Poll: Windows Phone is finally dead, are you going to miss it?

This week Microsoft put the final nail in the Windows Phone’s coffin, officially conceding the mobile marketplace to Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. It’s a big move, and there are sure to be some Windows Phone die-hards out there who will lament the loss of their favored mobile operating system but it wasn’t a total shock.

Microsoft has gradually pivoted away from Windows Phone, leaning hard toward VR and its Surface lineup while once-proud flagships like the Nokia Lumia are left by the wayside, forgotten. The problem Microsoft seemed to face with Windows Phone was one of exposure. Android and iOS are, and were, everywhere. Windows Phone had some cool ideas, but never quite caught on.

Which begs the question, does it really matter that Windows Phone is dead? Was it ever a real competitor to iOS and Android? You tell us.

The #WindowsPhone is dead, but was it ever a real competitor to #iOS and #Android?

— Digital Trends (@DigitalTrends) October 9, 2017

Facebook’s CherryPi loses to indie-developed AI bots in ‘StarCraft: Brood War’

Why it matters to you

Facebook is pushing forward in artificial intelligence development and its recent tournament loss is still a win for its AI division.

Even the brilliant scientists at Facebook can’t seem to defeat the mighty ZZZKBot. The company participated in a recent StarCraft tournament that pits artificial intelligent “bots” against each other instead of humans. Facebook’s “CherryPi” AI bot walked away with a lower lip, having ranked a mere sixth place in the overall tournament with 2,049 wins out of 2,966 games.

The StarCraft AI competition took place during AIIDE (Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment) 2017 at the Snowbird Ski Resort in Utah from October 5 to October 9. The annual conference focuses on artificial intelligence and interactive entertainment, pooling talents from the commercial and research communities. The highlighted topic covered artificial intelligence beyond its use in gaming.

The StarCraft AI competition specifically used the original StarCraft PC game and its expansion, Brood War. Its purpose was to evaluate the state of artificial intelligence, and how it handles real-time strategy games. This genre poses a challenge because the player must scan the field, manage resources, investigate unknown environments, and respond quickly to threats. Chess doesn’t offer that strategic depth.

Although StarCraft: Brood War has an integrated artificial opponent, it has access to the game’s back end. It doesn’t view the screen as a human does — it’s not a detached entity that must think on its own. Thus, for an external “bot” to experience the game like a human, a special interface called BWAPI was created for bots to interact with the PC game.

“BWAPI only reveals the visible parts of the game state to AI modules by default,” the Github notes state. “Information on units that have gone back into the fog of war is denied to the AI. This enables programmers to write competitive non-cheating AIs that must plan and operate under partial information conditions.”

In Facebook’s defense, the ZZZKBot is a mean opponent. It just participated in the 2017 IEEE SIG StarCraft AI competition in August and came out winning 1,790 games out of 2,374. At the end of the local tournament in Utah, the ZZZKBot came out on top again with 2,465 wins out of 2,966 games. Written by Chris Coxe, it first made an appearance during the AIIDE 2015 conference.

But given that Facebook’s CherryPi bot managed sixth place out of 28 opponents in its first swing, the company did not exactly suffer total defeat. Facebook’s AI team behind CherryPi are composed of eight individuals who published a dataset last week drawing on early data collected from CherryPi’s gameplay. The data includes 496 million player actions and millions of captured frames.

All bots were ranked by their final winning percentage of one-on-one games. They could not cheat and could not take advantage of in-game glitches. Each session lasted up to 60 minutes with fog of war enabled, which covers unexplored areas of the field. Bots were penalized for slow computations.

Out of the 28 competing bots, 15 were created and submitted by independent developers. Even more, all five bots ranking higher than CherryPI were created by independent developers. The only other non-independent AI developer to reach the top 10 was Stanford University and its Arrakhammer bot.

Despite all the hate, Bixby is actually pretty great

Samsung’s Bixby hasn’t received the most positive reception since its release, but our forum users actually seem to be quite smitten with what the virtual assistant has to offer.

Following its debut on the Galaxy S8/S8+ at the beginning of the year, the general consensus for Samsung’s Bixby virtual assistant is that it’s a poor man’s version of Google Assistant. Bixby had a rocky release thanks to the delayed launch of Bixby Voice a few months after the S8 line hit the market in the U.S., but now that it’s been out for a hot minute and people are actually getting to use it, opinions seem to be changing.

One user posted a question in our forums asking whether or not people are actually using Bixby since it doesn’t seem to be on the same fluidity level of Google Assistant, and a lot of Bixby users were quick to respond with their thoughts on the AI.

Spoiler alert, most of them are very positive.

A lot of our users agreed that, while Bixby isn’t perfect, it does have certain strengths over Google Assistant with more device-specific actions.

arunma
09-06-2017 10:16 PM

“

Been using it for months with the S8+. Best to think of it as a different tool from Google Assistant, not as a replacement.

Reply

iGalione
09-07-2017 03:12 AM

“

Bixby. although it is somewhat a clone to what the google assistant is, it trumps and does a LOT more than was Google assistant, or even Siri can do. think of it as a bit of Tasker, mixed with an assistant, that doesn’t need full root permissions. From custom commands to full contextual actions. It’s good for what it is, but you just have to talk to your phone a lot… I’m a doer, so i usually do…

Reply

areyes163
09-07-2017 05:10 AM

“

Think of it this way. Bixby can control your entire device. Google Assistant can search everything and provide information. Best of both worlds.

Reply

However, there are still some situations where Google Assistant takes the upper hand

trucksmoveamerica#AC
09-09-2017 06:33 AM

“

The only thing I want to talk to my phone to do is make calls and send text messages. Bixby wants to force me to use the stock messaging app, Google Assistant let’s me use whatever texting app I want to use. So until Samsung gets off their high horse and allows bixby to work with third party texting apps I’ll stick with Google Assistant.

I use a package disabler to disable bixby, specially…

Reply

Now, we want to passs the question on to you – If you’ve used Bixby, what are your thoughts on the assistant at this point in time?

Join the conversation in the forums!

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Essential Phone to get Android Oreo beta in coming weeks, night mode included

It the company’s latest AMA, Essential confirmed the release of an Oreo beta in the next few weeks, an incoming night mode, and performance fixes.

Update 6:25 PM EST – Essential mentioned in the AMA that the kernel source for the PH-1 would be coming soon, and it’s just been released. Check it out here.

Although the Essential Phone is far from perfect, one thing that’s worth commending Essential as a company for is its transparency between customers. The Essential team recently started to host AMAs over on Reddit to answer any questions that its customers have to ask, and in this week’s session, a lot of details were shared regarding Android Oreo for the Essential Phone, a new night mode, and bug fixes galore.

Regarding Android 8.0 Oreo, Essential confirmed that its quality assurance team is currently testing a build of Oreo for the PH-1 and that it hopes to release a public beta for users to download within “several weeks.” Essential says that it will make an announcement once the beta is available, but that’s as specific of a timeline that we have for the time being.

Once Oreo does drop for the Essential Phone, it will also bring a highly-requested night mode that should make using the device in the dark much easier on the eyes. Speaking of new features, the next OTA update that’s released for the PH-1 will bring fingerprint gestures for controlling certain aspects of the UI (similar to what’s found on the Pixel).

An Android 8.0 Oreo beta will be available for the Essential Phone in “several weeks.”

Along with these new features and upgrades, Essential also says that it’s working hard on bug fixes for its phone. The biggest issue that a lot of users are facing at the moment has to do with poor touch responsiveness and jitters when navigating through the user interface, and fixes are in the works.

In one post, an Essential employee said:

Hi everyone. Since multiple people are asking below yes we are aware of the issue related to the display touch scrolling jitteriness and have a patch we are testing internally. I saw the fix in action literally yesterday and the improvement is night and day. I think you guys will be really happy with it. Our plan is to get this out in one of the next upcoming OTA updates releasing a few weeks. Stay tuned!

Essential also addressed the release of system images, delays for the white model of the phone, and plenty more. You can check out the full AMA here if you want to read through the entire thing, and assuming that the company sticks to its schedule, it’ll be hosting its next session on October 18.

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Google launching pop-up stores in New York City and Los Angeles on Oct 19

Similar to last year, Google will be launching Made by Google pop-up stores this fall to show off its latest hardware.

In case you somehow missed it, Google hosted a press event on October 4 to announce its latest batch of hardware releases, including the Pixel 2, Home Mini, Pixelbook, and a ton more. We already got to go hands-on with all of these gadgets, and Google will soon let you do the same with Made by Google pop-up stores that will be opening up in the coming weeks.

These pop-up stores will allow general consumers to get up close and personal with all of Google’s newly announced products, and if they’re anything like last year, they’ll offer all sorts of different activities and demos to show just what the company’s new hardware is truly capable of.

Right now, Google only has plans for two pop-up stores – one in New York City at 110 Fifth Avenue, and another in Los Angeles at 8552 Melrose Avenue. Both will open up on Thursday, October 19, with stores hours of 10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. every day. There’s currently no end date for the stores, but they’ll likely be open through the holiday season similar to last year’s single NYC one.

If you don’t happen to live either in or near New York City or Los Angeles, don’t forget about the Google Home Mini Donut Shops that are also touring the country!

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This $25 Anker surge protector with USB ports has enough space for all your gear

This surge protector can keep all your gear safe for a relatively low cost.

Is this deal for me?

This Anker 6-outlet 4-USB surge protector is down to $24.69 on Amazon. It normally sells around $30 and hasn’t had a direct price drop anywhere near this price since 2016.

This power strip has four USB ports in addition to the six outlets. It offers 380 Joule surge protection and shields plugged-in USB devices from short-circuits and surges as well using Anker’s “MultiProtect” technology. The PowerIQ tech built into the USB ports can identify the connected device and provide high-speed charging.

Anker provides an 18-month warranty on all products.

TL;DR

• What makes this deal worth considering? – This is a really low price for a power strip that includes USB ports, high-speed charging, and surge protection.
• Things to know before you buy! – You can’t plug things into this strip without charging cables! Grab a 6-foot lightning cable or this two-pack of USB-C to USB-A cables and get your gear powered up.

See at Amazon

HP’s VR backpack computer starts shipping this week

HP’s latest virtual reality backpack PC has been a long time in coming: the company unveiled it in June and promised a July release that came and went with nothing to show. At last, though, it’s here. HP now expects to ship the Omen X Compact Desktop on October 10th. You’ll have to drop $2,500, but you too can sling a speedy gaming PC (with a 7th-generation Core i7 and GTX 1080 graphics) on your back and avoid tripping over cables while you explore VR worlds. There is, however, a gotcha you’ll need to be aware of before you splurge on this wearable system.

You see, the $500 backpack portion was slated to ship on October 13th but is listed as out of stock as of this writing. If you’re one of the first to buy the PC at this point, you’ll have to either hook up your VR headset the old-fashioned way or (gasp) make do with staring at a conventional screen. It’s far from a hardship — if you can swing a $2,500 PC, a $500 backpack and a VR headset, you can probably afford to wait. Still, it suggests that HP wasn’t quite ready to handle demand.

Via: CNET

Source: HP (1), (2)

Here’s your full-length ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ trailer

The next Star Wars film won’t hit theaters until December 15th, but there’s a new trailer that just aired during Monday Night Football. Star Wars: The Last Jedi brings Luke Skywalker back into the story — along with the final appearance of Carrie Fisher as Leia — and should answer some of the questions that have been eating at us ever since the credits rolled on The Force Awakens two years ago. If you’re trying to come into this flick clean but just can’t resist taking a peek at the trailer, don’t worry — director Rian Johnson feels your pain.

Tickets are already on sale from a number of providers (IMAX, Fandango, Cinemark, AMC, Alamo Drafthouse, Atom Tickets, MovieTickets.com), but check below for the trailer in case you need a little more convincing. Oh, and if you just need more time in the universe, don’t forget that EA just announced an extension to the Star Wars Battlefront II open beta.

I a legitimately torn. If you want to come in clean, absolutely avoid it.

But it’s gooooood….. https://t.co/Y29K5yz8i4

— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) October 8, 2017

FWIW: I love that there are folks who want to come into a movie clean, I think that’s awesome. Me, I’m a weak man. I watch ALL THE TRAILERS

— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) October 9, 2017

Check out the brand new poster for Star Wars: #TheLastJedi and watch the trailer tonight. pic.twitter.com/A4UGpYqoeW

— Star Wars (@starwars) October 10, 2017

Source: StarWars.com, Star Wars (YouTube)

Microsoft buys 15 years worth of energy from GE’s Irish wind farm

Microsoft announced that it has bought all the energy that will be produced for the next 15 years by GE’s 37-megawatt Tullahennel wind farm in Ireland. But this isn’t just a good marketing move: Both companies will take the opportunity to mine the powerplant’s data to understand how each turbine’s battery can better store energy and potentially redistribute it back into the grid. As Microsoft’s statement notes, it’s the first deployment of battery storage integrated with wind power in all of Europe.

We’re expanding our #renewableenergy purchases to Europe with new 37 MW wind deal in Ireland: https://t.co/SEyoQxm1ew

— Microsoft_Green (@Microsoft_Green) October 9, 2017

At least some of this energy will go to powering the data centers Microsoft has in Ireland, forming a sustainable loop. The purchase brings the company’s total global direct procurement in renewable energy projects to almost 600 megawatts, Microsoft noted in a statement. But at the end of the day, sustainable — and cheaper — energy is entirely in the interest of the big tech corporations which are always looking for ways to make their power-sucking data centers more affordable. And, of course, obtaining cleaner energy sources might keep your company from getting slammed by Greenpeace.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Microsoft

‘Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare’ has a Halloween bash of its own

Halloween is always a fun time for gamers. This year, Overwatch fans get their second annual seasonal update in a day or so, while Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare players can jump into a month-long event dubbed “Willard Wyler’s Halloween Scream.”

There are four weeks of creepy events scheduled, including free supply drops, themed loot, the “Carnage” multiplayer map with double XP and character skins to add to your fun. Starting October 13th, you can drop into themed boss battles, with new baddies added the following two weeks. Plus, there’s a weird new mode called “gesture warfare” so you can crush your opponents with hand movements.

Players will see new themed loot and giveaways each week of October, starting on the 9th. Boss battles will include Zombies in Spaceland, Rave in the Redwoods, Shaolin Shuffle, Attack of the Radioactive Thing and “The Beast from Beyond” The event, named after the Paul Reubens-voiced antagonist from Infinite Warfare‘s zombies mode, will run through November 1st. To get all the goodness, you’ll have to log into multiplayer and visit the Quartermaster. The supply drops will appear during the week while the cosmetic items will show up only on weekends.

Via: Windows Central

Source: Activision