Capcom announces Menat the Fortune Teller as the newest Street Fighter

Why it matters to you

Menat is the latest addition to a robust array of different charecters to choose from in Street Fighter V.

Capcom has officially announced the newest addition to the Street Fighter V roster of fighters. Menat, The Eyes of the Future will be available to download on August 29, 2017

The company had teased that the newest Street Fighter V character would be revealed during the Hong Kong eSports Festival 2017 “Top 8” competition. Many fans had speculated that it might be Menat, also known as the Fortune Teller, as the Twitter announcement featured a crystal ball.

“Menat seems to be heavily based around her crystal ball, which she uses for a variety of mix ups, combos and attacks,” commented Jonathan ‘Catalyst’ Grey at the Event Hubs blog.  “It’s also a juggling tool. She even has a dive kick which looks to be effective in baiting throws.”

“Rounding out some of the other moves showcased in the trailer, she appears to have a slide attack, and a reflect move to deal with projectiles,” he continued. “Her V-Trigger summons six orbs on screen, and they attack the opponent one at a time, plus can be used in conjunction with her crystal ball.”

This Egyptian mystic was first hinted at during Ed’s story mode cutscenes as Rose’s apprentice. She was also very similar to the silhouette in the Season 2 teaser image.

Menat has three outfits: her standard costume, campaign mode look, and battle costume. In addition, several 30th anniversary costumes for other characters will also be available when the DLC drops.

Capcom is certainly making good on their promise to keep things lively after the launch of SFV. The second season of Street Fighter V has given us the return of Akuma and the introductions of Kolin, Ed, Abigail, and now Menat, bringing the total numbers of fighters on the roster to 27. Judging from the veracity of the internet leaks about the DLC so far, Guy’s master Zeku is likely the last character to be added later this season.

Street Fighter V saw a worldwide initial release almost exactly a year and a half ago, on February 16, 2016, and is available for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4. A Steam version was also released, though the promised Linux port never materialized.

Developers put game on Pirate Bay to help cash-strapped players

Game studios normally bend over backwards to discourage pirates and keep titles off of any piracy sites, but don’t tell that to Acid Wizard. When the studio saw that a young player asked for a refund for its horror game Darkwood out of a fear that his parents wouldn’t like the cost of the game, it decided to offer a safe, unprotected copy of the game on The Pirate Bay. It wants to offer you a chance to play Darkwood if money’s simply too tight. There are only two requests: think about buying the game when you can, and don’t buy it through key resellers like G2A.

That last part is crucial to the decision. Acid Wizard sees resellers as “cancer[s]” that hurt the game industry as a whole and make it “impossible” to give away free copies an a more controlled way. After all, what’s to stop recipients from selling their free keys? The developer might be leaving money on the table, but it argues that this is better than letting cheaters and resellers profit at a studio’s expense.

There’s no doubt that this is as much a shrewd business move as it is a kind gesture. After all, it publicizes the game and builds up a player base that Darkwood wouldn’t have obtained through sales alone. At the same time, though, it’s also a reminder that the game key system has some endemic problems that hurt creators — even those creators that have no problems giving away their work.

Via: Kotaku

Source: Acid Wizard (Imgur), Reddit (1), (2)

China orders internet comments linked to real identities

China isn’t slowing down in its bid to silence online political opposition. As of October 1st, the country will require that tech firms hold on to records of the real identities of everyone posting comments on internet message boards. This is to discourage “false rumors, filthy language and illegal messages,” according to the government. Of course, it’s that last part that Chinese officials are really interested in — they know you’re less likely to challenge the political order if investigators can easily track you down.

The timing of this identity requirement, the VPN restriction and other crackdowns (such as an investigation into internet giants for allowing material that “harms the social order”) isn’t coincidental. China’s ruling party has its next national congress later in 2017, and it has a habit of ramping up censorship around these gatherings to discourage criticism of party policies.

The difference versus previous years, as an anonymous lawyer tells the Financial Times, is the focus of that censorship. Past rules centered around services, but China is targeting the content more directly this time. Also, it wasn’t always evident who was supposed to enforce rules — the Cybersecurity Administration of China is clearly the one wielding authority here. Like it or not, the country is getting much better at clamping down on freedom of speech.

Source: Financial Times

Uber picks Expedia chief as its new CEO

Uber’s lengthy, sometimes tumultuous search for a new CEO is over. Sources talking to both the New York Times and Recode have learned that the ridesharing company has picked Expedia chief Dara Khosrowshahi as its new leader. The company will only say that its board has voted on a CEO and will reveal the decision “to the employees first,” but the reported decision makes sense in light of recent leaks surrounding Uber’s choice.

If the rumors were accurate, Uber’s choice was down to three candidates: former GE chief Jeff Immelt, HPE’s Meg Whitman and a third mystery pick (who we now know to be Khosrowshahi). Immelt backed out right before the vote, supposedly after doubts about his leadership and potential over-eagerness to court Travis Kalanick. Whitman, meanwhile,had publicly rejected the move and wasn’t expected to take the CEO spot unless she had guarantees that Kalanick would have reduced involvement. In other words, Uber may have chosen Khosrowshahi by process of elimination.

Whatever the reasons, the incoming executive has some enormous challenges on his hands. To start, he has to overcome Uber’s notoriously toxic corporate culture. Some of that was accomplished by ousting leaders like Kalanick and implementing kinder policies, but he still has to prove that Uber is no longer the money-obsessed, occasionally law-defying company it was before.

Also, Khosrowshahi has to edge Uber closer to profitability after years of bleeding cash. Uber has been readying itself for an initial public stock offering, but it can’t really go ahead with that plan as long as it continues to lose money hand over fist. The soon-to-be-former Expedia leader has to rein in costs and otherwise show that Uber has a long, healthy life ahead.

Source: New York Times, Recode

Google built an entire fake city to test the AI of its driverless cars

Why it matters to you

Some of the greatest challenges faced by self-driving algorithms are the everyday situations we encounter in neighborhood environments.

As robot cars prowl the streets of Castle, a fake city built in the California desert, humans concoct elaborate scenarios to test the limits of the self-driven car’s awareness and reactions. Google engineers use cones, signs, mannequins, and even other cars, to devise situations that challenge the driverless cars to respond as human drivers would.

The top tech companies are in a furious race to bring the first truly driverless cars to the mass market and, in doing so, change transportation forever. Self-driving cars have been tested in all sorts of conditions, but the complex algorithms behind the technology have yet to conquer one of the most baffling challenges — our urban infrastructure. Waymo, the project founded by Google’s parent company Alphabet, is trying to take the lead.

It’s a big gamble though, with three out of four Americans doubting that fully autonomous cars are safe. One high-profile incident could quickly sour public opinion on the technology, setting it back years.

The normally secretive Google recently gave the Atlantic exclusive access to one of its testing facilities. The 100-acre fake town is named after the Castle Air Force base near the town of Merced. To call it a “city” is a bit misleading — all that matters is where the rubber meets the road, literally. There are no buildings in the testing area, just roads, driveways, and intersections.

The team tries to recreate situations the robot cars are likely to encounter in real-life environments, such as one-way traffic and a bike lane next to parallel parking spaces. “I was really keen on installing something with parallel parking along it,” Steph Villegas, a program manager for Waymo, said. “Something like this happens in suburban downtowns. People are coming out of storefronts or a park. People are walking between cars, maybe crossing the street carrying stuff.”

In addition to what Villegas calls “props,” some tests also involve humans, also known as professional pedestrians. Is it difficult to do your job while worrying about being run over by a robot? “We just have to learn to trust,” Cassandra Hernandez, one such pro, said.

Google built an entire fake city to test the AI of its driverless cars

Why it matters to you

Some of the greatest challenges faced by self-driving algorithms are the everyday situations we encounter in neighborhood environments.

As robot cars prowl the streets of Castle, a fake city built in the California desert, humans concoct elaborate scenarios to test the limits of the self-driven car’s awareness and reactions. Google engineers use cones, signs, mannequins, and even other cars, to devise situations that challenge the driverless cars to respond as human drivers would.

The top tech companies are in a furious race to bring the first truly driverless cars to the mass market and, in doing so, change transportation forever. Self-driving cars have been tested in all sorts of conditions, but the complex algorithms behind the technology have yet to conquer one of the most baffling challenges — our urban infrastructure. Waymo, the project founded by Google’s parent company Alphabet, is trying to take the lead.

It’s a big gamble though, with three out of four Americans doubting that fully autonomous cars are safe. One high-profile incident could quickly sour public opinion on the technology, setting it back years.

The normally secretive Google recently gave the Atlantic exclusive access to one of its testing facilities. The 100-acre fake town is named after the Castle Air Force base near the town of Merced. To call it a “city” is a bit misleading — all that matters is where the rubber meets the road, literally. There are no buildings in the testing area, just roads, driveways, and intersections.

The team tries to recreate situations the robot cars are likely to encounter in real-life environments, such as one-way traffic and a bike lane next to parallel parking spaces. “I was really keen on installing something with parallel parking along it,” Steph Villegas, a program manager for Waymo, said. “Something like this happens in suburban downtowns. People are coming out of storefronts or a park. People are walking between cars, maybe crossing the street carrying stuff.”

In addition to what Villegas calls “props,” some tests also involve humans, also known as professional pedestrians. Is it difficult to do your job while worrying about being run over by a robot? “We just have to learn to trust,” Cassandra Hernandez, one such pro, said.

Hot new app? Most of us can’t be bothered to download it

Why it matters to you

While we may be glued to our smartphones, most of us seem to be using the same apps day after day after day.

When it comes to downloading a new app, it would appear that the majority of us are old dogs. That is to say, we simply can’t be taught new tricks … or at least be convinced to download new apps. According to comScore’s new 2017 U.S. Mobile Apps Reports, more than half of American smartphone users download exactly zero new apps a month. That’s right, friends: 51 percent of us are keeping our iPhone and Android home screens looking exactly the same month after month after month.

But for the apps that already have claimed precious real estate on your mobile screen, they’re enjoying quite a bit of usage. ComScore reports that 57 percent of the time smartphone owners spend engaging with digital media takes place in a mobile app. Of that 57 percent, 50 percent occurs in smartphone apps, and only 7 percent happens in apps on tablets.

Only 34 percent of our time is apparently spent on a desktop, and just 9 percent is spent on the mobile web.

Unsurprisingly, the most app-friendly demographic in the U.S. is comprised of millennials, who spend around 67 percent of their digital media time using smartphone apps. Moreover, those between the ages of 18 and 24 spend more than three hours every day in apps. For comparison, those between the ages of 25 and 34 spend 2.6 hours a day in apps, and 35 to 44-year-olds dedicate 2.3 hours every day to apps.

Millennials are also the most willing group to actually try out new apps. While only 49 percent of Americans are said to download one or more apps every month, the younger generation seems to drive most of that interest. 18 to 34-year-olds say that they’re always looking for new apps (at least, 70 percent of them do), and more importantly, they’re actually willing to pay for them. In fact, 20 percent of this user base downloads at least one paid app per month, and nearly 50 percent make five or more in-app purchases every year.

But why are most people relatively disinterested in apps at this point? According to comScore, folks are looking to declutter not only their lives, but their smartphone screens as well. Indeed, this has been a trend since 2014 — new apps just aren’t gaining that much traction.

Smart code helps your phone browse the web twice as quickly

Many attempts at improving the speed of mobile web browsing involve some obvious sacrifices: Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages alter how you view the pages, while proxies introduce the risk of someone intercepting your sensitive data. Researchers have found a way to boost performance without those compromises, though. Their Vroom architecture loads mobile websites up to twice as quickly by optimizing how a site loads, no matter how that site is built — even an AMP page stands to load faster. It boils down to loading more of the site at once, rather than the back and forth that usually takes place.

Typically, your phone’s web browser has to process nearly 100 web links before you see an entire page. It has to make multiple requests and spend a lot of time idling. Vroom, however, bundles the info that a browser needs to load a page. When your browser requests info, the server also provides “hints” about other necessary resources and coordinates the delivery of that content to make the most of your phone’s processor.

The code does have a catch, as the name suggests: the web server has to know how to reshuffle data. Even if Vroom was ready right away (it isn’t), it’d take a while to propagate. However, there’s a realistic chance of that happening. The project has the backing of Google’s Faculty Research Award, the National Science Foundation and MIT, so there’s clearly interest in translating this technology to the real world.

Source: University of Michigan

‘PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’ knocks ‘Dota 2’ off its Steam throne

It’s no secret that PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is selling well even in its Early Access form, but it just crossed an important (if symbolic) milestone. On the morning of August 27th, the battle royale shooter overtook Dota 2 as the game with the most simultaneous players on Steam, with 877,844 fighting at once — yes, it was more popular than the blockbuster title from the company that created Steam. It was a short-lived victory (PUBG is down to ‘just’ 450,000 as of this writing), but it’s no mean feat when PlayerUnknown and crew were happy to have broken 500,000 just a few weeks earlier.

Even at that peak number, the game likely isn’t the most popular overall. Even in 2014, Riot Games’ League of Legends had as many as 7.5 million people playing at once. Newer daily numbers don’t appear to be available, but it’s safe to say that number isn’t likely to have dropped much or at all.

It’s not hard to see why PUBG might eclipse its Steam rival, at any rate. It has an easy-to-grasp concept (make sure you’re the last one standing) that makes it more accessible than a daunting game like Dota 2, and it’s practically tailor-made for competitive players and streamers. It’s the second most popular game on Twitch after (you guessed it) League of Legends, and it’s well ahead of Dota 2. Simply put, more people can get into PUBG, whether they’re playing or watching from the sidelines.

#1 on @steam_games! Thank you all, once again, for the continuing support you are showing the #PUBG team ❤ pic.twitter.com/aBPkP5O2Qg

— PLAYERUNKNOWN (@PLAYERUNKNOWN) August 27, 2017

Source: PlayerUnknown (Twitter)

Apple Maps Transit Directions Now Available in Ottawa, Edmonton, and Québec City

Apple Maps has been updated with comprehensive transit data in the Edmonton, Alberta area, enabling iPhone users in Canada’s fifth most populous city to navigate with public transportation, including buses and trains.

Apple Maps can provide routes for both Edmonton Transit System (ETS) buses and Edmonton Light Rail Transit (LRT) trains throughout the Edmonton area, including to and from the Edmonton International Airport.

Apple Maps gained a Transit tab in iOS 9. The feature lags several years behind Google Maps, but Apple’s public transportation support is exhaustive, mapping all station entrances and listing departure times. Apple Maps also provides detailed advisories about service interruptions and other changes.

At launch, the feature was limited to Baltimore, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Sydney, Toronto, and over 300 cities in China. Since then, Apple has been working to expand support for public transportation to other cities around the world.

For a regularly updated list of cities with Apple Maps transit, visit the iOS Feature Availability page on Apple’s website.

Updated: As pointed out by MacRumors reader Creek0512, Apple Maps transit directions have also gone live in Québec City and Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. In Ottawa, OC Transpo buses and O-Train directions are available. In Québec City, RTC bus and Métrobus directions are available.

(Thanks, Josh!)

Tags: Apple Maps, Canada, transit
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