Microsoft expects consumers to ‘figure out’ which Xbox is which

The best way to keep a job as a marketer is to never go off message. That’s precisely what happened when I interviewed Xbox’s head of console marketing Albert Penello on our E3 stage this week. While he was more than happy to talk about the Xbox One X’s tech specs and the impact 4K gaming will have on everyone, asking harder questions about Xbox as an organization resulted in a lot of non-answers. But there were a few tells.

When I pressed him about Microsoft’s reliance on timed exclusives and seemingly abandoning original games in favor of sequels to its headlining franchises (Gears of War, Halo and Forza), for instance, he said this: “We’re clearly invested in game [intellectual property]. The industry’s not going anywhere, there’s going to be plenty of time to bring new IP.” Which is to say, Microsoft isn’t worried about creating a robust stable of original games any time in the near future.

Then there’s the explanation for how Microsoft arrived at the Xbox One X name:

“If you look at phones, there’s all kinds of different types of names used and people manage to figure it out. You’re gonna know ‘I want the 4K one,’ [you’re gonna know] by price or bundles or color; I think people will figure out which console they’re buying.”

Good luck getting a hapless Best Buy or Walmart employee to explain which one “the 4K one” is to someone who isn’t a NeoGAF member. Both the One S and the One X contain UHD Blu-ray drives, play 4K videos and support HDR. That’s to say nothing of their similar designs and the myriad colors and bundles each will be (One X) and is (One S) available in.

Thankfully, Penello was clear about which Microsoft franchise he’d love to see resurrected.

“Oh man, I’m gonna get in so much trouble for saying this. For me it would be MechAssault. I love robots and multiplayer; I think there would be a great modern interpretation of MechAssault. And I’m fired,” he said, laughing.

The last MechAssault that graced Xbox hardware was 2004’s MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf for the original Xbox. But hey, maybe we’ll get to play it again with the newly announced backwards compatibility program.

I’ll have a deeper look at the state of the Xbox coming later in the week, but for now, check out the video up above.

Follow all the latest news from E3 2017 here!

Google bets AI and human oversight will curb online extremism

Google is under a lot of pressure to stamp out extremists’ online presences, and it’s responding to that heat today. The internet giant has outlined four steps it’s taking to flag and remove pro-terrorism content on its pages, particularly on YouTube. Technological improvements play a role, of course, but the company is also counting on a human element that will catch what its automated filters can’t.

To start, it’s pouring more energy into machine learning research that could improve its ability to automatically flag and remove terrorist videos while keeping innocently-posted clips (say, news reports) online. It’s also expanding its counter-radicalization system, which shows anti-extremist ads to would-be terrorist recruits.

It’s the stronger reliance on people that may matter the most, however. Google plans to “greatly increase” the number of humans in its YouTube Trusted Flagger program, improving the chances that it’ll catch terrorist material. It’s likewise working with anti-extremism groups to pinpoint recruiting-oriented content. Google wants to tackle those YouTube videos that are borderline, too — if it spots videos with “inflammatory” religious or supremacist material, it’ll put those clips behind a warning and prevent them from getting ad revenue, comments or viewing recommendations. In theory, this strikes a balance between free speech and public safety.

To some extent, the plans are an extension of Google’s ongoing efforts, such as its plan to pull ads from extremist videos. Still, they might just assuage politicians who have threatened to institute legal mandates for anti-extremist takedowns. Google, Facebook, Twitter and others have already stepped up their collective fight against terrorism, but this is a relatively concrete roadmap. The big question is whether or not all these initiatives will be enough. AI-powered flagging and greater oversight could help, but the sheer volume of videos on YouTube makes it entirely possible that some footage will slip through the cracks.

Source: Google

Rapid-fire archery battles are the best way to do E3

Nothing gets rid of the E3 jitters like shooting an exploding arrow right at your social media manager’s face. Luckily, we brought TowerFall: Ascension to the E3 show floor this year, so nobody had to break out the actual bow hidden behind the Engadget stage.

Feminist Frequency founder Anita Sarkeesian and Managing Editor Carolyn Petit joined Engadget social media manager Evan Rodgers and senior reporter Jessica Conditt (that’s me!) on-stage at the heart of E3 for a live TowerFall gameplay session. After nearly a week of press conferences, surprise announcements and hands-on events, we all needed a few rounds of calming, couch-based, competitive playtime.

TowerFall landed in 2014 as a local-mutliplayer-only experience, and creator Matt Thorson is currently working on a new, single-player platformer called Celeste.

Follow all the latest news from E3 2017 here!

The best 6 cheap tablets to buy

You don’t have to break the bank to secure yourself a new tablet. There are plenty of budget options out there. If you’re willing to compromise, you can easily snag yourself a serviceable device for less than $200. Cheap tablets have improved fast in the last couple of years, and they’ve continued to drop in price as smartphones have grown larger and eaten into the tablet market.

If you’re feeling the pinch right now and that budget is limited, here are the best cheap tablets that $200 or less will buy you.

Amazon Fire HD 8 ($80)

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

This is a remarkably capable tablet for the price. The 8-inch display has a respectable 1280 x 800-pixel resolution, there’s 16GB of storage onboard with space for a MicroSD card, and the battery life is solid. It also comes with Alexa for quick voice searches and commands. If you just want a tablet for reading, games, and watching videos, then this will do the job. You’ll get more out of it if you’re invested in Amazon’s ecosystem, but the fact you’re limited to Amazon’s Appstore is going to understandably put some people off. Amazon does offer the even cheaper Fire 7 tablet at $50, but if you can stretch to the HD 8 we highly recommend that you do, because it offers a lot of small improvements that really add up when put together.

Buy it now from:

Amazon

Asus Zenpad S 8 ($180)

You should definitely check out the favorably reviewed, Zenpad S 8, if you’re shopping for a cheap Android tablet. Asus has been one of the leading manufacturers of Android tablets since the beginning, and this one offers great specs for the money. You get a quad-core, 64bit, Intel Atom Z3530 processor clocked at 1.3GHz, 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage with a MicroSD card slot to add more. It also has a 5-megapixel main camera and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. Best of all, there’s an 8-inch screen with a resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. If you want to play games and watch movies, this tablet will serve you well. It’s a stylish tablet that feels more expensive than it really is.

Buy it now from:

Amazon

Lenovo Yoga Tab 3 ($130)

This tablet sticks out because of the innovative rotating kickstand along the side, which also enables you to turn the impressive 8-megapixel camera. The versatile kickstand will prop your tablet in landscape, but it also has a hook in case you want to hang it up. The 8-inch screen has a 1280 x 800-pixel resolution, and there’s a 1.3 GHz Qualcomm processor inside with 2GB of RAM. You get 16GB of internal storage, but there is a MicroSD card slot for expansion. The big 6,200 mAh battery gives you plenty of power and it runs Android 5.1. It is a bit heavier than similarly-sized tablets because of that kickstand, but it’s ideal for watching movies on and it offers decent sound, too, via the dual front-facing speakers.

Buy it now from:

Amazon

Samsung Galaxy Tab A 7 ($150)

Here’s a portable tablet with nice build quality that offers a decent mix of specs for a low price. As the name suggests, Samsung’s budget tablet has a 7-inch display. The resolution is 1280 x 800 pixel, so this is fine for reading on. It has a decent quad-core processor inside with 1.5GB of RAM, which is about standard around this price point. You only get 8GB of storage, but there’s room for a MicroSD card. The battery life is very good. Unusually, the Tab A 7 also has a fairly decent 5-megapixel camera, as well as a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, so this is the cheap tablet to go for if the camera is important to you.

Buy it now from:

Amazon Best Buy

LG G Pad 7.0 8GB ($110)

At this price, you can forgive the wide bezels and the 1280 x 800-pixel resolution. Inside, you’ll find a 1.2GHz quad-core processor with just 1GB of RAM, but this tablet still performs surprisingly well in practice. You only get 8GB of storage and a 3-megapixel camera, but that’s counterbalanced by a decent 4,000mAh battery, which delivers around 10 hours of service. It’s a solid, 7-inch Android tablet that offers good value for money. If you want something to read on and maybe watch the odd video, this cheap tablet will do the job. Read our full review of the LG G Pad 7.0 here.

Buy it now from:

Amazon Best Buy B&H

Lenovo Tab 2 A10 ($145)

A tablet with a 10.1-inch display for well under $200 is not to be scoffed at. Thankfully, this is a major improvement over the original, fuzzy-screened A10. This time around the resolution is 1920 x 1200 pixels, there’s a 1.5GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, an 8-megapixel camera, and a 7,000mAh battery for up to 10 hours of juice on the go. It also runs Android 4.4 out of the box, but can be updated to Android 5.0 Lollipop. To put it simply, this tablet is an absolute bargain.

Buy it now from:

Amazon Best Buy Walmart B&H

The Pixel program is a mess [#acpodcast]

This week, Daniel, Flo, Alex and Jerry discuss the latest Pixel 2 rumors — will it be made by HTC, LG or both? — and what that means for the future of the Pixel program.

Also discussed:

• HTC did good with the U11
• Apple’s WWDC announcements: Is the iPad Pro 10.5 the best Google tablet around?
• Bixby sucks. When will it be good?
• The OnePlus 5 is coming, but is it a lot of hot air?
• Locked phones will be banned in Canada this year. How does that change things, and how does it compare to other countries like the U.S. and the UK?

This episode of the Android Central Podcast is brought to you by Thrifter, the best place to get great deals in your inbox every day!

Podcast MP3 URL: http://traffic.libsyn.com/androidcentral/androidcentral340.mp3

E-ink hybrid YotaPhone 3 announced, but don’t expect to see it anywhere outside of Asia

Yo dawg, we heard you like e-ink.

Remember the YotaPhone and the YotaPhone 2? They were those crazy phones from Russian manufacturer Yota that had a regular screen on one side and an e-ink display on the other. The first one pretty much sucked but the second version was not completely terrible, though it never made it to the U.S. as promised. Well, there’s going to be a third model.

You can flip to the ePaper panel in direct sunlight and laugh at the mere mortals who cower in the shade to check their phones — Russell Holly

Lilliputing tells us that Yota Devices has announced the YotaPhone 3 at the China-Russia Expo in Harbin. They didn’t share very many details but we do know that the 64GB model will retail around $350 and the 128GB model costs $450. Both will feature the dual-display combo, with a full-color display (no word on exact display type or features was given) on the front and an e-ink display on the back, just like the previous models.

Russian site Vedomosti also says that the YotaPhone 3 will ship in China this coming September and pre-orders in Russia will start at the same time. Considering the company’s track record, we don’t expect to see sales of this uber-niche device expanding too far outside its home range. But hey, it never hurts to hope.

Our own Russell Holly loved the last one, so if any inkling of a broader release with network support for North America gets kicked around, we’ll let you know.

‘The Daily Show’ celebrates the tweets of Donald Trump in new exhibit

The President tweets a lot. It’s quickly becoming part of his legacy, offering an unprecedented level of access to the commander in chief and leaving others in government scrambling to deal with the aftereffects of each post. Usually, reflections on presidential legacies tend to come at the end of the individual’s term in office, with an official presidential library foremost on the list. However, given the current pace of the Trump administration, The Daily Show decided to act a little sooner. This weekend it opened its own presidential Twitter library in midtown Manhattan to illustrate how our interactions with the president may have changed forever.

Every President since FDR has had a presidential library but, as Daily Show correspondent Jordan Klepper pointed out, Trump “communicates totally different than any president we’ve seen before.” We don’t know how much paperwork the president is generating, but we do see the tweets he sends out unedited and unfiltered. The library focuses on collecting those into a space where visitors can look at them as part of a larger whole.

Are you allowed to impeach a president for gross incompetence?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2014

The museum’s content was collected by the Daily Show’s digital department, which had to read every single one of Trump’s tweets as part of the show’s “Third Month Mania” event back in March. They picked out the ones they found most interesting and threw them into a tournament bracket, letting viewer vote on the best tweets in each round. The voters eventually settled on his “gross incompetence” tweet as the top post.

While it’s easy to dismiss this current project as a gag, given that it is a temporary exhibit put on by a cable show on a comedy network, the library takes its subject somewhat seriously. For the most part it refrains from pointed commentary, treating its subject to the same sort of organization and context you’d see for artworks in a museum gallery. A few choice tweets are printed out and framed, like the infamous taco bowl tweet and the more recent convfefe typo, with labels that give you the time, date and medium — “Twitter for Android,” of course. The cards also contain the sort of overwrought copy you often find on works of modern art talking about influences, like the taco bowl’s “oblique symbolism” that “embodies Trump’s trademark patriotism,” or comparing convfefe to Gilbert Stuart’s “Unfinished Portrait” of George Washington.

Happy #CincoDeMayo! The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. I love Hispanics! https://t.co/ufoTeQd8yA pic.twitter.com/k01Mc6CuDI

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 5, 2016

Daily Show host Trevor Noah said the museum is about “giving context to the tweets; not absorbing them one bite at a time, but looking at them as a body of work.” So the exhibit organizes and displays Trump’s tweets by subject, with comments on movies and TV shows grouped as “Constructive Criticism.” A entire pillar is dedicated to “Concern for the Integrity of the American Presidency,” featuring tweets from his period as a vocal birther.

Another wall in the library drilled down to more specific points of interest — like Trump’s commentary on the dissolution of Kristen Stewart’s and Robert Pattinson’s relationship. The tweets on this wall are presented as together as a narrative, a sort of physical version of Storify, focused on such ephemeral things as Diet Coke. A few of the president’s Twitter targets have their portraits on display as well, accompanied by the relevant tweet and a sound bite from them.

I know Mark Cuban well. He backed me big-time but I wasn’t interested in taking all of his calls.He’s not smart enough to run for president!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2017

Despite all this attention to replicating a traditional museum layout, The Daily Show still had a little fun with the concept. There was a giant Magnetic Poetry-esque display where you could rearrange typical Trump words into a tweet. A Trump nickname generator gave me the moniker “Sleepy Kris,” which honestly isn’t that inaccurate. The centerpiece of the exhibit was a stage replica of the Oval Office. But instead of sitting behind the Resolute desk, attendees were asked to put on a robe and sit on a golden toilet to compose a presidential tweet in 30 seconds. Noah said this is how they imagine Trump does most of his Twittering, no different from many of us. It’s not intended as an insult: Noah referred to him as the “millennial President,” with some of the same problems, like a fear of losing our job because of something we posted online.

But the similarities should end there — most of our tweets don’t have the power to affect the economy or foreign relations. The speed at which these presidential missives come is changing how the media reacts to the news, even a program like The Daily Show. Klepper explained that with so much information coming out, it’s more to pick and choose what they cover, drilling down into specific topics rather than trying to keep up with each new development.

The Daily Show does consider Trump’s Twitter official statements by the President, regardless of whether they’re being posted on a personal account. “He’s speaking for America,” Klepper said, especially since he doesn’t have a lot of press conferences and his tweets have the ability to affect policy. When I asked Klepper if he thought this could be the end of the prepared statement he said, “God, I hope not. It’s okay to get some unfiltered thoughts, but I do miss the days when people thought about what they were going to say and the consequences they have.”

The Fake News Media hates when I use what has turned out to be my very powerful Social Media – over 100 million people! I can go around them

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 16, 2017

This Twitter gallery is meant to be a living work, with a screen displaying Trump’s live feed that sounds an alarm whenever it’s updated. But like a deleted tweet the library is also ephemeral: It’s only open this weekend in New York, closing its doors on Sunday. That doesn’t preclude the Daily Show from doing it again, or taking it on the road to other cities. The library is even looking for sponsors, though Noah joked that an unnamed resort in Florida they contacted never got back to them.

Photos and additional reporting by Cherlynn Low.

‘YotaPhone 3’ isn’t the dual-screen powerhouse you were expecting

If you’re one of the few people who are still waiting for the next dual-screen YotaPhone, listen up: we finally have an update for you. During Harbin’s China-Russia Expo over the weekend, Baoli Yota — the joint venture formed by investor Baoli (formerly known as REX) and manufacturer Coolpad — teased its upcoming “Yota3” with a date: it’s due in the early fall later this year (almost four years since the launch of its predecessor) and will come with 64GB or 128GB of storage for a more favorable $350 or $450, respectively, according to RBC.

Not much else is said about the device nor its design, but a source revealed to Engadget that there’s nothing new nor innovative here: it’s merely a new model with bigger screens, yet it’s powered by a mid-range Snapdragon 625 chipset — the same silicon inside the ASUS ZenFone 3, Moto Z Play and BlackBerry KEYone.

According to a spec sheet provided to Engadget, the Yota3 packs a much bigger 5.5-inch 1080p AMOLED display on the front and a 5.2-inch 720p E Ink touchscreen on the back, both of which are the least you’d expect after such a long wait. Likewise, you’ll find a fingerprint sensor on the front side. It’ll also come with Android Nougat, 4GB of RAM, dual SIM slots (one of which also serves as a microSD slot), a 12-megapixel main camera with dual flash, a 13-megapixel front camera, a 3,200mAh battery and a USB-C port which also does audio output (ugh).

These specs don’t seem bad on paper, but only for now; the Snapdragon 625 will make the Yota 3 look obsolete by the time it launches this fall — our source indicated some time between October and November. The two previous YotaPhones might have been a bit late to the game, but at least they shipped with flagship chipsets.

It’s been quite a roller coaster ride for the dual-screen YotaPhone series. Back in October 2015, Yota Devices planned to sell 64.9-percent stake to investment company Baoli who was going to enlist ZTE to manufacture the Yota3, but Baoli ended up buying just 30 percent in the following April. This left Telconet with 34.9-percent majority share, Rostec with 25.1 percent and MTH Limited with 10 percent.

Despite Baoli having already set up a joint venture with Coolpad (instead of ZTE) later that year, Rostec CEO Sergey Chemezov revealed back in March that Yota3’s mass production was held up by Baoli’s refusal to allocate the necessary funding. According to our source, Baoli had been making moves to force its Russian comrades out of the operation, so much that Yota Devices’ former CEO Vladislav Martynov has allegedly filed a lawsuit against Baoli in the UK.

As of July last year, Martynov had already handed the CEO role over to COO Dmitri Moiseyev while remaining on the board, but that didn’t seem to work out on Martynov’s end, nor is it clear whether Moiseyev is still at Yota Devices. Efforts to reach either men for comment for this article were unsuccessful.

At this rate, the future of Yota3 remains uncertain despite its recent teaser in China. It is rather mind-boggling how this Russian-Chinese partnership has managed to drag on for this long in the rapidly changing smartphone market. Even if it manages to deliver the phone, it will be a tough sell with that aging chipset plus an apparent lack of new innovation.

Source: RBC, TACC, Vedomosti

Discover your rockstar stage persona in ‘The Artful Escape’

“It’s not an artist’s job to give people something they want, but to give them something they never could have imagined.” These words are spoken to Francis Vendetti in The Artful Escape, an upcoming game that follows a young guitar prodigy on a psychedelic journey to discover who he really is. In the moment, the words are meant to help Vendetti find his own path as a musician, but it feels like they apply to the game itself — a gorgeous, musical storytelling experienced disguised as a platformer.

To the quote’s point, The Artful Escape feels like a game beyond my normal imagination. Not so much for its surreal imagery, but for the narrative its slightly absurdist art tells. Vendetti is a musician with incredible expectations on his shoulder. He’s a talented guitarist, but he lives in the shadow of his uncle’s fame. Everyone in his life expects him to be a great folks singer, like his uncle or Bob Dylan — but he’s starting to discover that he wants to be a little more like David Bowie.

The game’s E3 demo explores this idea by following Vendetti across a surreal, but absolutely gorgeous landscape. The player leaps over obstacles with double jumps, or glides across large gaps by “shredding” on a guitar, causing the character to slowly float to the ground. Simply walking through these landscapes is enjoyable and relaxing — but it’s the dialogue that makes the game interesting. Ghosts and strange creatures occasionally pepper Vendetti with questions. What kind of artist are you? What motivates you? Where does creativity come from? Finally, characters challenge the player to a simple rhythm game.

The game’s creative director, Johnny Galvatron, says each of these moments color the game’s ending in some way — helping to decide the stage persona Vendetti will adopt during his first public performance. It’s simple, relaxing, visually rich and, above all, thought provoking. To me, that’s everything an indie game should be. In other words, something I could never have imagined.

Follow all the latest news from E3 2017 here!

Girl Scouts aren’t just selling cookies — they’re learning to code, too

Why it matters to you

We could be making progress towards closing the gender gap in the tech industry thanks to the introduction of computer science into the Girl Scouts.

Girl Scouts will soon know how to do a lot more than sell a mean box of cookies. As the times change, so too are the skills being touted by the national organization, and now, young women across America can earn recognition for demonstrating mastery of a very topical subject — cybersecurity.

The 105-year-old organization has long offered “badges” to Girl Scouts who have shown their expertise in various topics. Historically, they’ve spanned a number of different fields, from first aid to outdoor activities; from cookie selling to science. And now, in a partnership with security firm Palo Alto Networks, cybersecurity will be added to the lengthy list.

Rolling out over the course of the next two years, these badges will become available to Girl Scouts from kindergarten through 12th grade. And according to Girl Scouts CEO Sylvia Acevedo, the decision to add a cybersecurity badge was largely driven by the troops themselves. The executive told CNN that the Scouts were surveyed to determine which skills they were most interested in mastering.

“What we were really pleasantly surprised about is they wanted more computer science, specifically cybersecurity,” Acevedo said.

For younger Girl Scouts, getting a Cybersecurity badge will involved learning about data privacy, cyberbullying, and protecting themselves online. Older Scouts, on the other hand, will be able to learn how to code, become white hat (or ethical) hackers and create and work around firewalls, according to Acevedo.

And given that there are more than 1.8 million young women currently enrolled as Girl Scouts, this new badge could make a difference in terms of closing the gender gap in the tech industry.

“If the industry is going to tackle the cybersecurity problems of tomorrow, we’re going to need a robust and diverse talent pool,” said Rick Howard, chief security officer at Palo Alto Networks. The cybersecurity badge could be an important first step.