Get your first look at the dinosaurs in the new ‘Jurassic World Evolution’ game

Why it matters to you

With Universal providing access to 3D files from the film, this promises to be an authentic Jurassic Park experience.

If you’ve ever wanted to run a world-class theme park filled with deadly prehistoric dinosaurs, you won’t have long to wait. At the recently concluded Frontier Expo in London, the Jurassic World Evolution developers revealed more details about their upcoming prehistoric park management sim, including information about the game’s objectives and some great dinosaur footage rendered using the in-game engine.

Drawing on the success of Planet Coaster (and undoubtedly using some of the same foundations), you’ll be running a dinosaur amusement park, so in addition to creating new creatures in your lab, you need to manage your attractions and draw in new visitors. With Evolution, Frontier promises to deliver the “core fantasy that’s in the movie.”

When the game was announced back in August, Jonny Watts, Frontier’s Chief Creative Officer, said, “We’re excited to bring over fifteen years of management, simulation, and creature development expertise to a destination and franchise that remains an inspiration to us.”

While the announcement trailer used pre-rendered footage, this reveal shows the dinos in their environments using the in-game engine. Universal Pictures worked with the developers and provided access to the ILM 3D files from the films, allowing Frontier to alter the detail level to work in the game.

The career mode spans five islands, each one presenting some unique challenges. You can choose to specialize in Entertainment, Science, or Security (or a mixture of the three). You’ll also have to contend with the occasional disaster, such as tropical storms, earthquakes, or disease outbreaks.

Entertainment, of course, is all about packing in as many people as possible and keeping them entertained. For Science, undertake research expeditions and educational pursuits about the dinosaurs in their natural habitats. The Security specialty revolves around a park showcasing the world’s most dangerous dinosaurs … and really, what could go wrong there?

As you develop your park, you’ll also endeavor to fill up the “Ingen Database,” a repository for information not just about dinosaurs, but also about the Jurassic Park franchise itself, lore that’s sure to delight avid fans of the series. Discover DNA by sending dig teams to archaeological sites, and even bioengineer new dinosaur attractions for your park.

If you’d like to check out the entire Jurassic World Evolution presentation from Frontier Expo, it’s available on its TwitchTV stream (jump to about the 20-minute mark). Evolution will be available in summer 2018 for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

Best new songs to stream: Haim, Spoon, Sharon Van Etten, and more

Every week, there are thousands of new songs hitting the airwaves — and it’s just too much for your two ears to handle. With all those options, you can’t be wasting your time on tracks that deserve a thumbs-down click — you want the best new songs to stream right now.

But don’t worry, we’re going to save you the hassle. We listen to some of the most-hyped and interesting songs each week, and tell you which are worthy of your precious listening time.

Here are our five best new songs to stream this week. And don’t forget to subscribe to our Spotify page for a playlist of our weekly picks, which can also be found at the bottom of this post. Not sure which streaming service is best for you? Check out our post about the best music streaming services, or go in depth and learn the differences between Apple Music and Spotify to better weigh your options.

HAIM — Little of Your Love

Los Angeles-based sister act Haim just released this Paul Thomas Anderson-directed video for their extremely catchy dance number Little of Your Love. The video boasts an extended dance scene and some pretty great on-screen moves, while the song itself features excellent vocal layering and a punchy drumbeat that comes in and out of the mix.

Spoon — I Ain’t The One

Indie rockers Spoon are best known for their more upbeat singles, but this recently released video for I Ain’t The One highlights one of their most beautiful new ballads — a tune off of the album Hot Thoughts. Band members appear underneath a dark escalator in the video, which is bookended by a simple — and very Radiohead-like — keyboard line.

DMA’s — Dawning

There are very few new acts as engaging as up-and-coming Australian rock group DMA. The band’s latest single, Dawning, is a near-perfect pop tune with a catchy vocal melody that joins layers of percussion and bass — an Oasis-like combination that will have you coming back again and again.

The Rural Alberta Advantage — Toughen Up

The Rural Alberta Advantage have maintained a punchy, down-to-earth aesthetic for some time now, with a history of combining introverted vocals and driving grooves to form powerful indie pop tunes. Their latest song, Toughen Up, is no different, with a kick-and-snare beat that’s held together by female backing vocals and wide, flowing synthesizers.

Sharon Van Etten — I Wish I Knew

Songwriter Sharon Van Etten recently announced that she’s prepping a deluxe reissue of her debut album Because I Was In Love, and she shared this special remastered version of the ballad I Wish I Knew this week. The revamped master remains simple and elegant, fueled by heartbreaking lyrics and and Van Etten’s equally heartbreaking voice.

That’s it for now, but tune in next week for more songs to stream, and check out the playlist loaded with our recent selections below:

Apple’s iPhone X leads Android manufacturers to embrace facial recognition

Why it matters to you

Soon, your Android could have the iPhone X’s latest and greatest feature.

Whether or not you are a fan of Apple, the Cupertino company remains one of the top leaders in the world of smartphones. Some of the recent editions of the iPhone have only featured minor upgrades, but that changed with the reveal of the iPhone X, which featured Face ID. Mac Rumors reports that industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes Apple’s announcement will motivate Android manufacturers to move away from touch-based sensors to facial recognition software.

“While under-display optical fingerprint recognition is only a spec upgrade from capacitive solutions, 3D sensing embodies a revolutionary user experience and warrants a premium on gross margin,” Kuo’s research note reads. “3D sensing not only enables facial recognition in security applications and allows users to create fun expressions like Apple’s Animoji, on a more important level, it is a key factor in the development of AR. We therefore believe brand vendors are willing to spend more for related components.”

Current companies working on the technology for Android manufacturers are Qualcomm and Himax, Orbbec, and Mantis Vision. The offerings from Qualcomm and Himax are said to be the most advanced and thus the most popular.

Kuo says that within the next two to three years, he believes that Android phones shipped with 3D sensors will outnumber those with under-the-panel fingerprint scanners by a factor of two to three. Kuo cited the fact that 3D sensors are compatible with a wider variety of Android phones. 3D sensors can work with LCD screens whereas under-the-panel displays only work with OLED displays.

Beyond that, there are also the supply issues to consider. Kuo says that Samsung’s dominance in the area of high-end OLED panels means that supplies of such hardware will be significantly harder to find. The move to 3D sensors isn’t simply an attempt by Android manufacturers to copy Apple, but rather a move necessitated by the constants of hardware supplies.

That being said, it is likely that we won’t see widespread adoption of this technology for several years and, even then, it will likely only be available on premium phones. And it will be even longer when we see the feature on lower-end devices.

Why Google’s Pixel 2 XL will be my next phone

There have been a lot of great smartphones so far this year, but the Pixel 2 XL is easily the best choice for me. Here’s why.

In all of my years writing about Android, I’ve never once pre-ordered a phone on the day of its announcement. I typically wait for reviews to come out and to get hands-on time with a device myself before handing over my cash, but something changed this year. Despite heavy hitters like the Galaxy S8, LG V30, and Note 8 all begging for my attention and money, I ignored all of them (and my sensible instincts) and pre-ordered the Pixel 2 XL as soon as pre-orders went live on October 4.

Google absolutely killed it last year

It took a lot of strength and willpower to not purchase a Pixel last fall on the day of its announcement, but I decided to hold off and see what my colleagues had to say. As I’m sure all of you remember, response to the phone was overwhelmingly positive. Despite this, I still held off. The phone simply didn’t look all that interesting after the initial excitement wore off, but then I actually got one as my daily driver in June.

The Pixel was a perfect example of a phone that you had to actually use for yourself and carry as a daily driver to understand what made it so great. There’s nothing interesting or exciting about its hardware, but the software that’s powering the phone is still magical to this day. Last year’s Pixel still remains as one of the snappiest and most fluid Android experiences on the market, and Google’s expertise when it comes to camera software and performance remains as one of the industry’s best.

2016’s Pixel XL

Because of these things and so much more, the Pixel offered a user experience unlike anything I’d encountered before on other Android phones. The consistently smooth performance, tightened up UI, solid battery, and world-class camera turned a phone that seemed borning on the surface into one of the best the market had to offer.

Why this matters for round two

With the Pixel, Google proved that top-notch software is more important than flashy hardware. Sure, the latter is nice to have, but the former is so much more important when using your phone day-to-day.

With the Pixel 2 XL, Google is checking both of those boxes.

Google nailed hardware and software this time around with the Pixel 2 XL.

From a hardware point of view, Google included a narrow 18:9 display with 3D curved glass and considerably smaller bezels than last year’s model, front-facing stereo speakers, appropriately-placed fingerprint scanner, faster and more efficient processor, and a design that’s more refined and polished. As for the software, there’s still unlimited cloud photo storage, Google’s post-processing magic for the camera, and the ridiculously smooth performance that can only be had when hardware and software are made for one another.

Last year’s strong points make a return, but there are also new additions like the Pixel 2’s ability to automatically identify songs that are playing in the background and turn on Do Not Disturb when it detects that you’re driving, access to Google Lens so you can theoretically turn your eyeballs into Google Search, new ways to access the Google Assistant, and an AR feature-set that looks like worlds of fun.

Where the Pixel offered bland hardware with stupendous software, the Pixel 2 XL offers modern, eye-catching hardware with an even better software experience (presumably) than what we got last year.

Pixel 2 XL against the competition

As mentioned in the beginning of this article, the Pixel 2 XL does not exist in a bubble. Its two biggest competitors, for the time being, are the Galaxy Note 8 and LG V30. Both of these phones have their own set of strong suits, but they’re missing something that, in my opinion, makes them inferior – Google’s software.

LG V30 (left) next to Google Pixel 2 XL (right)

The Pixel proved last year that a near perfect software experience could outshine classier hardware, and now that we have a phone from Google that offers both of these things, I’m ecstatic to get my hands on the Pixel 2 XL to see if it lives up to its predecessor. The updated/modernized hardware is greatly appreciated and something that needed to happen for gen two, and while I’m certainly excited for that aspect of the phone, I’m more anxious to get up close and personal with Google’s vision of what Android should look and feel like in late 2017.

The perfect melding of hardware and software is what made the original Pixel so damn good, and when we get to combine that with new features like Google Lens and Ambient Services and hardware that looks appropriate for the year it’s released in, I think we’re going to end up with something truly special.

Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL

• Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL hands-on: Act two is great
• Google Pixel 2 specs
• Google Pixel 2 vs. Pixel 2 XL: What’s the difference?
• Pixel 2 vs iPhone 8: Camera Showdown
• Pixel 2 FAQ: Everything you need to know!
• Join our Pixel 2 forums

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After Math: Starting up, shutting down

While the tech industry focused on all of the new shinies Google unveiled on Wednesday, the rest of the world turned. The Supreme Court shut down Kim Dotcom’s attempts to get his millions back, Toys R Us made a last ditch effort to save itself from obscurity, and the FCC finally got around to starting the rebuilding process for Puerto Rico’s crippled telephonic infrastructure.

FDA clears implant that treats severe sleep apnea

Sleep apnea (where your brain doesn’t properly send breathing signals while resting) is horrible enough by itself, but the solutions to it can be scary: you may have to take medication, rely on ungainly breathing machines or opt for invasive surgery. You might have a gentler treatment going forward, though. The US Food and Drug Administration has approved an implantable device, Respicardia’s Remede System, that fights more serious cases of sleep apnea.

The hardware amounts to a battery pack (slipped under your skin in the upper chest) and wires that enter the blood vessels near the nerve that stimulates your breathing. If you stop breathing normally in mid-sleep, Remede stimulates that nerve to move your diaphragm and keep you breathing. Think of it as an on-demand jumpstart for your respiratory system.

This isn’t a surefire fix. While there’s evidence that Remede works, only about half of study subjects saw the hoped-for dramatic reduction in breathing problems. Also, it can’t be used for obstructive sleep apnea (where the upper airway is blocked), people with active infections or those who need MRI scans. An implant is better than having to wear bulky equipment to bed, however, and even a modest improvement could add years to your life.

Source: FDA

From the Editor’s Desk: Google’s commitment to hardware is no longer in doubt

There is always intense hype around a Google event, and this time the company also delivered.

Google, it turns out, really cares about making self-branded hardware. The first two Chromebook Pixels weren’t a fluke, nor were the 2016 Google Pixel phones a one-off thought. With its October 4 event, Google didn’t just “double down” on hardware — it quadrupled down, announcing four new versions of existing products (Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL, Pixelbook, Daydream View) and four altogether new ones (Home Max, Home Mini, Pixel Buds, Clips).

Google announced a great mix of practical and aspirational products.

Google’s announcements all held their own purpose, and from my perspective importantly split between both practical and aspirational products. The Pixel 2 and 2 XL are ready-for-market high-end smartphones, and the new Daydream View headset and Google Home Mini are meant to get out there in the millions at low price points to support the phones. But just as importantly Google also showed off new hardware that’s meant to be an exercise in “let’s show people what we’re capable of” rather than aiming for the mass market: the Google Pixelbook, Google Home Max, Pixel Buds and Google Clips. None of these will be big sellers, but they are aspirational products that help people associate Google with lust-worthy hardware even if they end up just buying a Pixel 2 or Google Home Mini instead.

For once, the amount of effort Google’s putting behind hardware isn’t in question.

When paired with last month’s acqui-hire of 2,000 HTC engineers and some valuable IP licenses, this event looks even more enticing to those of us who enjoy Google’s hardware experiences. Not only is Google clearly improving on many of its hardware offerings that it intends to sell at scale, but it’s also introducing new product lines and hiring product-focused people to continue them. For once, the amount of effort Google’s putting behind hardware isn’t in question.

Now, as ever, we need some execution. Rick Osterloh, the head of Google’s hardware division, made a funny quip on stage this week about making enough Pixels this time around. It’s fun to joke about in a room full of people who are in the industry … but Google’s inability to keep together a supply line of phones seriously hurt Pixel sales and public perception of the company’s store. You have to graduate from the amateur ranks of logistics — all of these great-looking products depend on it.

And with that, a few more thoughts on the week that was:

• I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop with Google making changes to Project Fi to support these new Pixels and the Moto X4. If Google cares about growing the service, it has to offer more to family plans and cut its per-gigabyte pricing.
• As I ranted about on this week’s podcast (great episode, by the way), what rubs me the wrong way more than the lack of a headphone jack is Google’s decision to not ship headphones with the new Pixels.
• I know a lot of phones don’t come with headphones, but we’re not at the point where people already have USB-C headphones — Google needs to seed the market by putting a pair in the box, especially with phones this expensive.
• Sonos announcing Alexa support got completely squashed by Google’s event on the same day, but I’m not sure how big it would’ve been on any other wide-open Wednesday. For someone who isn’t already invested in the Sonos system, It feels like too little too late.

Have a great week, everyone.

-Andrew

Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL

• Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL hands-on: Act two is great
• Google Pixel 2 specs
• Google Pixel 2 vs. Pixel 2 XL: What’s the difference?
• Pixel 2 vs iPhone 8: Camera Showdown
• Pixel 2 FAQ: Everything you need to know!
• Join our Pixel 2 forums

Google Store
Project Fi
Verizon

Ben Heck’s Super Glue Gun: Scoping out the Autostand

Is Ben over-engineering the Super Glue Gun? Working on an idea from Felix, Ben prototypes the automatic deploying kickstand for the super glue gun build, and develops code for the ATTiny microcontroller for servo control. Though all is not as straightforward as it seems! Ben discovers the intricacies of the processor from the hardware’s datasheets and ensures he’s setting the correct bits to get the timing just right. Of course, it helps to sanity check it with an oscilloscope! Would you design this any different? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

iPhone X With New Dynamic Wallpaper Appears in the Wild

There are still 26 days to go before Apple officially launches iPhone X, but at least one person has already gotten their hands on one of the sought-after 5.8-inch devices, if a video shared on Reddit is anything to go by.

The short clip, embedded below, shows someone swiveling in their hand what looks like a silver glass-backed iPhone X with a new, previously unseen dynamic wallpaper on the lock screen.

As the handset is rotated, the padlock above the time visibly shudders as Face ID refuses to unlock, suggesting the person holding the phone is not the owner.

Speculation is rife among Redditors as to who the owner could be and how they ever got hold of an iPhone X so far ahead of the official launch next month.

According to the original poster, the video was uploaded from the San Jose area, California, making it likely that the clip was recorded by someone who knows an Apple employee with early access to the device. The iPhone X in the clip is also displaying an AT&T logo in the upper left corner, adding further weight to the suggestion this was recorded in the U.S.

Another iPhone X in the wild from apple

For the rest of us, pre-orders for iPhone X begin on Friday, October 27, with the device’s official launch date the following Friday, November 3.

Related Roundup: iPhone XTag: Reddit
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Awesome tech you can’t buy yet: Treepods, robot cutters, Firefly flints

At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion different crowdfunding campaigns happening on the Web. Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projects out there – alongside some real gems. We’ve cut through the Pebble clones and janky iPhone cases to round up the most unusual, ambitious, and exciting new crowdfunding projects out there this week. That said, keep in mind that any crowdfunding project — even the best intentioned — can fail, so do your homework before cutting a check for the gadget of your dreams.

Colorspike — dynamic set lighting

A few years ago, a small NYC-based startup called BitBanger Labs released a gizmo called the PixelStick: a programmable LED rail designed to take light painting photography to the next level. It was a huge hit with the crowdfunding community, quickly gathering up over $620,000 from more than 2,000 backers. It’s been nearly four years since the project went live on Kickstarter, and now the creators are back with yet another device aimed at photographers and videographers.

The Colorspike is a lot like the PixelStick in terms of operation, but is intended for a completely different purpose. Just like the PixelStick, ColorSpike is essentially just a row of programmable LEDs. The difference, however, is that ColorSpike’s lights are more powerful and customizable, since they’re meant to light up sets with a splash of color during video shoots.

The idea is that, rather than swapping out films and gels on their set lights, filmmakers can just change the color (or brightness, or pattern) of the ColorSpike through an accompanying smartphone app. If you’re an indie filmmaker, this is for you.

Treepod — hanging lounge tent

You know those suspended tents from companies like Tentsile and Treez? They not only provide a super-comfortable platform to sleep on while you’re in the great outdoors, but also a superior view of your surroundings. The only downside is that they’re a bit cumbersome to transport, and their multi-strap setup is far more laborious than erecting your average ground tent. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could enjoy all the benefits of a hanging shelter, but without all the extra effort and setup they generally require?

Enter the Treepod. It’s a suspended tent that’s not only durable and easy to transport, but also outrageously easy to set up. The key here is that the Treepod is suspended by only a single line, rather than multiple tension straps like you’ll find on most other hanging shelters. On top of that, Treepod tents also break down and pack up into reasonably-sized packages for easy transport.

That means you don’t need a six-man crew and a flock of pack mules just to haul it out into the woods. You can easily toss it over your shoulder and bring it along on a solo adventure.

Firefly — fire-starting accessory for Swiss Army Knives

It’s tough to improve on an outdoor product as revered as the Swiss army knife. After all, this iconic multitool has been around for more than 120 years, and has achieved legendary status due to its simple, utilitarian design. But a new product called the Firefly, which recently launched on Kickstarter, delivers a handy new feature that does the impossible: it improves your Swiss army knife in a big way. How? By giving it the ability to start a fire! It’s a sparking tool that fits neatly into your existing pocketknife, so you’ll always have it handy when you need it.

Made from a custom sparking material developed by Tortoise Gear, the Firefly is essentially a flint/steel rod that fits snugly into the toothpick slot of your Swiss army knife. Unfortunately, that means you’ll have to ditch that flimsy plastic toothpick that you use so much in the backcountry — but we’re willing to bet that if you had to choose between freezing to death or having an annoying piece of beef jerky stuck between your molars, you’d probably choose the latter. Really, if you think about it, couldn’t you just use the corkscrew as a toothpick anyway? It’s a wonder that Victorinox didn’t think of this decades ago.

Goliath CNC — robotic milling machine

3D printers may hog the limelight, but CNC mills, which cut materials with extreme precision, have also come a long way in the past few years. It used to be that these devices could only be found in machine shops, but over the course of the past decade or so, the technology has largely been democratized. You can now get your hands on a user-friendly desktop CNC mill for less than $1,000, but size remains a major restraint. Unless you shell out a lot of money, you can’t really find a machine that will mill parts larger than a foot in any dimension, so you’re fairly limited in terms of what you can create.

Goliath CNC is one attempt to change that. This beast can mill shapes up to four feet wide and eight feet long — and it only costs a hair over $1,400. The machine’s creators at LA-based startup Springa designed it from the ground up to be simple and affordable, so it’s a complete reimagining of the concept of a CNC milling machine.

In place of rails, the Goliath CNC uses multidirectional wheels and sensor pylons that tell the robot precisely where it is on the cutting surface. Plus, since it’s really no bigger than a fat Roomba, Goliath won’t take up a ton of space in your garage like a traditional CNC machine would.

WT2 — real-time in-ear language translator

In the iconic Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, author Douglas Adams introduced the world to the Babel Fish: a “small, yellow, leech-like” creature that lives inside the ear of a host and “feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier, but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them.”

A Babel Fish allows the user to understand anything anyone says to them, no matter the language. While Adams’s creation was somewhat whimsical and far-flung when the book was released in 1979, the real world might soon be filled with devices that function much like the fictional creature. Case in point? The WT2 in-ear translator. Promising natural, hands-free communication, the WT2 seeks to enable conversations in two different languages via two earphone translators and one app.

Simply remove the earphones from their charging case, done one of them and give the other one to your friend. Speak in your language, and your interlocutor will hear it in their language. The earbuds will automatically pair with an iOS app, and begin listening for your communication. If you’re speaking in Spanish to an English speaker, your friend will hear your Spanish words in their native tongue after a short delay. And when your friend replies in English, you’ll hear said response in Spanish. Pretty cool, right?