Facebook is making the News Feed easier to navigate

Over the next few weeks, Facebook will be introducing a few updates to its News Feed on desktop and mobile that make it clearer and easier to navigate. First, comments within a post are going to look a bit different. They’ll now look like chat bubbles and replies to specific comments will be indented to make it clear that they’re not a response to the general post.

Additionally, to make posts easier to read, the text color contrast will be amped up and larger link previews as well as larger Like, Comment and Share buttons will make the features easier to read and select. And as seems to be the trend, profile pictures will now be round instead of square.

Other changes include tweaks that make it easier to see what a link is before you click it and make clearer whose post you’re in or which comment you’re replying to. Getting back to your News Feed will be more obvious with a redesigned back button that’s more noticeable. And the notifications button will now be a bell rather than a globe.

Overall Facebook’s changes look like they’re going to make for a more streamlined and easier to use News Feed.

Source: Facebook

UPS will use VR to train its student delivery drivers

UPS is about to give its student delivery drivers a whole new training setup. Soon the shipping company will teach a new class how to navigate city streets and avoid hazards in a VR simulator using off-the-shelf HTC Vive headsets.

Currently, students at UPS’ nine Integrad training facilities use touchscreen devices to learn the ropes, but they’ll be switching to VR immersion learning in September. Only package delivery drivers will get to don virtual reality headsets at first, but the company is exploring VR and AR options for training its employees that handle tractor-trailers and other tasks.

VR work training is starting to catch on, thought it’s still in early stages. To investigate its advantages, Google compared VR-trained baristas with those who’d been taught with manuals and found the headset-wearing trainees had the advantage — though the simulated workplace didn’t prepare them for the super-hot dangers of the real one. Other tech companies are looking at the next generation of VR work training, like HP’s backpack rig, but if NASA can prepare astronauts for zero-G with an off-the-shelf headset, we’ll probably start seeing more companies take the concept seriously.

Source: UPS

Atari partners with LGBT Media to make more inclusive games

Atari is making good on its promise to stake part of its strategy on LGBTQ apps. The company has formed a partnership with LGBT Media, the company behind the social app LGBTQutie, to reach more of the community. The deal will see LGBT Media acquire and “re-launch” Atari’s city-building game Pridefest by taking advantage of its connections to the LGBTQ community, including an expansion of the title’s social side. Ultimately, the two hope to create a “new standard” for gaming in a demographic that they see as underserved.

There are clear incentives on both sides of the deal. For Atari, this is about cornering a relatively untapped market. Witeck Communications estimated in 2013 that the LGBTQ community would have $830 billion in buying power, and Atari hopes to profit while other software companies leave money on the table. For LGBT Media, it’s a chance to boost its reach by associating with an “iconic” brand. There’s no telling how well this will work, but it’s evident that Atari at least wants to be sure its titles properly address the LGBTQ audience — it’s not just paying lip service.

Source: Marketwired

‘Hamilton’ battles ticket bots with a hand from Ticketmaster

The people behind Hamilton aren’t just counting on laws to combat ticket bots — they’re enlisting the help of the ticket providers as well. Ticketmaster has revealed that it will use its recent Verified Fan feature to give you a better chance of seeing Hamilton, the Schuyler sisters and Burr strut on a Broadway stage between March and August 2018. As with other Verified Fan plays, like Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the process has fans registering on a website to signal their interest — Ticketmaster then combs over registrations based on data and sends codes via text message to those who pass scrutiny.

Registration runs from August 15th through 18th, and you’ll know if you’re cleared to buy a ticket when pre-sales start on August 21st.

This concept isn’t completely new — we’ve seen concerts do this before, for example. However, the Hamilton run is easily one of the tougher tests of the register-and-receive-a-code formula. It’s an extremely popular show whose demand makes it all too tempting to pay scalpers a premium. This won’t necessarily stop scalpers from turning around and selling tickets, especially not once general sales start (August 22nd), but it might prevent them from buying so many seats that a show is sold out mere moments after sales begin.

Source: Live Nation, Ticketmaster

‘EVE: Valkyrie’ won’t require VR come September

EVE: Valkyrie was one of the first games Oculus used to show off one of its Rift prototypes, and since 2014, the game has been associated exclusively with virtual reality. That’s changing. The game’s “Warzone” update will strip the VR headset requirement, allowing anyone with a PlayStation 4 or powerful enough PC to play the game. If you’re keeping track at home, that means true cross-platform multiplayer is here; you’ll be able to battle folks on HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, PC, PS4 and PSVR.

Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that a version of the Oculus-exclusive platformer Lucky’s Tale would arrive on Xbox. But since that’s appearing on a brand new platform (with a new name), it’s different from how Valkyrie is going about things.

The forthcoming update also brings in new ships, an overhauled progression system and a few fresh maps, among other bits and bobs. The free patch will go live September 26th, and there’s more information at the link below.

Source: EVE: Valkyrie

Intel’s diversity report shows slow growth for women and minorities

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich condemned hate speech and white supremacy on Twitter after the horrifying events in Charlottesville this weekend. On Monday, he resigned from Trump’s American Manufacturing Council to “call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues…” Now, alongside a mid-year diversity report that documents some slow and flat growth in diversity at Intel, Krzanich is touting his company’s “fast march” toward the full representation of women and unrepresented minorities in Intel’s US-based workforce by 2018. That’s only one year away.

In the blog post, Krzanich says that Intel is two years ahead of the original plan, which aimed to create a diverse, inclusive workforce. “We set out to achieve by 2020 an inclusive workforce that reflects the diversity we see every day in the world around us,” he writes. “Doing this would bring the number of female, Hispanic, African-American and Native American employees in Intel’s 50,000-strong U.S. workforce to full representation.” The new goal, he says, is now moved up to 2018.

The mid-year report states that the five-year plan is on track to equally represent women, African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans in both technical and non-technical jobs. “In December of 2014, our gap to full representation was 2,300 employees. Today that gap has narrowed to 801 people – a 65 percent improvement.”

While it’s nice to see a move toward a more diverse Intel workforce, it’s hard to not feel discouraged with such a slow rate of growth over the past three years. White men are at the top of every chart in Intel’s 2017 diversity report. With only a 0.3 percent growth in female employees across all sectors of the company (and a flat rate of growth for African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans), how can Krzanich say his company will be on track in just one more year? By defining “full representation” as a function of “market availability.”

Intel defines full representation as the full market availability of women and underrepresented minorities, which means that it bypasses any actual efforts to create more space for diverse people in the workforce in the first place. The company has updated the way it measures market availability, which tracks how many skilled workers exist in both the US labor market as well as within Intel’s own employee base, but it hasn’t been updated since 2014.

As with the rest of the tech industry, Intel says that white and Asian males continue to represent more than 90 percent of mid- to senior-level technical roles. Intel is also having a hard time retaining minorities, too, though it has added “diversity playbooks” and other programs to help (predominantly white) managers hire and retain workers. Intel claims it’s on track to train all of its more than 13,000 managers by the end of the first quarter in 2018, but is that enough? If nothing else, the company should be looking to programs to increase the market availability of the women and other underrepresented minorities in the first place.

Source: Intel Diversity Report, Brian Krzanich

Intel Shares Details on Upcoming ‘Ice Lake’ Chips to Follow Coffee Lake and Cannon Lake

As Intel prepares to unveil its 8th-generation Coffee Lake processors next week, the company has released basic information on an upcoming 10-nanometer “Ice Lake” chip, which will serve as the successor to the 14-nanometer Coffee Lake and 10-nanometer Cannon Lake chips.

Details on the Ice Lake architecture, which will be made on Intel’s 10nm+ process, have been shared on Intel’s codename decoder.

“The Ice Lake processor family is a successor to the 8th generation Intel(R) CoreTM processor family. These processors utilize Intel’s industry-leading 10 nm+ process technology,” reads the site.

As AnandTech points out, Intel’s decision to share details on Ice Lake is odd because the company has not announced or shared details on Cannon Lake, the first chips that will be built on its 10-nanometer architecture, and Intel is also referring to Ice Lake as the successor to its soon-to-be-announced 14-nanometer Coffee Lake chips, leading to confusion about its upcoming processor lineup and how Cannon Lake fits in.

Intel’s current Kaby Lake chips were built on a second-generation 14nm+ architecture, while Coffee Lake is a third-generation 14nm++ architecture. Both Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake are available for both desktops and laptops, but it appears the 10-nanometer Cannon Lake chips succeed Coffee Lake chips in laptops, while desktops won’t see 10-nanometer architecture until the release of Ice Lake.

AnandTech speculates that the chip confusion is the result of the difficulty behind developing a 10-nanometer architecture. Intel needs to perfect 10-nanometer chips for smaller processors before moving on to larger desktop processors.

Simply put, the first generation of 10nm requires small processors to ensure high yields. Intel seems to be putting the smaller die sizes (i.e. anything under 15W for a laptop) into the 10nm Cannon Lake bucket, while the larger 35W+ chips will be on 14++ Coffee Lake, a tried and tested sub-node for larger CPUs. While the desktop sits on 14++ for a bit longer, it gives time for Intel to further develop their 10nm fabrication abilities, leading to their 10+ process for larger chips by working their other large chip segments (FPGA, MIC) first.

Intel’s 14nm++ Coffee Lake chips will be officially unveiled on August 21, and these are the chips that we are likely to see in Apple notebooks and standard iMac desktops in the coming year, but again, it’s unclear how Cannon Lake fits into the lineup and whether those chips will be available for some machines in time for 2018 refreshes.

As the successor to Intel’s 8th-generation chips, Ice Lake is not likely to be available until late 2018 or 2019, with an exact timeline to be determined by Intel’s success in improving its 10-nanometer architecture.

Tag: Intel
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Walmart Streaming Movie Service VUDU Coming to Apple TV on August 22

Walmart’s streaming movie service VUDU will be available on Apple TV starting on Tuesday, August 22, following the official launch of the new VUDU app, reports Variety.

With the launch of a dedicated Apple TV app, VUDU users will no longer need to AirPlay content from an iOS device in order to watch VUDU content on the Apple TV.

VUDU first confirmed work on an app for the fourth-generation Apple TV in March, so the app has been in development for some time. Prior to the announcement of an Apple TV app, a VUDU engineer said the company had not been able to develop an app because of Apple’s policies preventing third party services from selling movies within their apps.

The current VUDU iOS app adapts to those restrictions by allowing users to download movies and TV shows that have been previously purchased on the VUDU website, and the Apple TV app presumably works in the same way.

VUDU allows customers to rent and purchase a wide range of movies and television shows, including new releases, and it offers services like a disc to digital conversion, digital copies of Blu-rays and DVDs purchased within stores, and free ad-supported movies. VUDU is already available on a range of other platforms, like Roku, Chromecast, consoles, and more.

Related Roundups: Apple TV, tvOS 10
Tag: VUDU
Buyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Don’t Buy)
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Razer Atheris mouse is a shrunken Lancehead for bite-sized mobile PC gaming

Why it matters to you

If you’re looking for a high-performance mouse for easy mobility, office use, and PC gaming, the Razer Atheris could be your $50 ticket later this year.

With the Razer Lancehead wireless mouse is now making waves across the desktop PC gaming space, Razer is now turning its attention to notebook owners. The company introduced the Razer Atheris, another wireless mouse packing gaming-grade performance in a mobile-friendly form factor. Razer claims this mouse has the world’s longest-lasting battery life, promising up to 350 hours of continuous use on a single pair of AA batteries.

That said, the peripheral doesn’t appear to rely on built-in rechargeable batteries. That 350-hour claim also only applies when connecting the mouse to the parent PC via Bluetooth. It includes 2.4GHz wireless connectivity too through an included USB dongle based on Razer’s proprietary Adaptive Frequency Technology. Like the Razer Lancehead, the Razer Atheris can store the USB dongle in a special internal compartment when not in use.

“[Adaptive Frequency Technology] constantly scans frequency channels in millisecond intervals for any form of interference, and seamlessly switches frequency to allow for a perfectly lag-free data transmission from your gaming mouse to your system,” Razer says.

The good news with the Razer Atheris is that it sports an “ambidextrous” design, meaning it wasn’t built specifically for the right-handed crowd. In fact, the Atheris could seemingly serve as miniaturized version of the Lancehead in appearance, only without the lengthy shape and Chroma-based RGB LED illumination. The hardware is a little different, too.

But unlike the Lancehead, the new arthritis-sounding Razer Atheris mouse sports only five programmable “Hyperesponse” buttons. This is where the ambidextrous claim essentially halts, as product shots show the two main buttons, the mouse wheel, a button behind the wheel, and two buttons mounted on the left side above a rubberized grip. Razer says the two side buttons cannot be moved to the right side, a feature provided on the Lancehead, making left-handed users maneuver their ring finger to press those buttons instead of a thumb.

Also different is the use of an optical sensor versus the Lancehead’s 5G laser sensor. The Atheris’ optical sensor provides a maximum sensitivity of 7,200 dots per inch (DPI) while the Lancehead’s 5G laser sensor can do an insane 16,000 DPI. We assume the button behind the mouse wheel is provided for cycling though sensitivity levels you can set in Razer’s free Synapse software.

Essentially what Razer has created is a mobile-friendly mouse with enough baseline PC gaming features to satisfy Razer’s so-called cult requirements while also providing the performance and reliability needed for on-the-go productivity and board meetings. It’s a peripheral addressing office use with a little PC gaming attention on the side.

Unfortunately, that’s everything we know about the Razer Atheris mouse for now. It won’t be made available until the fourth quarter of 2017 for a low price of $50. Until then, here are the specifications:

Sensor:
7,200 DPI Optical
Number of buttons:
Five
Connectivity:
Bluetooth
2.4GHz wireless (via USB dongle)
Battery:
Requires two AA batteries
Battery life:
Up to 350 hours continuous use
Dimensions:
3.9 (L) x 2.5 x 1.35 (H) inches
Weight:
0.14 pounds without batteries

Razer Atheris mouse is a shrunken Lancehead for bite-sized mobile PC gaming

Why it matters to you

If you’re looking for a high-performance mouse for easy mobility, office use, and PC gaming, the Razer Atheris could be your $50 ticket later this year.

With the Razer Lancehead wireless mouse is now making waves across the desktop PC gaming space, Razer is now turning its attention to notebook owners. The company introduced the Razer Atheris, another wireless mouse packing gaming-grade performance in a mobile-friendly form factor. Razer claims this mouse has the world’s longest-lasting battery life, promising up to 350 hours of continuous use on a single pair of AA batteries.

That said, the peripheral doesn’t appear to rely on built-in rechargeable batteries. That 350-hour claim also only applies when connecting the mouse to the parent PC via Bluetooth. It includes 2.4GHz wireless connectivity too through an included USB dongle based on Razer’s proprietary Adaptive Frequency Technology. Like the Razer Lancehead, the Razer Atheris can store the USB dongle in a special internal compartment when not in use.

“[Adaptive Frequency Technology] constantly scans frequency channels in millisecond intervals for any form of interference, and seamlessly switches frequency to allow for a perfectly lag-free data transmission from your gaming mouse to your system,” Razer says.

The good news with the Razer Atheris is that it sports an “ambidextrous” design, meaning it wasn’t built specifically for the right-handed crowd. In fact, the Atheris could seemingly serve as miniaturized version of the Lancehead in appearance, only without the lengthy shape and Chroma-based RGB LED illumination. The hardware is a little different, too.

But unlike the Lancehead, the new arthritis-sounding Razer Atheris mouse sports only five programmable “Hyperesponse” buttons. This is where the ambidextrous claim essentially halts, as product shots show the two main buttons, the mouse wheel, a button behind the wheel, and two buttons mounted on the left side above a rubberized grip. Razer says the two side buttons cannot be moved to the right side, a feature provided on the Lancehead, making left-handed users maneuver their ring finger to press those buttons instead of a thumb.

Also different is the use of an optical sensor versus the Lancehead’s 5G laser sensor. The Atheris’ optical sensor provides a maximum sensitivity of 7,200 dots per inch (DPI) while the Lancehead’s 5G laser sensor can do an insane 16,000 DPI. We assume the button behind the mouse wheel is provided for cycling though sensitivity levels you can set in Razer’s free Synapse software.

Essentially what Razer has created is a mobile-friendly mouse with enough baseline PC gaming features to satisfy Razer’s so-called cult requirements while also providing the performance and reliability needed for on-the-go productivity and board meetings. It’s a peripheral addressing office use with a little PC gaming attention on the side.

Unfortunately, that’s everything we know about the Razer Atheris mouse for now. It won’t be made available until the fourth quarter of 2017 for a low price of $50. Until then, here are the specifications:

Sensor:
7,200 DPI Optical
Number of buttons:
Five
Connectivity:
Bluetooth
2.4GHz wireless (via USB dongle)
Battery:
Requires two AA batteries
Battery life:
Up to 350 hours continuous use
Dimensions:
3.9 (L) x 2.5 x 1.35 (H) inches
Weight:
0.14 pounds without batteries