Nintendo continues to flourish with strong Switch sales

With the Switch riding high and the beleaguered Wii U all but retired, Nintendo’s accounts are looking a little brighter than usual. The Japanese console maker posted some strong financial earnings today for the three-month period ending on June 30th, with 64.73 billion yen ($578 million) in gross profit and, with the usual operating expenses deducted, 16.21 billion yen ($145 million) in operating profit. That’s in stark contrast to a year ago, when Nintendo posted a pretty dismal 30.5 billion yen ($272 million) in operating profit and lost 5.13 billion yen ($46 million) overall.

Of course, a year ago the company wasn’t selling the Switch, a console which most consider to be a huge improvement over the Wii U. Nintendo sold 1.97 million portable-console hybrids during the quarter, bringing the system’s total lifetime sales to 4.7 million. For comparison, the Wii U has sold 13.56 million units to date. Sales of the Switch could be higher, however Nintendo has had some manufacturing issues which are limiting consume uptake. April to June was, however, the first full quarter of sales for the Switch, and gives some indication of its long-term popularity.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild remains the most popular Switch title, selling 1.16 million in the quarter and 3.92 million to date. In second place is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with 3.54 million lifetime sales, followed by 1-2-Switch with 1.22 million, and Arms, which only came out last month, with 1.18 million. With Splatoon 2 out the door and the long-awaited Super Mario Odyssey due in October, Nintendo has high hopes for the Switch. The company has forecasted 10 million sales for the current financial year (April 2017 to March 2018), alongside 35 million total software sales.

Nintendo’s 3DS family continues to sell, though obviously the company has its priorities elsewhere. In its financials, the company highlighted Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia as a “popular title” which contributed to 5.85 million total 3DS game sales. That’s down 31 percent year-over-year, which, while a huge drop, is unsurprising given the age of the platform and the tantalizing new (albeit more expensive) portable Nintendo has recently brought into the market. The company is also upbeat about its smartphone efforts, which drew in 9 billion yen ($80.5 million) over the quarter.

For Nintendo, the next few quarters is all about momentum. The Switch will likely succeed if the company can fix its supply issues and maintain a steady flow of games. Similarly, the 3DS will bob along provided it can keep shipping title like Hey! Pikmin, Metroid: Samus Returns and Pokemon Ultra Sun and Moon. On the mobile side, Nintendo has promised an Animal Crossing app, which could be a money-maker like the strategy-focused Fire Emblem Heroes. Oh, and it needs to deliver with the Super NES Classic Edition, building more than 10 so people can actually buy them this fall.

MIUI 9 goes live with UI tweaks, smart assistant, and split-screen mode

MIUI 9 includes a ton of new optimizations and a few much-needed additions.

At a media event in China, Xiaomi showed off the next iteration of its popular ROM, MIUI 9. MIUI is Xiaomi’s first product, with the first version of the ROM launching all the way back in 2010. Seven years later, the ROM has racked up over 2.8 billion downloads from 142 countries, and is translated into 55 languages. The Chinese manufacturer introduced a visual refresh last year with MIUI 8, and with MIUI 9, the focus is on refining the user interface and adding new features.

To that effect, Xiaomi is touting increased app load times thanks to optimized thread scheduling and CPU acceleration. The company also improved haptic feedback, and is introducing a new allocation model wherein the system prioritizes resources for in-use apps.

A new feature coming to MIUI 9 is a smart assistant that lets you search through apps, notes, images, and more to find the information you’re looking for. There’s also a new universal image search that lets you find images of a particular person or photos taken at a specific location.

There’s also a new smart app launcher that suggests apps to launch based on context in your conversations.

One of the more notable omissions in earlier versions of MIUI was the lack of a split-screen mode, and with MIUI 9, Xiaomi is rectifying that. The multi-window mode allows you to run two apps side-by-side, which comes in useful on devices like the Mi Max 2. Finally, the icons have picked up a much-needed visual refresh, and look much more modern.

The customizability of MIUI is also one of its biggest drawbacks, as the sheer number of features led to the interface becoming bloated and laggy. The optimizations should go a long way in addressing that problem.

Xiaomi mentions that most of the new additions — including the smart assistant, universal image search, and smart app launcher — will be limited to the Chinese version of the ROM for now. We should know more about what’s included in the global MIUI 9 build in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

Xiaomi brings dual cameras to the budget segment with the Mi 5X

The Mi 5X offers the same camera setup as the Mi 6 for half the cost.

Xiaomi switched up its dual camera strategy with the Mi 6, offering a phone with a standard 12MP sensor paired with a secondary 12MP telephoto lens. The company is now bringing the same camera configuration to the budget segment with its latest phone, the Mi 5X. The Mi 5X also offers 2x lossless zoom, but the phone will be sold for just $220 (¥1,499), nearly half the cost of the Mi 6.

The Mi 5X features a 5.5-inch Full HD display, and is powered by a Snapdragon 625 chipset. The phone has a full metal unibody design with rounded corners and antenna bands at the top and bottom, a look that’s similar to the Mi Max 2. Other specs include 4GB of RAM, 64GB storage, dual 12MP cameras with the secondary lens acting as a telephoto shooter, and a 3080mAh battery. Like the Mi 6, the Mi 5X also offers a Portrait Mode that blurs out the background.

The phone will be sold in three color options — black, gold, and rose pink — and the device is the first to run MIUI 9 out of the box. The Mi 5X will go up for sale in China in the coming weeks, and as of now there’s no mention of international availability.

Considering its price point and the fact that it has the same camera setup as the Mi 6, Xiaomi will likely launch the device in the Indian market soon.

Xiaomi rolls out a smart speaker with 360-degree audio sensing for $45

The Mi AI Speaker has an array of six microphones and ‘excellent sound quality.’

Xiaomi is the latest company to launch a smart speaker. Announced at the MIUI 9 event, the Mi AI Speaker has a design aesthetic that makes it looks like a miniature version of Xiaomi’s air purifier.

Controls for music playback are located at the top, and the speaker has six microphones for 360-degree audio sensing, and audio beam forming. The Mi AI Speaker has two audio drivers, with Xiaomi touting “excellent audio quality.”

Along with the ability to stream music, audio books, children stories, and live radio, the Mi AI Speaker will be able to hook into other services through plugins, giving customers the ability to take calls, get notification alerts and reminders (a feature that is yet to come to the Google Home), and be reminded of upcoming calendar events.

The Mi AI Speaker will retail in China for the equivalent of $45 (¥299), and like most of Xiaomi’s ecosystem products, it’s unlikely the speaker will make its way to other markets.

UK to ban sales of fossil fuel cars by 2040

France isn’t the only big country getting ready to ditch fossil fuel vehicles. The UK is planning to ban sales of new fossil fuel-powered vehicles (including vans) from 2040. It’s all about improving air quality, the government claims: airborne pollution is the “biggest environmental risk” to public health, and cutting off sales will help tackle pollution quickly. The move is part of a larger, £3 billion ($3.9 billion) strategy that will call on local government to retrofit buses, alter roads and even tweak traffic light patterns in the names of lower emissions and greater efficiency.

There have been hopes that officials would charge fees for driving in specific areas (such as London’s planned zero emission zone) or institute pollution-oriented taxes, but the government wants to avoid measures that could be interpreted as punishing drivers.

Not everyone is happy with the plans. Greenpeace tells the Guardian that this plan is “miles away” from achieving its goal of rapidly cutting pollution. There need to be clean air zones, and more funding to tackle local pollution. The sales cutoff certainly won’t address car-based pollution in the short term — you won’t have incentives to ditch your car before 2040, and you could keep driving your vehicle for a while longer than that.

Still, it’s a big step. The UK is one of the world’s most important car markets, and a fossil fuel car ban there will dictate what automakers around the world do with their lineups. This won’t be particularly difficult for British brands like Aston Martin and Jaguar, some of which are already moving toward electric cars, but they will have to say goodbye to a lot of their engine work within two decades. The automotive landscape was already going to change with the rise of EVs, to be clear — the UK is just giving it a big nudge in that direction.

Source: Guardian

Kaspersky launches its free antivirus software worldwide

Kaspersky has finally launched its free antivirus software after a year-and-a-half of testing it in select regions. While the software was only available in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, China and in Nordic countries during its trial run, Kaspersky is releasing it worldwide. The free antivirus doesn’t have VPN, Parental Controls and Online Payment Protection its paid counterpart offers, but it has all the essential features you need to protect your PC. It can scan files and emails, protect your PC while you use the web and quarantine malware that infects your system.

The company says the software isn’t riddled with advertisements like other free antivirus offerings. Instead of trying to make ad money off your patronage, Kaspersky will use the data you contribute to improve machine learning across its products. The free antivirus will be available in the US, Canada and most Asia-Pacific countries over the next couple of days, if it isn’t yet. After this initial release, the company will roll it out in other regions from September to November.

Kaspersky has been having a hard time doing business in the US recently, what with a recent wave of allegations that it’s a Russian stooge. Bloomberg, for instance, published a piece accusing the company of working with Russian intelligence. The security firm’s founder Eugene Kaspersky offered to provide a source code he said will prove that his company isn’t in cahoots with the Russian government. However, the US government still kicked Kaspersky out of the the lists of approved vendors covering IT services and digital photographic equipment.

Source: Kaspersky, Reuters

Chrome 60 Update Brings Touch Bar Support for New MacBook Pro Models

Google today released Chrome 60, introducing support for the Touch Bar built into 2016 and 2017 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pro models. After installing Chrome 60, MacBook Pro owners are able to add, remove, and rearrange Chrome shortcuts.

The Touch Bar settings can be accessed by through the Menu bar by going to View -> Customize Touch Bar. The new settings can be combined with existing Touch Bar options for things like controlling brightness and volume, and there’s a toggle for turning off predictive typing suggestions.

Today’s update also includes a long list of security fixes, which are listed in the Chrome release notes, and new and updated Web Budget, Payment Request, Paint Timing, and Credential Management APIs for developers. Also new is support for the CSS @font-face descriptor and font-display property for faster font loading on websites.

The new version of the Chrome browser can be downloaded from the Chrome website.

Tags: Google, Chrome
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Galaxy S8 Daydream rollout begins as Google promises support on 11 phones by end of year

As Verizon’s GS8 gets its Daydream VR update, Google CEO Sundar Pichai says a total of 11 Daydream phones will be available by the end of 2017.

It was promised back at Google I/O, and now the Samsung Galaxy S8 has started receiving firmware updates to enable Google’s Daydream VR platform. As spotted by 9to5Google, the update is hitting Verizon models first in the U.S., and also brings the option to hide the navigation bar — a feature which arrived on international and Indian GS8s in June.

GS8 owners should be able to enjoy a great VR experience with Daydream, thanks to its low-latency, high pixel density (especially on the smaller model) and subpixel rendering. The rollout is likely to be staggered across various carriers and regions though, so it could be a few more weeks until all Galaxy S8 variants are updated.

Meanwhile Google CEO (and new Alphabet board member) Sundar Pichai noted in yesterday’s Alphabet earnings call that there would be 11 Android phones with Daydream support on the market by the end of 2017.

It’s hard to pin down precisely how many unannounced Daydream phones are on the way.

It’s hard to work out exactly how many unannounced Daydream phones are on the way without knowing whether the figure of 11 considers dual-size phones like the Pixel and Pixel XL, or Galaxy S8 and S8+ to be separate devices. Nevertheless, future Daydream candidates include the LG V30 (already teased at Google I/O), Samsung Galaxy Note 8, Google’s second-gen Pixels and perhaps a future Mate phone from Huawei.

That’s in addition to the standalone Daydream headsets being developed by HTC and Lenovo.

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Niantic tries to explain the Pokémon Go Fest problems

On Saturday Pokémon Go players from around the world gathered in Chicago’s Grant Park for a promised special anniversary event, but as we now know, things didn’t quite work out. As Niantic Labs explains it, the issues that tripped up Pokémon Go Fest were layered, starting with technical issues that caused the client to crash, before tweaks to the servers fixed that. Once the clients worked, network congestion and overloaded cell networks held up players from connecting and staying connected.

None of those explanations are particularly surprising. However, Niantic says that once it expanded the available play area, through late Saturday and early Sunday, players in the downtown area caught more than 7.7 million Pokémon, 440,000 Legendary Pokémon and participated in more than 69,000 raid battles. Worldwide, players caught more than 500 million Pokémon and 1.9 million Legendary Pokémon in the same period.

The company isn’t announcing any other benefits for attendees beyond what it promised on Sunday, but it did reveal the schedule for Legendary Pokémon availability over the next few weeks:

• Articuno (Team Mystic) released on Saturday, July 22 and available through Monday, July 31.
• Moltres (Team Valor) to be released on Monday, July 31 and available through Monday, August 7.
• Zapdos (Team Instinct) to be released on Monday, August 7 and available through Monday, August 14.

Source: Niantic Labs Blog

Google tests Amazon-like Q&A section for local businesses

Google is testing a feature you’re likely used to seeing on Amazon’s listings. SEO Specialist Sergey Alakov has spotted an experimental Questions & Answers section inside search card results for local businesses. Like any other Google test feature, only a few people can access it and even those who can might not be able to take it for a spin. Alakov couldn’t — it prompted him to log in, but it went on the fritz when he tried to type something in the text box — but someone in Ukraine successfully submitted a question.

If the feature truly is like Amazon’s Q&A, then everybody will be able to leave questions to be answered by either the business itself or other users. That’s if Google decides on releasing it to the public after the test period. Before that happens, though, Mountain View still has to activate the feature for those who can already access it to be able to conduct a proper trial run.

Via: 9to5google

Source: Sergey Alakov