around them.”

The move follows repeated calls by President Trump for American firms to return manufacturing jobs to home soil from locations overseas, though Cook gave no indication that his company would be setting up a large manufacturing operation in the U.S. to produce Apple products. At the present time the Cupertino-based company makes only the Mac Pro in its own back yard, while the vast majority of its products continue to be produced in China at facilities with far cheaper operating costs than in the U.S.

But Apple’s $1 billion fund may be seen as part of a strategy to help it get on the right side of the Trump administration, giving it more power to call for concessions to help its business operations. Issues currently of concern to Apple and other corporations include, for example, the government’s recent decision to suspend the expedited processing of H-1B visas that allow for the speedy recruitment of highly skilled  workers from overseas, while the Trump administration could also offer more favorable conditions to encourage U.S. firms to bring home large amounts of revenue currently held foreign banks. Of Apple’s $256.8 billion cash pile, 93 percent is held overseas.

More initiatives

In Wednesday’s interview, the Apple chief also commented on related matters, saying his company is looking “deeply” at how it can grow its employee, developer, and manufacturing base. It’s also developing initiatives to get more Americans coding and creating software, details of which will be announced over the summer.

Cook said he’s often asked if he believes it’s a company’s job to create jobs. “My response is a company should have values because a company is a collection of people. And people should have values, so by extension, a company should. And one of the things you do is give back,” he told CNBC, adding, “So how do you give back? We give back through our work in the environment, in running the company on renewable energy. We give back in job creation.”

Cook said Apple’s plan for its $1 billion fund is already in place and promised to reveal full details later this month.

The Cupertino-based company isn’t the only tech player to recently invest in helping create jobs at home. Amazon, for example, has promised to create 100,000 new full-time positions by summer 2018 and Intel is putting $7 billion into an Arizona chip plant.

Apple just announced a $1 billion fund to create U.S. manufacturing jobs

Why it matters to you

We still have to see the details, but any major investment like this in U.S. manufacturing has to be good for American workers.

Apple boss Tim Cook announced the company is launching a $1 billion fund to help create advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

In an interview broadcast by CNBC on Wednesday, Cook said the fund would help the tech giant to be “the ripple in the pond, because if we can create many manufacturing jobs around, those manufacturing jobs create more jobs around them because you have a service industry that builds up around them.”

The move follows repeated calls by President Trump for American firms to return manufacturing jobs to home soil from locations overseas, though Cook gave no indication that his company would be setting up a large manufacturing operation in the U.S. to produce Apple products. At the present time the Cupertino-based company makes only the Mac Pro in its own back yard, while the vast majority of its products continue to be produced in China at facilities with far cheaper operating costs than in the U.S.

But Apple’s $1 billion fund may be seen as part of a strategy to help it get on the right side of the Trump administration, giving it more power to call for concessions to help its business operations. Issues currently of concern to Apple and other corporations include, for example, the government’s recent decision to suspend the expedited processing of H-1B visas that allow for the speedy recruitment of highly skilled  workers from overseas, while the Trump administration could also offer more favorable conditions to encourage U.S. firms to bring home large amounts of revenue currently held foreign banks. Of Apple’s $256.8 billion cash pile, 93 percent is held overseas.

More initiatives

In Wednesday’s interview, the Apple chief also commented on related matters, saying his company is looking “deeply” at how it can grow its employee, developer, and manufacturing base. It’s also developing initiatives to get more Americans coding and creating software, details of which will be announced over the summer.

Cook said he’s often asked if he believes it’s a company’s job to create jobs. “My response is a company should have values because a company is a collection of people. And people should have values, so by extension, a company should. And one of the things you do is give back,” he told CNBC, adding, “So how do you give back? We give back through our work in the environment, in running the company on renewable energy. We give back in job creation.”

Cook said Apple’s plan for its $1 billion fund is already in place and promised to reveal full details later this month.

The Cupertino-based company isn’t the only tech player to recently invest in helping create jobs at home. Amazon, for example, has promised to create 100,000 new full-time positions by summer 2018 and Intel is putting $7 billion into an Arizona chip plant.

Now the Android Gmail app keeps an eye out for phishing links

In a particularly timely upgrade, Google is rolling out new protection against phishing links on its Gmail app for Android. According to the notes, when a user clicks on a suspicious link, they’ll get a warning like the one shown above revealing that this could lead to a forged website (similar warnings came to web Gmail last year). Interestingly, this wouldn’t have done much to mitigate the fake Google Docs invite that went around earlier since that linked to Google’s own website. Still, we have more than enough evidence of what havoc can come about as a result of one fake email — it’s good to see Google doing more to protect users.

Source: G Suite Updates

Qualcomm study says sure, you can control a drone over LTE

Internet-connected drones will be necessary if you’re going to see fliers that can communicate when they’re delivering packages, livestreaming video or otherwise coordinating with the outside world. But how well can you control them over an LTE data connection when they’re soaring hundreds of feet above the ground? Quite well, if you ask Qualcomm. The chip maker has published the results of a trial run using LTE-linked drones, and it believes that they’re ready for prime time… mostly.

The dry run (which included over 1,000 flights) showed that existing cellular networks are up to the job. Drones will still get a strong LTE signal at altitudes as high as 400 feet, and they get “comparable” coverage. In fact, they have an advantage over the phone in your pocket — they don’t have to hand over connections as often as ground-based devices.

There are improvements Qualcomm would like to make. It wants to see steps to minimize interference (more common at altitude) and signal power tweaks to allow more LTE-enabled drones in the sky at once. Also, it would like software that’s better at picking the strongest cell tower signal. It’s more a question of when these optimizations happen than “if”,” though. Qualcomm is sharing its findings with other companies and the 3GPP wireless standards group, so you might soon see drones that are always online.

Source: Qualcomm

Nissan put a phone signal blocker in this car so you can’t text and drive

Nissan doesn’t want you texting while driving its Juke.

There are apps available that attempt to make your phone less of a distraction while you drive, but now, Nissan has taken the concept a step further with its own compartment that blocks mobile phone signals. Even though people can put on a Bluetooth headset or set up automatic replies to texts, drivers still love to play with their phones rather than keep their eyes fixed ahead of them on the road.

• Nissan Juke review (2014)
• Nissan Juke review (first generation)
• Whoa! Is Nissan about to add Microsoft Cortana to its cars?

Nissan knows this, obviously, as it has developed a Faraday cage. Nissan said the prototype, called Signal Shield, comes built into the arm rest of its Juke crossover vehicle, and it promises to eliminate distractions caused by calls, texts, and other notifications. Keep in mind the product is not entirely new, as Michael Faraday discovered in the 19th century that conductive materials block electromagnetic fields.

Nissan’s spin is essentially a place where you can rest your phone while you drive – and all cellular, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi signals will be blocked. If you want to access tunes on your device, you can always connect it to the Juke via USB or aux cable. You can see a demo of the Signal Shield in the promo video below.

Signal Shield is certainly an interesting way for Nissan to tackle distractions, but unfortunately, at the end of the day, we think people who use their phone while driving will continue do so, even if they have a fancy Faraday cage sitting inches away.

Guarantee your mobile will never distract you while driving. Introducing #Nissan Signal Shield pic.twitter.com/kiW5sKgFm4

— NissanUK (@NissanUK) May 3, 2017

Reactions everywhere: Now you can ‘sad’ or ‘wow’ on FB comments

Facebook just gave you another way to express yourself.

The platform already allows you to interact and engage in a number of ways, whether you want to go live or broadcast a story, and now you can “sad” or “wow” on not only posts and individual message chats but also comments. Facebook said it’s “heard from people” who would “like more ways to show their reaction in conversations on Facebook”. So, now, reactions are everywhere.

The move comes one month after Facebook added reactions to Messenger. The feature was originally introduced for comments, allowing you to “love”, “haha”, “wow”, “sad”, “angry”, and of course “like” interactions on posts. In other words, gone are the days when we used words to express a reaction. Long live emoji! To add a reaction, hover over the Like button, and you’ll see the default options of six.

• Facebook Personal Fundraisers: What are they?

The feature is rolling out now on the desktop version of Facebook. If you don’t see it yet, be patient. We don’t know yet when the feature will be available for mobile users, but in the meantime, check out our full-fledged guide on Facebook Reactions. Oh, yes. We’re serious.

• What’s the point of Snapchat and how does it work?
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‘Intuitive’ prosthetic hand sees what it’s touching

Even as we begin to wire prosthetics directly into our peripheral nervous systems and wield Deus Ex appendages with only the power of our minds, many conventional prosthetic arms are still pretty clunky, their grips activated through myoelectric signals — electrical activity read from the surface of the stump. The “Intuitive” hand, developed by Dr Kianoush Nazarpour, a senior lecturer in biomedical engineering at Newcastle University, offers a third approach. It uses a camera and computer vision to recognize objects within reach and adjust its grasp accordingly.

“Responsiveness has been one of the main barriers to artificial limbs,” Dr. Nazarpour wrote in the study, which was published in the Journal of Neural Engineering. Even cutting-edge prosthetics like Dean Kamen’s Luke arm, move at a glacial pace compared to their biological counterpart. But by integrating computer vision and external processing, the Intuitive hand can respond within milliseconds. “The user can reach out and pick up a cup or a biscuit with nothing more than a quick glance in the right direction,” Dr. Nazarpour continued.

The team also leveraged neural networking to train the hand to recognize what’s in front of it and how it should change its grasp. Interestingly the team didn’t train the system on specific objects. “The computer isn’t just matching an image, it’s learning to recognise objects and group them according to the grasp type the hand has to perform to successfully pick it up,” Ghazal Ghazaei, a PhD candidate at Newcastle who helped develop the hand’s AI. “It is this which enables it to accurately assess and pick up an object which it has never seen before – a huge step forward in the development of bionic limbs.” In the end, the hand developed four unique grips: palm wrist neutral (holding a beer), palm wrist pronated (holding a remote), tripod (holding a bowling ball) and pinch (you know what pinching is).

But this system is only a stopgap solution. From here, the research team hopes to further develop the hand and integrate it directly into the nervous system, potentially via nerve endings in the arm. With that capability, the arm will be able to sense pressure and temperature and transmit that data directly into our brains.

Via: BBC News

Source: Newcastle University

Apple’s App Analytics Platform Now Includes Info on Where Customers Discover Apps

Apple today announced that its App Analytics platform in iTunes Connect now provides developers with insight into where customers discover apps, a welcome change that will give developers more information on where app referrals are coming from.

Developers will be able to see if customers are finding apps from App Store browsing and search, from within other apps, or from web referrals.

App Analytics in iTunes Connect now provides insight on where customers discover your app, including App Store browsing and search, within other apps, or on the web. With key metrics based on source types, you can see your top referring apps and websites, making it easier to optimize your marketing campaigns.

Apple first debuted its app analytics platform in May of 2015, giving developers a detailed look at app usage statistics to enable them to create more effective advertising campaigns.

Tags: App Store, App Analytics, Apple Developer Program
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