Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Tops Australian iOS App Store Faster Than Super Mario Run

Nintendo’s newly-announced iOS game, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, has soft launched in the Australian iOS App Store, a launch rollout that Nintendo has begun to favor as a way to test its iOS apps prior to a worldwide debut. According to new data gathered by Sensor Tower, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp climbed to the top of the Australian App Store much faster than either Super Mario Run or Fire Emblem Heroes.

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp debuted quite high among all iPhone apps on the Australian App Store, hitting around number 2 within the first hour of its soft launch on October 25. Afterwards, the new game reached the number 1 spot on the Australian App Store within 12 hours of its debut. Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is Nintendo’s fourth smartphone game made in partnership with developer DeNA, following Miitomo, Super Mario Run, and Fire Emblem Heroes.

Chart via Sensor Tower

Hourly App Store category rankings from Sensor Tower App Intelligence show Nintendo’s third mobile game, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, off to a strong start in its Australian soft launch on iOS. According to the data, the game reached No. 1 among all iPhone apps faster than Nintendo’s previous mobile releases, Super Mario Run and Fire Emblem Heroes, hitting the impressive milestone within 12 hours of its launch on October 25.

Comparatively, Super Mario Run debuted just below the number 40 ranking. It then hit number 2 after 12 hours on the App Store in Australia, and finally obtained the number 1 spot 14 hours after its soft launch in the country last December.

Fire Emblem Heroes was ranked at number 35 at the 12 hour mark of its respective Australian soft launch earlier this year, and only made it as high as number 13 among all iPhone apps. Fire Emblem isn’t quite as well-known a franchise as Mario or Animal Crossing, leading to low download rates on launch day in the United States.

Sensor Tower also reported that Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is currently ranked at number 117 among the top grossing iPhone apps in Australia. The game uses “Leaf Tickets” as its form of in-app purchase, allowing players to circumvent certain lengthy wait times for item and furniture building, supplement tickets for crafting materials, add in exclusive animals to their town like Tom Nook and K.K. Slider, and more.

Next, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is set to launch worldwide in late November, although Nintendo hasn’t yet confirmed a release date. You can pre-register to be notified as soon as the game hits the App Store in your supported country on Nintendo’s website right here.

Tags: Nintendo, Fire Emblem, Animal Crossing, Super Mario Run, Sensor Tower, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
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US libraries will continue to preserve old games

Libraries and museums will most likely have more time to preserve old games before they disappear completely. The US Copyright Office has announced that it plans to recommend the renewal of a DMCA exemption giving museums and libraries the right to preserve old games, so long as they require sever support that’s no longer working. They can even hack consoles to keep those games running if needed. This exemption has been in place since 2015, but it needs to be renewed every three years.

The Office says that after reviewing the public’s comments, it didn’t “find any meaningful opposition to renewal.” It has even received petitions from people running archival efforts to renew the exemption. In addition, as Gamasutra notes, the agency is now seeking comments about an expansion being pushed by the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment. MADE wants the exemption to cover multiplayer and massively multiplayer games, which were left out in the original rule. The Electronic Software Association blocked their addition the first time due to concerns about privacy, but their inclusion gets approved, then your kids might get to play your old favorite games someday.

Via: Gamasutra

Source: US Copyright Office

For a dollar, an AI will examine your medical scan

A company called Zebra Medical Vision (Zebra-Med) has unveiled a new service called Zebra AI1 that uses algorithms to examine your medical scans for a dollar each. The deep learning engine can examine CT, MRI and other scans and automatically detect lung, liver, heart and bone diseases. New capabilities like lung and breast cancer, brain trauma, hypertension and others are “constantly being released,” the company says. The results are then passed on to radiologists, saving them time in making a diagnosis or requesting further tests.

Engadget met Zebra-Med CEO and co-founder Elad Benjamin at the Hello Tomorrow startup conference in Paris, where he delivered the news about the scans. “We have a product that automatically reads and analyzes medical imaging data from CTs, X-rays, etc.,” he said. “And AI1 provides an entire suite [of services] at a flat dollar scale.”

The system can detect 11 different ailments right now, and will be able to sniff out six more by the end of 2017. The company has 35 diagnostic products in total that it plans to release within a year. One example of a disease it can catch is coronary calcium, which can cause a heart attack or stroke if too much builds up in a patient’s arteries. “We have an algorithm that can automatically receive the CT scan of a chest and give a number, a quantification of exactly how much coronary calcium exists,” said Benjamin. “And that can drive much better care of that patient.”

Zebra-Med developed its deep-learning systems by examining millions of high-quality image scans. In the video (below), it notes that at an Oxford University hospital, the system was sensitive in 95 percent of 100 CT scans, with a specificity of 100 percent. (Specificity measures how well a test can distinguish those with a disease from those without, while sensitivity is the number of true positive tests compared to all patients who actually have the disease.)

The Al1 algorithm’s findings are integrated into radiology information systems (RIS) and picture archive communications systems (PACS) used by medical institutions in the US, UK and elsewhere. That allows radiologists to easily use the results as part of their reading and reporting workflow, Zebra-Med notes.

“A patient comes into an institution and receives a scan, and that is then forwarded to a list of radiologists,” said Benjamin. “When they load a particular scan to be examined, our radiologist assistant automatically pops into their diagnostic viewer and shows them the results that we have.” Those results are incorporated into the radiologists final report, which goes to the physicians so they can determine what the next steps should be.

Benjamin notes that AI has become particularly good at doing visual analysis, as it is used in numerous systems for face and object detection in smartphone apps and other products. That makes it particularly well suited for MRI, CT scan and X-ray analysis. To become effective, however, AI1 had to analyze a lot of medical scans. “We were founded with the partnership of hospitals that provided us access to those millions of data points,” he explained.

The company says that two billion people will be entering middle age in the next decade, but the number of radiologists has remained steady. As a result, current radiologists will be overwhelmed by scan data without the aid of algorithmic systems.

Zebra-med isn’t the only company working on this — IBM has also trained Watson to read medical scans, and is also using the tech to help determine who might acquire specific diseases. Apps have also been used to detect pancreatic cancer by examining your eyes, and another can detect early signs of Alzheimer’s disease by examine brain MRI scans.

As for whether we’ll be too reliant on AI for such chores, Benjamin believes it’s not like that. “Clinicians today are tremendously pressured and overworked,” he says. “I believe tools like Zebra can help compliment what a radiologist does by providing a second pair of eyes … that looks at all the potential maladies of a patient without missing anything.”

Daimler’s electric trucks start making deliveries in Japan and US

Most electric vehicle discussions revolve around passenger cars. Sometimes buses get thrown into the mix. We’re laser-focused on how people will get from point A to point B and sometimes forget that our streets are also teeming with delivery trucks and vans. Daimler hasn’t forgotten and neither has its light-truck brand Fuso.

After years of testing, Fuso (it’ll be using eFuso for its electric vehicles) is putting its eCanter truck on the roads of Japan and the United States, delivering for 7-Eleven and UPS, respectively. Fifty of the trucks will land in North America by the end of 2017.

During an event at Mercedes-Benz’s research and development facility in Silicon Valley, (Daimler is the parent company or Mercedes and Fuso), I was able to take the new eCanter out for a spin. For the driver in the cab, it’s not much different from the diesel and gas vehicles they’re used to steering.

But for everyone else, the eCanter is almost completely silent and doesn’t spew CO2 into the air while hauling our Amazon purchases around town. Both of those, along with the cost savings of switching from oil-based fuels to electric, are the big selling points of the eCanter.

Most delivery trucks (including the traditional Canter) use diesel and make quite a bit of racket while the engine runs. It’s why you can tell when the UPS or FedEx truck is out front, but not the pizza delivery person. Anytime you can reduce noise in a work environment, not only are you making things better for employees but also, in this instance, reducing noise pollution on our already hectic streets.

As for environmental pollution, Fuso says that driving the eCanter instead of the regular Canter prevents 16 tons of pollution from the air per year. If you think about how many trucks like this you see roaming around your city every day, that’s an incredible amount of CO2 kept from the air.

But companies need more than quiet trucks and good environmental vibes to replace their current fleets with battery-powered ones. Fuso said that these new trucks could generate a saving of $19,000 after five years of use compared to their predecessors. The trucks will also be offered with the option for lessees to upgrade the batteries when improvements become available.

And finally, by using a companion system, companies can track their trucks’ energy usage in far greater detail than they can with their diesel counterparts, including staggering how much and at what times the vehicle needs charging. This can be pretty often if the truck strays too far from its distribution center.

The eCanter has a range of 60 to 80 miles based on the terrain and how much of a load it’s carrying. The truck is rated for 9,000 pounds of cargo. Recharging the vehicle’s six battery packs can take as long as eight hours using a typical level 2 charger, but with a DC fast-charger it can get to 80 percent in about an hour. This means a driver could replenish the charge during a lunch break if a fast-charger is available. A full charge will take up to two hours.

These specs make the truck perfect for dense areas like San Francisco, Chicago and New York, but for cities, like Los Angeles, that are basically hundreds of miles of sprawl, the eCanter probably won’t be replacing vehicles that needed to cover all those miles in a day. For those routes under the century mark, the eCanter looks to be a solid performer, based on my time in the cab of the truck.

The silent truck also displayed the characteristics found on other electric vehicles. It has plenty of torque right off the line and that power is available at almost any speed. Driving it as easy as driving any truck with an automatic transmission: You just point and go. For drivers that might not be fans of change, the only adaptation they’ll have to make is looking at a battery gauge instead of a fuel one.

Frankly, it doesn’t matter if companies or drivers want to switch to electric. The UK and France want to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2040 and cities like Paris are banning all gas-powered cars in the future. At some point, if you want to deliver packages, companies will need electric trucks, and Daimler’s eFuso eCanter will be right there waiting for them.

Apple to Charge $279 for iPhone X Screen Repairs and $549 for Other Damage Outside of Warranty

Apple has updated its website with non-warranty service pricing for the iPhone X, which became available to pre-order starting today.

In the United States, Apple will charge flat rates of $279 for iPhone X screen repairs and $549 for any other damage to the device, unless it is a manufacturing defect covered by Apple’s standard one-year limited warranty. The fees vary in other countries, such as Australia, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

• Australia: $419 for screen repairs, $819 for other damage
• Canada: $359 for screen repairs, $709 for other damage
• Germany: €321 for screen repairs, and €611 for other damage
• United Kingdom: £286 for screen repairs, £556 for other damage
• United States: $279 for screen repairs, $549 for other damage

These prices do not apply to customers who purchase AppleCare+ for the iPhone X, which costs $199 upfront in the United States.

AppleCare+ is an optional warranty plan that extends an iPhone’s coverage to two years from the original purchase date of the device. The plan adds up to two incidents of accidental damage coverage, each subject to a lower service fee of $29 for screen repairs, or $99 for any other damage.

AppleCare+ for iPhone also provides 24/7 priority access to AppleCare advisors via online chat or phone for up to two years after the device’s original purchase date. Without the plan, iPhone owners are covered by a limited one-year warranty and an initial 90 days of complimentary telephone support.

Related Roundup: iPhone XBuyer’s Guide: iPhone X (Buy Now)
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Apple to Classify Third-Generation iPad as Obsolete Later This Month

Apple will add the third-generation iPad to its vintage and obsolete products list on October 31, 2017, according to an internal memo distributed to Apple Authorized Service Providers and verified by MacRumors.

Apple’s third-generation iPad
The memo states that both Wi-Fi and cellular models of the third-generation iPad will be classified as obsolete around the world, except in the state of California and Turkey due to legalities in those regions.

The distinction means that Apple and Apple Authorized Service Providers will no longer repair or service the tablet since it will surpass five years since last being manufactured, except where required by law.

In California, for example, third-generation iPad owners may still obtain service from Apple Stores or by contacting Apple support at 1-800-APL-CARE. The extended coverage period will likely end in October 2019.

Apple released the third-generation iPad, formally known as “the new iPad,” in March 2012. The tablet was Apple’s last with a 30-pin dock connector, and it was immediately discontinued upon release of the fourth-generation iPad with a Lightning connector just seven months later.

The third-generation iPad will join the original iPad on the vintage and obsolete products list. iPad 2 hasn’t received the classification since it remained in Apple’s tablet lineup as a low-cost option until 2014.

Tag: vintage and obsolete
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There’s probably no reason to freak out about this ‘new’ Activity Recognition permission

A Google Play Services API is asking for a scary permission but what it’s doing isn’t new.

Google search competitor Duck Duck Go brought attention to a post in the Android privacy subreddit about a new app permission that showed up in the Shazam and SoundHound apps.

There’s a new Android permission in town, that shares with apps whether you’re walking, driving, sitting, etc.It’s called “Activity Recognition” and you can find it in an app’s permissions page, in the “Other” category, but it can’t be disabled. pic.twitter.com/rXJvXDd132

— DuckDuckGo (@duckduckgo) October 26, 2017

You’ll see the permission requested if you visit the Shazam app on the Play Store with your phone and look at the listed app permissions (not during an installation) but you won’t see it from the desktop. While we’re not sure why this permission is being requested now, or at least why it is now listed, the thing it’s asking permission to do isn’t new.

Turns out it’s part of Google Play Services and from the connectionless ActivityRecognitionClient API. It’s something a developer can use to detect movement and help decide whether a user is sitting, walking or on a bus or any other kind of motion and is a direct replacement of the older ActivityRecognition API that was also part of Play Services. The On-Body Detection method from Smart Lock uses it.

And don’t bother trying — you can’t disable or deny the permission. You can disable Google Play Services as a whole, but not an individual API from the package. Which is part of the reason we’re wondering why we see it listed the way it is. Or why it wasn’t listed before.

We’ve sent a message to the right people to see what anyone has to say on the whole thing and we’ll update when we hear back. In the meantime, don’t freak out too much about this. Shazam isn’t tracking your every move — at least no more so than any other app that uses your GPS location.

OnePlus 5T could be unveiled on November 16

Latest OnePlus 5T rumor suggests the phone will be launching in the third week of November.

Alleged photos of the OnePlus 5T leaked earlier this week, showing off a device with an all-screen front and minimal bezels. The phone is rumored to come with a 6-inch display, but take up the same footprint as the standard OnePlus 5, which has a 5.5-inch display. The OnePlus 5T is expected to make its debut sometime next month, and a new leak out of GizChina suggests the phone will be unveiled during the third week of November.

The “Amazon exclusive” moniker shows the leak comes out of India, where Amazon is the official retailer for OnePlus devices in the country. The render used in the image is similar to the one we’ve seen previously, with a fingerprint sensor located at the back. The wording of the image is identical to what Amazon used for the OnePlus 5 launch.

The Indian launch event usually occurs a day or two after the global unveil, which means we’re looking at November 14 or 15 for the official debut of the OnePlus 5T. Either way, it’s looking more and more likely that OnePlus’ upcoming phone will be debuting in just under a month.

While we don’t have detailed images of the device itself, we can find more clues elsewhere. The OnePlus 5 mirrored the OPPO R11 in terms of the design, and it’s likely that the 5T will bear more than a passing resemblance to the R11s, which is slated for an official unveil shortly. Leaked press renders of the R11s reveal an 18:9 screen up front and a fingerprint sensor at the back:

As for the specs on offer, it’s possible the OnePlus 5T will share the same internal hardware. The dual camera setup at the back could be getting a bump to 20MP imaging sensors. What do you make of the OnePlus 5T based on the leaks thus far?

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Should you buy a phone from a carrier in 2017?

There are plenty of reasons for doing it!

Everyone loves getting a new phone, but buying one can be stressful. You’ll see deals from third-parties for unlocked phones, promos from the manufacturer if you buy through them, and options from a carrier that sound too good to be true. It should be fun to buy a new phone just like it is when you’re using it! You can cut most of the confusion out of the picture by deciding if you should buy your phone from your carrier or if you should buy it elsewhere from whichever company has the best deal or the best freebies.

More: Smartphone Buyer’s Guide

Financing models can also hide the real cost of a phone because it wants you to upgrade to a new phone every year or two.

The U.S. is finally moving away from the carrier subsidy model. That’s great because it really only hid the true cost of buying a phone and didn’t really save us money. Its replacement is a mix of different financing options or lease programs designed to do the same thing — disguise how much you’re really spending.

And they can be tempting; even when you’re not spending any extra money and getting a phone at the list price with no interest a carrier wants you to buy through them. It locks you in and keeps you paying for service unless you hand over the balance, which puts you right back at the beginning where you could have paid in full from any company. Getting you interested in financing or leasing is just as important as the subsidy model was, so the offers need to be enticing.

A carrier phone also means bloatware and a middleman between you and the manufacturer if there are any warranty issues. Everyone hates bloatware and there’s not much we can say about it that’s good, but having a warranty through a carrier might not be too terrible. Sure, talking to the company who built it when you have problems is great but remember, it’s very important to keep you happy and paying for service every month to your carrier. They will often go the extra mile.

Your carrier is a business and businesses need to make money. Don’t hate them for it.

Your phone carrier isn’t evil. It’s a business and it needs to make money. We want them to make money and be successful because we enjoy the service they offer. For the most part, all the information about all the ways to buy a new phone is available and representatives will do their best to answer your questions. What’s important is that you go into it knowing it’s a business deal that benefits them as much as you: you get a new phone, they get a monthly fee for their service. Quid pro quo and all that.

So buying your phone through a carrier is a bad idea, right? Wrong. There are a handful of reasons to buy your phone from the people who provide the service you’ll be using.

• Carrier optimizations. Every carrier does things like VoLTE (Voice over LTE) or Carrier Aggregation a little differently. And while we imagine sometimes there’s a business decision involved, there are also technical limitations why a single model can’t be made to support the advanced network features of every carrier. And the way network frequencies and wireless spectrum are distributed means it will probably remain this way for a while. these advanced features are pretty great, too. Who doesn’t love faster network speeds or clearer voice calls, right?

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• Getting more than your money’s worth. Sometimes you’ll find a carrier offering a new phone at a ridiculously low price or even offering a buy-one-get-one offer. Getting two Galaxy S8 or LG G6 phones from T-Mobile and only paying for one was worth jumping through a few hoops. There will be hoops you can jump through the next time you buy a phone if you want a spare or one to sell. And in Europe, you’ll often find the difference in contract price between a SIM-only plan and one that includes a phone is so small that you’re better off taking the phone and selling it to offset the costs.
• Carrier services. Like advanced network features, a mix of business practices and technical details can keep things like voicemail or Wi-Fi from calling unless you buy your phone through the carrier you’re going to use it with. Some extras can also need a pre-installed app to properly work while the version in the Play Store can have features removed.
• Exclusive colors or versions. This makes us really sad, but companies who make phones are more than happy to make a deal where some colors only go to certain carriers. These same contracts can happen for special editions with audio enhancements or wireless charging. This is why we can’t have nice things.

More like this, please. But not tied to one carrier!

Finally, there are the leasing programs. You make a monthly payment every month and you get a new iPhone every year or can swap phones every 30 days or whatever carriers dream up next. While horrible from a financial point of view (you never stop paying for a thing you never get to own) the idea of getting a new phone without worrying about a down payment or changing any monthly fees is less horrible. Samsung or Best Buy aren’t going to offer this option and most of us don’t have the money to just run out and get a new phone whenever we feel like it.

We can all say that programs like T-Mobile Jump on demand aren’t financially sound, but they are the only way to switch phones a lot without buying them outright. That makes them great for some of us.

So what should we do?

This is more of an opinion that a recommendation based on something more. That’s because there are good reasons to buy your phone through your carrier and good reasons to buy it elsewhere. The way things work now means that if you’re looking to pick up a new flagship phone from any of the popular brands, you’re better off buying it through your carrier.

For now you need to buy from a carrier to use all of its features unless you buy an iPhone.

The biggest reason is the network optimizations you could be missing out on if you don’t. Faster data speeds are always great, but network optimizations also can mean using less battery, having clearer calls and just staying connected better while moving from tower to tower. A phone isn’t nearly as fun to use if you have no service, so anything that makes for better service is pretty important. Of course, the other reasons like special colors or BOGO deals aren’t bad, either.

The exception here is the iPhone. There are a couple different models of iPhone that have carrier optimizations in place, but they are also unlocked and can be bought directly from Apple and used almost anywhere. Android phones like the Pixel series also have some network optimizations in place as well and, hopefully, this can continue until others can offer unlocked models with the very same features as carrier versions on every carrier.

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The Morning After: Friday, October 27th 2017

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

Depending on your interests, today is possibly iPhone X day, Super Mario Odyssey day, Stranger Things season two day, Assassin’s Creed Origins day or Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus day. But it’s definitely Friday — we checked.

‘Another evolution of a perfect formula.’‘Super Mario Odyssey’ review

The first big Mario platformer for Switch is here, and it looks like a winner. Aaron Souppouris describes Odyssey as a combination of Mario 64 and Galaxy. While it doesn’t follow Breath of the Wild’s lead as a departure from the series’ norm, earlier Mario games provide a solid base so that it doesn’t have to. New features like fast travel, maps and Cappy are just icing on the cake

So did you get one?iPhone X pre-orders are open — but there’s already a wait

If you’re looking for Apple’s $1,000+ OLED iPhone, then the easiest way to get one is probably by pre-ordering now. Of course, if you haven’t ordered already then there could be a few weeks of waiting (beyond the November 3rd launch date) ahead, but we’re sure you were up at 3 AM with the Apple Store app open.

It’s a work in progress.Google responds to Pixel 2 issues

Meanwhile, early-adopting Pixel 2 owners have been complaining about some issues with its display (especially on the larger XL model) as well as weird noises. Google has responded to those concerns, saying that a new vibrant mode is coming to make the colors pop on those OLED screens, and that software tweaks will help stem image retention. Either way, it’s extending the base warranty on all Pixel 2 phones to two years instead of one. Oh, and as for those weird noises — a software fix is coming, but for now affected owners can squash it by disabling NFC.

Give your friends a close-up view of your nostrils.Instagram’s new feature adds dramatic zoom-ins to your Stories

It’s time to star in your own telenovela.

Live in the cloud.Google Pixelbook review

This Pixelbook bears no resemblance to the original Pixel, but it’s cut from similar cloth. It’s still one of the nicest laptops you can find — and it’s still running Chrome OS. Despite mediocre battery life, its software and hardware, Nathan Ingraham says, justify the high price for users who don’t absolutely need a Windows or Mac PC.

Where does Sony’s headset stand?PSVR, one year later

One year after the debut of the PSVR, Sony hasn’t publicly updated its sales figures since June. There are plenty of games, however, with more than 100 VR experiences available and 60 more expected by early 2018. So, will the intrigue last long enough for VR to gain a significant foothold on consoles, or have we already seen the best of this accessory?

Desktop-class speed and graphics in ultrathin notebooks.AMD stuffs Radeon Vega graphics into its Ryzen Mobile chips

AMD is setting its sights on laptops with these upcoming Ryzen Mobile chips. And, as you might expect, they’ll feature integrated Vega graphics. AMD’s goal? To power ultrathin laptops that can still play a few rounds of Overwatch.

But wait, there’s more…

• Microsoft reportedly tests a Courier-like folding digital notebook
• Bloodhound preps for land speed record with 200MPH test run
• ‘Basic IT security’ could have prevented UK NHS WannaCry attack
• Autoblog’s 2017 Tokyo Motor Show roundup
• Walmart tests shelf-scanning robots in 50-plus stores
• Netflix will stream a ‘Stranger Things’ aftershow for die-hard fans
• Former Xbox Live policy VP Stephen ‘StepTo’ Toulouse passed away

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