Samsung Pay support comes to more banks in the UK

Samsung Pay now available for HSBC, First Direct and M&S Bank customers.

Samsung Pay’s UK rollout continues today, with the addition of three new banks for Samsung’s mobile payment service. From today, customers of HSBC, First Direct and M&S Bank can use Samsung Pay on supported devices, in addition to launch partners MBNA, Nationwide, and Santander.

Samsung Pay’s UK bank support is still nowhere near as comprehensive as Android Pay, which covers just about all major high street banks in the country. Nevertheless, the addition of new banks is a step forwards, giving customers more choice when it comes to mobile payments. In today’s media release, Samsung notes that more partners, including American Express, will be getting onboard soon.

Samsung Pay currently supports the Galaxy S8, S8 Plus, S7, S7 edge, S6 and S6 edge (with a software update) — in addition to the mid-range Galaxy A3 2017 and A5 2017 phones with an over-the-air update. The service will be coming to more Samsung phones in the near future, the company says.

More: How to set up Samsung Pay on the Galaxy S8

Professor Layton gets Pokemon Go treatment, gotta solve ’em all

Another game that became a craze on Nintendo consoles is has been turned into a real world, AR and social treatment for smartphones – much like Pokemon Go.

The Professor Layton series has been hugely successful on DS then 3DS, with numerous games featuring the puzzle-solving, adventuring exploits of the Professor and his assistant Luke. Now a browser-based free game for iOS and Android has been released that will eventually present 50 puzzles all around the world for you to solve.

Layton’s Mystery Journey: Real World Puzzle Solving stars Professor Layton’s daughter Katrielle and places puzzles in 10 countries around the globe, kicking off in Japan today, 20 June. It lasts for three months (until 21 September) and different puzzles will drip feed into famous locations in each region throughout.

The first puzzle is presented by Pikotaro (creator of viral hit PPAP) and you can watch it below. Others will appear in major cities, including a larger-than-life character wandering the streets of Shibuya, with a suspicious top hat that could be a clue. He or she will appear from 23 June to 30 June.

A giant puzzle piece will also appear in London between 20 to 23 July. Head to London’s Waterloo Station to find out what it is.

Many others will appear in other cities, but we’ll leave you to figure them out. All the puzzles will give you clues to a major end goal.

You don’t have to worry about getting your passport out, however. Players will be encouraged to share hints through their Google or Twitter accounts. That way everybody gets to solve the mystery without using up their airmiles.

You can start your adventure by visiting layton.world through your phone, tablet or even PC browser. Good luck!

The online game has been created to help promote new iOS, Android and 3DS title Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaire’s Conspiracy, which is release on 20 July.

Echo alerts you to voice or text messages with a yellow light

Now that the Echo has become a handy way to place calls and send messages, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to tell them apart? Amazon is about to make it a lot easier to do just that by changing how it notifies you of voice and text messages. As before, the device signals that you’re receiving calls by illuminating a green rotating ring light, but it now shows any new message, whether voice or text, via a solid yellow light.

🚨New light alert 🚨Coming soon to an Echo near you, yellow light = new message (voice or text) awaits. Green light = incoming call. 💛📩💚📞 pic.twitter.com/jNp96NxqtM

— Amazon Echo (@amazonecho) June 19, 2017

Until now, Echo devices (including the Echo, Echo Dot and 2nd-gen Echo Dot) would flash the green ring light until you checked your messages. They may have decided to change it as that indication is fairly similar to the rotating green light for calls, however.

Amazon got some grief when it first launched calling, because it allowed anyone who had your contact info to reach you, while making it very difficult to block them. It has since remedied that by finally adding contact-by-contact call-blocking a month later, but US users (calling isn’t available anywhere else yet) must call customer service if they want to stop the feature altogether.

Given what appears to be a rapid consumer adoption — it is pretty convenient to just yell at Alexa when you want to place a call — expect Amazon to roll out more features that make it handier and, hopefully, safer.

Source: Amazon (Twitter)

Google can turn an ordinary PC into a deep learning machine

Time is one of the biggest obstacles to the adoption of deep learning. It can take days to train one of these systems even if you have massive computing power at your disposal — on more modest hardware, it can take weeks. Google might just fix that. It’s releasing an open source tool, Tensor2Tensor, that can quickly train deep learning systems using TensorFlow. In the case of its best training model, you can achieve previously cutting-edge results in one day using a single GPU. In other words, a relatively ordinary PC can achieve results that previously required supercomputer-level machinery.

It’s also very flexible: there’s a standard, modular interface that lets you use virtually any training model, data set or parameters. You don’t need to replace everything just to change one component. And since it’s open source, you could easily see the community share its own models to help you get started.

It’s doubtful you’ll use Tensor2Tensor at home, of course, since you still have to be steeped in deep learning know-how to make it work. However, this could open the door to researchers that don’t have the luxury of a many-GPU setup to train their deep learning systems in a reasonable amount of time. This should help them finish projects faster, or give them time to produce higher-quality results.

Source: Google Research Blog

What we’re playing in June

Welcome back to Gaming IRL, a monthly segment where several editors talk about what they’ve been playing in their downtime.

Gaming IRL is part of a broader series in which you’ll find stories from all of the areas we cover: gadgets we use every day, the apps and services we adore, what we’re watching and the music and podcasts we can’t live without.

Today is all about gaming. E3 is done and dusted for another year, but every year there are dozens of great games released, all of which are available right now. Fittingly, our picks this month range from a 1997 sim all the way up to a game that was released just today.

‘Nex Machina’

Aaron Souppouris
Features Editor

Nex Machina is Housemarque’s latest twin-stick shooter. For some, that’s enough to warrant an instant purchase — for the rest of you, here’s why you should care. The Finnish developer, best known for Resogun and Dead Nation, set out to create a spiritual sequel to Robotron: 2084, and it’s nailed that brief. The controls are tight, the action is as frantic as you’d hope, and the difficulty scales to insane highs without ever feeling unfair.

I am neither a perfectionist nor a completist, but something about arcade games flips a switch in my brain that makes me need to chase that high score. As such, Housemarque’s Resogun is the only game I have ever “100-percented” across my Steam and PlayStation libraries.

In my time with the game, I learned wave patterns, uncovered secret exits, and generally lost myself to the leaderboards. The search for perfection is aided massively by a replay function that lets you view other people’s playthroughs via the leaderboards to see what they’re doing differently than you. At one point in the closed beta, I (or, thanks to the Steam account I was playing on, “Engadget”) was in the top ten of virtually every stage and challenge. Once I get the time, I’ll be headed back to reclaim that spot.

Twenty-five hours in and I’m convinced Nex Machina is the best twin-stick shooter ever made. Out today at $20 (£15), I can’t recommend it enough.

‘Old Man’s Journey’

Nicole Lee
Senior Editor

Can a puzzle game make you cry? I didn’t think that was possible, until I played Old Man’s Journey. I was initially drawn to it because I’m generally a fan of pretty puzzle games like Two Dots and Monument Valley, so I thought I’d give it a shot. Just like the latter, the puzzles in Old Man’s Journey are weaved into a larger overall story. But while Monument Valley is set in an abstract fantasyland of optical illusions, Old Man’s Journey is set in our world (albeit with a slight suspension of disbelief). And it is this aspect that makes Old Man’s Journey unusually emotional, touching me in a way that I didn’t expect.

The game starts with a house on a sea cliff, waves crashing the shore beneath. Sitting by the house’s stoop is an old man. A mailman comes by and gives a letter to him. He opens it and his eyes widen. He then goes into the house, rummages around, and emerges with a backpack and a walking stick. The old man is off on a journey, and it is your mission to guide him through all manner of obstacles to his mysterious destination.

As I hinted above, the physics in the game don’t really make sense. To get the old man on his way, you have to elevate and lower mountains by dragging their horizon lines up and down like some kind of an omnipotent god. Get them in alignment and voilà, the old man can just hop across them. From there you can guide him through the next scene. The scenes get more complicated as he goes on; it starts with rolling hills, but you soon have to guide him through waterfalls, train tracks and even the dark ocean floor.

After each successful stage, the man sits down, either on a bench or a rock, and reminisces. This kicks into beautiful flashback cutscenes that often consist of nothing more than a slightly animated drawing, like hair blowing in the wind. It is these cutscenes that tell the story of the old man. As he continues on his journey into unfamiliar territory, his flashbacks get more intimate, more personal. At the very end of the game, as I fully learned the story of the old man, I couldn’t help but feel emotional. This old man’s story moved me, and I cried.

Old Man’s Journey is more than just a game. It’s a story, a deeply compelling one, that just happens to be told through a finger-dragging, finger-tapping puzzle game.

‘Theme Hospital’

Kris Naudus
Senior Editor, Database

Theme Hospital was $1.49 on GOG.com last week, so of course I bought it. I intended just to play “a little bit,” but found my entire evening gone in the blink of an eye. Good simulation games have a way of sucking you in, even when they’re as ostensibly silly as a medical game where your patients suffer from comically inflated heads and extended tongues. However, returning to Theme Hospital was a different experience for me than when I played it as a teenager 20 years ago. Not just because the menu and loading-screen graphics are very much a product of their time — trending toward roundness and silver everywhere, with visual references to the CD-ROMs the game was originally stored on. But also because I am now an adult in charge of her own medical care, and the choices I made as a hospital director were absolutely horrifying to someone who’s spent time in doctor’s offices and clinics.

Simulation titles like Theme Hospital focus on the things they can quantify: the number of patients who arrive at the hospital, how many doctors are available to see them, the number of seconds each virtual patient spends waiting and whether you have the proper treatment facility. There’s a simple chain of programming logic there. What the game isn’t as concerned about is whether this hallway is too cramped, or you’ve blocked the windows or if that room is too far a walk.

The game actually incentivizes placing treatment rooms far apart, as the long trip gives the virtual doctors time to finish up with the previous patient. It doesn’t penalize you for the time patients spend traveling; that’s their problem. Same with how you lay out the hallways or the bathroom. Larger offices and adequate break areas will keep your doctors happy, but Theme Hospital is not really concerned with how the patients feel, so long as they’re not waiting too long and there are enough benches in the building. It also doesn’t care about how anything looks. You can turn your hospital into a warren of twisty corridors and the only penalty is to your personal sense of aesthetics.

I’d say that Theme Hospital boils health care down to a game of numbers, but let’s face it, that’s a lot like how it works in the real world too. That’s what makes it so scary, but also what drives me to keep playing, to prove that things can be better.

‘The Flame in the Flood’

David Lumb
Contributing Editor

There’s something serendipitously synchronous between video games and the great outdoors. You’d expect one to be anathema to the other, but both share elements of undaunted adventure — of potential wonder unraveled by discovery. The Flame in the Flood was released back in January, a Don’t Starve–esque wilderness survival indie game that ditches the supernatural to focus on the thrilling wonder of eking out life in the dangerous wilds. I picked the game up on sale and delayed playing until I needed it, which is something the game’s scrappy survivalist bent would respect.

A little banjo, some folksy crooning and a loyal dog are all that accompany your heroine, Scout, as she rafts down a river filthy with mankind’s detritus. In other words, it captures the lonely thrill I remember from camping as a kid, overwhelmed by a natural world indifferent to humanity. There’s all manner of craft recipes and environmental metrics to wet any outdoorsperson’s whistle, but it’s the rush of skirting past dangerous rapids or sliding around a boar on a bone-breaking charge that best convey the game’s conceit of self-reliance in the wild.

Other games have tighter crafting mechanics or a less constricted play area, but The Flame in the Flood is a gorgeous little vision, a Huck Finn journey forcing you to make do with the clothes on your back and the raw elements you find along the way. Even the pause menu is tonally spartan, listing the game’s version of a Scout survival motto: Travel by raft, rest when possible, kindle fires to keep warm, keep your inventory stocked … and survive, survive, survive. Sure, there are a million questions to answer about how the world got to be such an abandoned mess … but I’m sure I’ll find another scrap of revealing lore, and some supplies, on the next midriver stop.

‘Minecraft’

Rob LeFebvre
Contributing Writer

I’ve been playing Minecraft since it first hit alpha status on the Mac back in 2010. For me it was an instant hit, with an open world that I could explore and extract resources from. Figuring out recipes on various internet forums was also part of the charm, and once Creative mode came out, I was building massive castles in the blocky mountains and re-creating huge battleships with friends on the high seas. There’s something incredibly Zen about digging down deeper and deeper, or crafting bizarre architectural creations, that keeps my mind in a flow state like nothing else. My interest definitely waned in the intervening years, but I still dip a toe in now and again, inviting my younger cousins to play on my Realms server or trying out the PS4 version with the Skyrim texture pack.

It wasn’t until the release of the Switch version of Minecraft, however, that I again became a full-on Minecraft addict. Suddenly I found myself grabbing Nintendo’s new portable hardware to dig and build long into the evening. Minecraft, not Zelda, continues to hold my attention, both on the go and on my big TV. The extra set of Joy-Cons I bought helps more of my family play Mario Kart, sure, but I really just wanted to do some couch co-op in the worlds installed on my Switch. With the news of cross-platform play, I can’t wait to drop into worlds my friends have created on Xbox One, PC and mobile — it’s like the first true unified gaming platform, enabled for this most wondrous of digital experiences.

‘Dots & Co’

Nathan Ingraham
Deputy Managing Editor

The past few months of my life have been spent moving — that means lots of packing, unpacking and general disorganization. A consequence of that is that my consoles were largely packed away for a good two months (not like I would have had much time to play them anyway).

To fill the void, I’ve been spending plenty of time playing mobile games instead, and one in particular has sucked up much of the little free time I’ve had: Dots & Co. I’ve tried all three of the Dots games, and for some reason I find this one the most entertaining. Part of it is the aesthetic — it’s a bit brighter and cheerier than Two Dots. Part of that is the addition of “companions” that boost your powers and help you get through various levels.

Those powers add enough variety to the gameplay that I’ve plowed through dozens of levels and not gotten tired of it. For the most part, the puzzles are challenging enough that they feel satisfying to complete but don’t usually make me want to tear my hair out. The separate weekly “expeditions” provide a nice change of pace — you have to beat five levels without losing to complete them.

Across the board, Dots & Co is simply a well-balanced free-to-play game. It has great music and design, offers fun gameplay and puzzles and doesn’t bug you too much to spend real money. At some point, I’ll probably put it aside and not play for weeks or months (as I do with most mobile games), but it’s good to know it’ll be there waiting when I’m in the mood for it again.

“IRL” is a recurring column in which the Engadget staff run down what they’re buying, using, playing and streaming.

Ring’s updated doorbell stays in place while you swap batteries

Ring boasts that its smart doorbells reduce home break-ins, but its real killer feature is enabling you to screen out door-to-door salespeople. If you’ve been dragging your feet on buying one, then the advent of the Ring 2, with an upgraded 1080p camera, may be enough to tempt you. In addition, the updated video bell also gets a couple of new features designed to make it easier for lazy would-be smart home owners.

The biggest problem with the first-generation Ring is that it needs to be mounted and unmounted to the wall in order to recharge it. Speaking from experience, that means going out every three or four months and unscrewing it from its back plate. With version 2, the device simply lifts up its lower end to expose a swappable battery that can be taken indoors to refuel.

Much like the Ring Pro, the Ring 2 also gets swappable faceplates, enabling you to match the device to the color of your home’s facade. Rounding out the (new) spec list is improved night vision and a slightly revamped design that tapers out some of the first-generation’s boxier appearance. If that’s enough to separate $199 from your wallet, head on down to Best Buy, Home Depot, or the company’s official website.

Source: Business Wire

Amazon UK adds Dash buttons for beer and batteries

It’s already pretty easy to find and purchase products on Amazon, thanks to a wide array of apps and additional hardware like the Echo and grocery scanner. However, Dash buttons make things even simpler. Fix one to the fridge and every time you run out of your favourite home product, hit the button and it’ll instantly re-order what you’re after. In the US, the program is already two years old and spans over 250 different products, but in the UK, where the program isn’t yet a year old, things are a little more sparse. That changes somewhat today with the addition of 20 new products that range from batteries and beer, to coffee and vitamins.

Amazon’s expanded selection includes major brands like Duracell, Glade, Heineken, Mentos, Mr. Muscle, Tassimo, Wellman and Wellwoman (full list below). Like the buttons that preceded them, they cost £4.99 but Amazon says it will refund the same amount after their first press, essentially making them free.

As part of its announcement, Amazon also confirmed what Brits have been dying to re-order. Toilet paper is the most popular Dash button to date, no doubt pleasing Andrex, with Finish dishwasher tablets and Ariel washing capsules coming in second and third. At least now alcohol, mints and additional coffee pods have been added to the line-up, you might be able to enjoy some of the things you buy, rather than just using them to keep on top of chores.

Full list: Aquarian, Dad’s Root Beer, Duracell, Eukanuba, Glade, Heineken, Hycell, IAMS, Joseph Joseph, Kiwi, L’Or, Mentos, Mr. Muscle, Perfect Fit, Perfectil, Regina, Scott, Tassimo, Wellman, Wellwoman.

Source: Amazon UK

Pioneer Launches World’s First Lightning-Powered Plug-and-Play Speaker

Pioneer today introduced Rayz Rally, which it claims is the world’s first Lightning-powered plug-and-play speaker that has no battery.

The portable speaker can be used to listen to music, but Pioneer is heavily marketing it as a speakerphone for conference calling.

For conference calling, Pioneer says users simply plug the Rally into the Lightning connector, initiate calls from the iPhone, and the call is automatically transferred to the speaker. Despite being small enough to fit in a pocket, the speaker is supposedly loud enough to be used in a boardroom.

The speaker has a single button on the front that can mute/unmute calls or play/pause music depending on what it’s being used for. A standard Lightning to USB cable can be plugged into the Rayz Rally to use the speaker with a Mac or PC, or to enable pass-through charging to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

The speaker works in tandem with Pioneer’s free Rayz Appcessory Companion App on the App Store [Direct Link] for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Pioneer said the Rayz Rally is available today for $99.95 on Apple.com and at Apple Stores worldwide in the colors Ice, Onyx, and Space Gray. It’s also available on Amazon in the United States. Prices vary by country.

Tags: Pioneer, Lightning, Pioneer Rayz
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Apple’s ‘Stopping Leakers – Keeping Confidential’ Employee Seminar Leaks Online

New information about the lengths that Apple will go to in order to prevent and track down leaks has been shared online today by The Outline, which obtained a leaked recording of an internal briefing used by Apple to educate employees on the culture of leaks. Called “Stopping Leakers – Keeping Confidential at Apple,” the presentation is said to last one hour and be led by a team of Apple’s best security and communications experts including David Rice, Lee Freedman, and Jenny Hubbert.

The briefing was held for around 100 employees earlier this month and is believed to be the first of many such secretive events planned by the Cupertino company. The presentation included information on Apple’s Global Security team, which employs an undisclosed number of investigators worldwide “to prevent information from reaching competitors, counterfeiters, and the press.” The team is stacked by former members of the NSA, FBI, Secret Service, and U.S. military, and when leaks do occur, they hunt down sources to relay the information back to Apple headquarters.

Throughout the presentation, short videos were played that show Apple CEO Tim Cook presenting a new product on stage during one of the company’s keynote addresses, reminding employees of the importance of its big reveals.

After the first video concludes, Hubbert addresses the room. “So you heard Tim say, ‘We have one more thing.’ So what is that one more thing?” she asks. “Surprise and delight. Surprise and delight when we announce a product to the world that hasn’t leaked. It’s incredibly impactful, in a really positive way. It’s our DNA. It’s our brand. But when leaks get out, that’s even more impactful. It’s a direct hit to all of us.”

Although former CEO Steve Jobs was well known for his intense secrecy, Tim Cook is continuing those efforts with force as well, according to Apple vice president of iPod, iPhone, and iOS product marketing Greg Joswiak.

“This has become a big deal for Tim,” Greg Joswiak, Apple’s Vice President of iPod, iPhone and iOS product marketing, says in one of the videos. “Matter of fact, it should be important to literally everybody at Apple that we can’t tolerate this any longer.” Later, Joswiak adds that “I have faith deep in my soul that if we hire smart people they’re gonna think about this, they’re gonna understand this, and ultimately they’re gonna do the right thing, and that’s to keep their mouth shut.”

The briefing then looked into the “behind the scenes of leaks” that have happened from Apple’s supply chain and in Cupertino itself, with Rice stating that Apple has so successfully reduced factory leaks last year that 2016 was the first year that Apple’s campuses leaked more information than its supply chain. He even compared Apple’s screening of its factory workers to be more intense than that of the TSA.

Although leaks from its own campuses have increased recently, Rice ensured the employees gathered that Apple does not have “a Big Brother culture” overseeing every move of every employee. Still, The Outline points out that the presentation didn’t shy away from Apple’s more intense mandates for preventing leaks, with Rice encouraging employees to be constantly vigilant about what they say in front of friends, families, and fellow employees.

“I go through a lot of trouble not to talk about what I work on with my wife, with my teenage kids… with my friends, my family,” an employee in one of the videos says. “I’m not telling you that you give up all relationships,” Rice says, “but that you have a built-in relationship monitor that you’re constantly using.” Apple employees are expected to be discrete in their own office. The hallway and the Apple lobby are referred to as “red zones,” which “aren’t places to talk,” Rice says. The fear of accidentally “breaking secrecy” may be why some newly hired Apple employees tend to delete their Twitter accounts.

During the confidential presentation, Apple assured workers that they could discuss the more normal aspects of the job with anyone they want, like how “crappy [their] boss is,” their pay, or report to the authorities if they witness illegal activities. But, continuing the theme of the briefing, Joswiak said that he ultimately hopes all Apple employees “do the right thing, and that’s to keep their mouth shut” regarding any unreleased hardware or software information.

Leaks and information surrounding the unreleased “iPhone 8” are suggested as a reason behind Apple’s upping of anti-leak education among its employees in Cupertino. So far, we have a pretty good picture of what the smartphone will look like when it launches this fall, including the addition of an OLED screen that measures 5.8 inches, Touch ID integrated under the display, a dual-lens rear camera, and with support for wireless charging.

The Outline has a full report on “Stopping Leakers – Keeping Confidential at Apple” and it’s well worth a read.

Related Roundup: iPhone 8
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Vertu will use TCL tech in its next generation of phones

Vertu’s smartphones are hand-built in England, but sold all over the globe to a glittering array of people with more cash than taste. But beneath that bejeweled case and green leather, it looks like what you’ll really be buying is a device from Chinese conglomerate TCL. The two companies have released an opaque statement, saying that $40 million has changed hands to let Vertu use TCL’s “innovative technology” inside its next run of 30,000 handcrafted phones.

It’s not clear, at least not from what Vertu has said, what the deal actually represents, but whatever the detail, it’s a big win for TCL. The company has made some way in establishing itself as a big brand, but has also worked hard to leverage other businesses’ historic name recognition. After all, it produces TVs for Samsung, co-brands TVs with Roku, owns the Palm brand and produces smartphones with Alcatel, Turing and BlackBerry logos.

Even if it’s just a supplier deal, TCL can proudly boast that its systems are behind some of the priciest smartphones on the planet. Although that may raise the heckles of gadget purists who see this as yet another deal where low-priced hardware gets a new logo and jacked-up price. After all, there’s the technology-sharing deal with Panasonic and Leica that sees some Lumixes dumped in new bodies, or Hasselblad’s Solar, which rebadged the $1,700 Sony A7 and sold it for $10,000.

Source: PRNewsWire