Amazon postpones Prime Video showcase after suspending studio head

More and more companies are dealing with the the poor behavior of their executives. According to a report at Variety, Amazon is cancelling a scheduled Prime Video showcase in Europe next week that was reportedly headlined by Roy Price, disgraced chief of Amazon Studios. Both decisions come in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein debacle, which has raised a ton of important awareness of the rampant sexual harassment perpetrated by powerful men in the entertainment industry.

Amazon sent a short statement to people invited to the showcase, according to Variety, that said, “We wanted to let you know that the planned European Prime Video autumn season showcase and party in London next week have been postponed.” Amazon planned to show off new footage from various current shows and upcoming series at the event. No other explanation was given.

Price has been suspended for allegations of harassment towards Issa Hackett, the daughter of late sci-fi author Phillip K Dick and a producer on both Amazon-led television shows using her father’s work. She revealed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that Price propositioned her repeatedly and allegedly yelled “anal sex” in her ear. Weinstein has been fired from his own company after a landslide of accusations and stories of his inappropriate behavior from the past several decades have surfaced.

We have reached out to Amazon for comment and will update this post when we hear back.

Source: Variety

IGN acquires pay-what-you-want game and book retailer Humble Bundle

Media conglomerate IGN has acquired Humble Bundle, the pay-what-you-want gaming, book and software collection retailer that raises money for charitable causes. In a blog post, Humble Bundle cofounder and CEO Jeffrey Rosen noted that his company will “keep our own office, culture, and amazing team with IGN helping us further our plans.” Aside from noting that the retailer will get additional resources and help out of the deal, no details were disclosed.

Welcome to the family, @humble! We can’t wait to help others with you ✌️ https://t.co/MlxUoFi2nk

— IGN (@IGN) October 13, 2017

In the post, Humble Bundle noted that the platform has raised $106 million for various charities in the seven years since it launched its first bundle. While the platform could do a lot with funding from a media titan like IGN (owned by J2 Media), there’s obvious concern over potential conflicts of interest between a game-reviewing publication owning a game-selling retailer. (We’ve reached out to both IGN and Humble Bundle for comment and will include their responses when we hear back.)

From Humble Bundle’s blog post, it seems IGN will leave it to operate more or less independently.

“The idea is just to feed them with the resources they need to keep doing what they’re doing … We want to stick to the fundamentals in the short term. We don’t want to disrupt anything we’re doing right already,” IGN executive VP Mitch Galbraith told Gamasutra. “Because of the shared vision and overlap of our customer bases, there’s going to be a lot of opportunities.”

Via: Gamasutra

Source: Humble Bundle (blog)

MacRumors Giveaway: Win MagicGrips for Your Magic Mouse From Elevation Lab

For this week’s giveaway, we’ve teamed up with Elevation Lab to give MacRumors readers a chance to win some MagicGrips that are designed for Apple’s Magic Mouse.

MagicGrips, made from a solid silicone rubber, are designed to make the Magic Mouse a lot more comfortable to work with by making it wider and giving you more to hold onto. MagicGrips cover 75 percent of the sides of the Magic Mouse, but don’t interfere with click travel thanks to a precise fit.

Elevation Lab says the MagicGrips are designed to create a big concave surface for your fingers, for a more relaxed grip that makes the mouse easier to use for long periods of time. When the MagicGrips were in development, the company tested more than 100 prototypes to find the ideal design that was most comfortable for the widest number of users.

MagicGrips work with all hand sizes and for both left and right-handed users, and they’re compatible with both Magic Mouse 1 and 2 models. There’s also an XL thumb grip for an even wider grip if desired.

The MagicGrips attach to the sides of a Magic Mouse using 3M adhesive that can be removed at any time.

Elevation Lab normally charges $12.95 for the MagicGrips, but we have 50 of them to give away, so we’ll have a lot of winners for this giveaway. To enter to win, use the Rafflecopter widget below and enter an email address. Email addresses will be used solely for contact purposes to reach the winners and send the prizes. You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube channel, following us on Twitter, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page.

Due to the complexities of international laws regarding giveaways, only U.S. residents who are 18 years of age or older are eligible to enter. To offer feedback or get more information on the giveaway restrictions, please refer to our Site Feedback section, as that is where discussion of the rules will be redirected.

a Rafflecopter giveawayThe contest will run from today (October 13) at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time through 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time on October 20. The winners will be chosen randomly on October 20 and will be contacted by email. The winners will have 48 hours to respond and provide a shipping address before new winners are chosen.

Tags: giveaway, Elevation Lab
Discuss this article in our forums

Deals: Target Takes $100 Off iPad Mini 4 In Store, While Sprint Discounts iPhone 8 Monthly Leases

This week Target has a $100 discount on Apple’s 128GB Wi-Fi iPad mini 4, with the caveat of no online shipping available. If you have a local Target with stock on the 7.9-inch iPad, however, you can get the latest iPad mini for $299.99, down from $399.99 in Space Gray, Silver, and Gold.

If you want some accessories to go with your iPad mini 4, Target has also discounted two first party Apple accessories. There’s the iPad mini 4 Smart Cover with discounts between 10 and 40 percent, and the iPad mini 4 Silicone Case with discounts between 10 and 50 percent. The savings depend on your choice of color, and some models do have shipping options. When paired together, the accessories provide full front and back protection to the iPad mini 4.

For those interested in the iPhone 8, Sprint has a $350 discount on Apple’s latest iPhone, with a few stipulations. You’ll have to trade in an eligible smartphone towards the new iPhone 8, as well as sign up for the Sprint Flex leasing program. If you do, Sprint will mark monthly installments down to $9.72/month for the 64GB model, with an initial payment of $0. The 256GB model requires $150 down but retains the $9.72/month price.

Additionally, the 64GB iPhone 8 Plus is available for $0 today and $13.89/month installments, and the 256GB Plus model requires $150 when purchased and $13.89/month afterwards. All savings appear after a $19.45/month bill credit is applied to your account. iPhone models eligible for trade-in include: iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, and iPhone 6s Plus. Visit Sprint’s deals page here for more information.

There are even more discounts to discover in our Deals Roundup, today including savings on the Philips Hue White Ambiance Smart Bulb Starter Kit, an Insignia USB wall outlet, and a combination USB 3.0 and Lightning flash drive. Also be sure to check out our giveaway post this week, where you have a chance to win some MagicGrips for your Magic Mouse, made by Elevation Lab.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with these vendors.

Related Roundup: Apple Deals
Discuss this article in our forums

Apple’s Beddit 3 Sleep Monitor ‘Sold Out,’ Suggesting It’s Been Discontinued

Apple in May purchased Beddit, a company that develops health-related hardware. It was an unusual acquisition because Apple continued to sell the company’s Beddit 3 Sleep Monitor on Apple.com, and collected sleep data from the device.

As of early October, though, the Beddit 3 Sleep Monitor has been listed as “Sold Out” on Apple’s website, suggesting it has perhaps been quietly retired. When an Apple product is sold out, that typically means it’s not going to be restocked. Since the Apple acquisition, the device has only been sold at Apple.com and is not available elsewhere either.

With the Beddit 3 Sleep Monitor no longer available, it’s not known what Apple will do with the Beddit sleep technology in the future. Apple could be planning to use the data it’s collected to add more advanced health tracking and sleep monitoring into the Apple Watch, or it could roll the technology into some other kind of wearable device or hardware product similar in design to the Beddit 3.

Sleep tracking could be a planned feature for a future Apple Watch, but it remains to be seen if Apple thinks a wrist-worn sleep tracking device is the optimal solution. It is also not clear how Apple would overcome charging and battery life issues in that scenario, as Apple currently expects the device to be charged overnight. Given those limitations, other hardware solutions could be under consideration.

Apple is presumably continuing to collect, analyze, and utilize sleep-related data from the existing Beddit 3 sleep tracking devices that are in the hands of consumers, even if no additional devices will be sold.

Priced at $149 when it was available, the Beddit 3 Sleep Monitor pairs a thin, pliable under-sheet sleep sensor with an app that’s designed to help users analyze and improve their sleeping habits.

It uses ballistocardiography (BCG) to measure the mechanical activity of the heart, lungs, and other body functions, a non-invasive monitoring technology that’s similar to the light-based photoplethysmography the Apple Watch uses to monitor heart rate. BCG is able to measure the mechanical impulse generated by the acceleration of blood through the circulatory system, providing a wealth of data about the body.

The sleep monitor is able to track metrics like sleep time, sleep efficiency, heart rate, respiration rate, movement, snoring, room temperature, and room humidity. Following Apple’s Beddit acquisition, we did an in-depth review of the Beddit 3 Sleep Monitor and concluded that there are still many hurdles Apple needs to overcome to create a sleep tracking device that’s truly accurate, if a hardware solution is the ultimate goal of the purchase.

We’ve contacted Apple for comment on the availability of the Beddit 3 Sleep Monitor and will update this post should we hear back.

Tag: Beddit
Discuss this article in our forums

TouchArcade iOS Gaming Roundup: Project Aurora, Arena of Valor, The Talos Principle, and More

As I mentioned on last week’s roundup, I spent the previous weekend at EVE Vegas, which is one of the many fan events that CCP puts on throughout the world for EVE Online players. It turns out that what they revealed is a game with the working title of Project Aurora. EVE Online is a MMORPG where players fly around virtual spaceships, wage war against other corporations (EVE’s equivalent of guilds or social groups), and all sorts of other stuff.

While it definitely disappointed a few people that Project Aurora isn’t a direct port mobile client to EVE Online proper, it is really cool what a great job they did distilling the EVE experience down into an idle game where you slowly gather resources, upgrade everything, and slowly take over a hex grid space map with the rest of your corporation.

At the event we were able to play a test version of the game for the weekend and it was a ton of fun. I’m always a huge sucker for these kinds of eternally upgrade idle progress games, so I couldn’t get enough. There are still no solid public plans on when Project Omega is coming, but it seems likely they’ll do more testing and an eventual soft launch in the not too distant future.

Arena of Valor is an interesting mobile MOBA to follow because in China it is so unbelievably popular that it’s even drawn the eye of the Chinese government. Arena of Valor in China has become the source of debates on whether teenagers should be allowed to play it for long and whether the game is pretty much a threat to social order and cohesion.

In the North American market, few people have even heard of it. Well, US players can now pre-register to get some freebies in the game when it eventually launches in November. I’m super excited to see how it does here, it’s hard to imagine the game becoming as huge as it is in China, but, who knows.

Following right along with the release of The Witness when it comes to surprising but remarkably full-featured “real” games to hit the App Store is The Talos Principle. This is a full port of the console and PC puzzle game, which can be played by either a set of virtual joysticks or a tap to move movement scheme.

Our forum community has weighed in on the quality of the port — it runs well on older iOS devices, and folks have even mentioned the iPad as the best platform (among all the ones the game is on) to play it, which is some pretty high praise. The game itself sports an 88 on Metacritic and explores a story that surrounds sentient robots. If you’re into premium games, don’t miss this one.

World of Tanks Blitz has been a surprisingly popular mobile spinoff of the global sensation World of Tanks where you collect a bunch of different tanks and battle online against other players. Meanwhile, it’s kind of felt like Games Workshop has been way too liberal with who they’ll license the Warhammer 40K universe to. This time around, the licensing deal makes sense as soon you’ll be able to unlock Warhammer tanks inside of World of Tanks Blitz. Details are still vague on when all this is going to be happening, but I’d be way more interested in jumping in with World of Tanks Blitz if I could pilot some giant ork tank.

Last, but not least, Discord this week announced “verified servers” which will serve as the official community chat hubs for developers like Mojang, Supercell, and others. Discord has grown to have a huge community of gamers through constant feature improvements over the years. Recently they added full video chat and screensharing to their existing suite of voice and chat communication systems.

Discord is targeted at gamers, but has all the features of the premium version of Slack. If you’re looking for a Discord server to fiddle around in, come join ours. It’s filled with people talking about iOS gaming 24/7.

That’s about it this week. For way more iOS gaming news, reviews, and all sorts of other things that we cover around the clock, be sure to visit TouchArcade.

Tag: TouchArcade gaming roundup
Discuss this article in our forums

Nvidia’s Free GeForce NOW Beta Lets You Play System Intensive PC Games on Your Mac

Apple’s Macs aren’t optimized for gaming and often don’t have powerful enough GPUs to run the latest gaming titles, a problem that Nvidia is aiming to solve with its GeForce NOW service designed for Macs.

GeForce NOW for Mac, currently in beta testing in North America, lets you use a virtual GeForce GTX gaming PC in the cloud to run games that otherwise may not be possible to play on a Mac. The only requirement is a good internet connection, with the virtual gaming PC handling all of the GPU and CPU requirements.

Since Macs aren’t known for being gaming machines, PC makers don’t typically design new titles to run on Macs. That’s also an issue that can be solved with GeForce NOW, because it can stream PC-only games too. So if you’ve been wanting to play Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds on a Mac, for example, you can do so with GeForce NOW.

GeForce NOW integrates with Steam and works with the games you already own, so it’s not a gaming service that provides access to games. You need to purchase the games you play, with GeForce NOW providing the power to play them.

I’ve been testing GeForce NOW this week and while it’s not perfect, it’s promising. Setup is as simple as downloading the GeForce NOW for Mac app and then connecting a Steam account. Since you’re essentially streaming the gameplay from the cloud, when you choose a free-to-play game or a game you’ve purchased on Steam, you don’t need to install it because it’s already installed and ready to go.

With Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, I bought it on Steam, logged into GeForce NOW, and had it up and running on my 2013 iMac in about 30 seconds. GeForce NOW runs a system check when you launch it so you can tell if your connection is going to be good enough for optimal streaming.

GeForce NOW is heavily reliant on a fast internet connection, requiring a 25Mb/s download speed at a minimum and a 5GHz wireless router. Nvidia recommends a 50Mb/s connection or higher to account for other potential internet traffic. Even with a Wi-Fi connection that met those demands, I ran into some problems with frame loss that made the game unplayable a couple of times.

When switching over to a hardwired ethernet connection, the game ran more smoothly, so if you don’t have a Wi-Fi connection that’s robust enough, a physical connection might be necessary to use the service. I was able to successfully play over WiFi for most of my testing, though, as I didn’t see the frame loss issue consistently. To ensure players get a low ping, Nvidia has servers located across the United States.

Playing PUBG using GeForce NOW was just like playing it on a PC. I was able to play right alongside PC gamers, and while there was still a bit of stuttering and lag, it worked. I was using a late 2013 iMac, but GeForce NOW is supported on a long list of machines manufactured in 2008 and beyond.

Along with PUBG, GeForce NOW supports a number of other popular games, and Nvidia is adding support for more on a regular basis. Some of the supported titles include League of Legends, Fallout 4, Overwatch, Path of Exile, World of Warcraft, The Witcher 3, Rocket League, Destiny 2, and Middle-earth: Shadow of War.

Nvidia will be beta testing GeForce NOW for Mac through the end of the year, so it’s free to download and use for the time being. A launch is planned for 2018, and final pricing for the service has yet to be announced. The beta is limited to the United States and Canada.

Tag: Nvidia
Discuss this article in our forums

Kmashi’s Victor K7 20,000mAh battery pack is offers a week’s worth of charge in one hefty brick (Review)

We’re celebrating ten years of AndroidGuys with a ton of giveaways!

Build

I think perhaps the best word to describe Kmashi’s Victor K7 20,000mAh external battery pack is solid. At just under a pound (14oz.), with an aluminum case and red rubberized accents, this battery is an absolute brick. At 6.4″x4″, it’s a bit bigger than your average modern phablet, with a pretty slim 0.5″ for a 20,00mAh battery. Slim is relative, though, and this is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a pocket battery. It’s definitely better suited to sitting in a backpack, or a purse perhaps. As with many standard externals, there is a single input port (MicroUSB) and two output ports (both Type-A USB), with a small line of LEDs to show the current level of juice in the pack. While there’s no USB-C on this version, I suspect the next generation of external batteries – from Kmashi or otherwise – will make liberal use of USB-C’s reversible connector and dual-use input/output connector.

Performance

When it comes to external batteries, there isn’t really a whole lot to say – so I’ll keep it sweet. Kmashi’s 20,000mAh battery is perfectly adequate, offering a standard 5V/2.4A USB-A output as well as a variable charge 3.6-6.5V/2.4A Quick Charge 3.0 output. The lone input is MicroUSB-A, which is unfortunate for anyone using a smartphone that was purchased within the last year or so. As you’d expect, though, it charges QC devices very quickly and can charge all but the largest of smartphone batteries three times over without breaking a sweat.

Value

At $35.99 from Amazon, Kmashi’s Victor K7 is on the higher end of the 20,000mAh price range, on par with Anker’s own comparable unit at $39.99. There are a number of lesser-known manufacturers that offer the same size batteries for $20 or less, but Kmashi’s reliability is up there alongside Anker and Aukey – in this case, you pay for that consistency and quality. Looking at one of those lesser brands in particular, Vinsic offers a 20,000mAh battery pack for $34.95 that also includes a Type-C port, making it more versatile and future proof than Kmashi’s product.

As such, if you have a phone that has a USB-C connector, I’d wait until Anker, Aukey or Kmashi comes out with their own model of USB-C compatible external batteries. If you’re using a phone with MicroUSB, Kmashi’s battery is a nice balance of cost and quality, for a great value.

Remind is group messaging without the social media ties (review)

We’re celebrating ten years of AndroidGuys with a ton of giveaways!

While you may have choices in creating online group messaging capabilities, most of those require everybody in your group being a member of a given social media platform (e.g., Facebook).

Now, most SMS and other straight-messaging avenues DO allow you to perform and manage group texts…but have you seriously ever tried to do so? It can be a straight-up mess, with all messages thrown together in the same thread. And if you don’t have your group filled in your device as contacts (which is common if someone else started the group text), you wind up with a true pile of texts from unknown phone numbers, stating half-hearted responses to the original text….and soon you’re completely lost.
I’ve been an unfortunate participant in several of these fiascoes, planning an event with friends of multiple families, and egods what a disaster……

But there is hope: enter Remind, an app already made popular by schools & teachers across the country. In addition to schools, many kiddo-related educational organizations have also signed up (it is a purchased program for groups/schools). They also have individual plans available for free, so you can sign up and use it as an individual organizer, or as a parent, you can join for free to be part of a group’s messaging service. Thousands and thousands of schools use Remind daily to help parents stay up-to-date on their child’s day and progress.

Setup

If there is a bit of challenge with this app (at least in our experience), it’s with getting the invite and logging in to the app for the first time. Again, this is just our experience, but we use it in our household for two separate groups, and in both cases, it was a bit of a pain to get it loaded (and us loaded in it) correctly, ready for use. But it’s not end-of-the-world difficult, and once you’re in, you’re in.

Interface & Use

Once you do get into the app, probably the key highlight of using it is the easy-to-use interface. You won’t find feature-bloat, ads, or other distractions that keep you from finding what you need.
The layout is pretty similar to a lot of social media apps nowadays. I’m using my wife’s app screens in all the photos here: you have your main “timeline” (my word), and swiping in from the left, or pressing the hamburger menu at top-left, brings you your app dashboard….showing all the “classes” (groups) that you belong to.

Similar to selecting a particular email account if you use a single app for multiple accounts. You can select a single class to see the available threads, or you can select ‘All Classes’; this is essentially a combined inbox.

Once you pick a class, you can see all the threads that are active. Selecting a particular thread brings up a text message-style thread. You can read the who/what/when, along with the obligatory, photo, audio, and map recording options. If you started the thread, you can also see who has seen the message (similar to Messenger), giving you an idea of just who is staying in touch.

A single class.

All classes.

An individual thread.

The app uses your phone number to do all the connections, so you can even call right from the screen. Additionally, there is a small settings pop-up menu available, giving you more options for your group and the app itself.

Overall

Remind’s popularity is no mistake. With tens of millions of installs by schools and educational groups around the country, it has cemented itself as a go-to option for easy, clean, efficient group messaging. If you’re a parent, you should definitely give Remind a chance if your school is offering it as a service; you’ll find it a true tool for staying on top of what’s going on in your child’s world while you’re not there.

Download the Remind app from the Play Store here.

Full ‘Destiny 2’ PC requirements revealed, and they match the beta’s specs

Why it matters to you

No adjustments were made to the specs since the beta, which is a good sign for the PC stability of Destiny 2

PlayStation 4 and Xbox One users have been enjoying Destiny 2 for more than a month now, but the game still has to make its long-awaited debut on PC. Those who favor the keyboard and mouse style gaming can finally enter the shared world shooter October 24. With that date quickly approaching, Bungie released final minimum and recommended specs to ensure that your quest for intergalactic dominance goes on without a hitch.

Minimum specifications

CPU: Intel Core i3-3250 3.5 GHz, Intel Pentium G4560 3.5 GHz, AMD FX-4350 4.2 GHz, or better

GPU (Graphics): Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 2GB or GTX 1050 2GB,AMD Radeon HD 7850 2GB, or better

RAM: 6GB or more

Recommended specifications

CPU: Intel Core i5-2400 3.4 GHz or i5 7400 3.5 GHz, AMD Ryzen R5 1600X 3.6 GHz, or better

GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 4GB or GTX 1060 6GB, AMD R9 390 8GB, or better

RAM: 8GB or better

As for operating system requirements, Destiny 2 will run on 64-bit versions of Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10, but Windows 10 is recommended. Additionally, make sure you have at least 68GB of hard drive space available.

These specs match up exactly to the beta that started in late August. As always, if you want the smoothest experience, hitting or surpassing all recommended specs is encouraged. The better your rig, the closer you’ll get to the 60 frames-per-second uncapped, which is only offered with the PC version (console versions cap at 30). The game is also capable of running in native 4K resolution on PC.

Whether you pick up a digital version from Blizzard’s Battle.net app or become one of the rare few who still purchase physical copies of AAA PC games, Destiny 2 goes live simultaneously worldwide at 10 a.m. PT on October 24.

In other Destiny 2 news, Bungie further explained why the Prestige Leviathan was delayed from October 10 to October 18. Developers discovered an exploit that would have threatened the legitimacy of any fireteam’s claim to the much sought after “World First” distinction. It would appear that the exploit would have negated the desired difficulty of the raid, which is entirely against the premise of an even harder version of an already trying test.

For PC players looking to catch up to console Guardians, just know that you must have a power level of 260 before attempting the Leviathan raid. When you get there, check out our detailed raid walkthrough.