Of course there are Street Fighter-meets-Transformers toys

Listen, I’m sure some of you grew up watching the Transformers cartoon and played Street Fighter years later with a wish in your heart that these two worlds would meet. For those happy few, there are now mash-up toys that let Ryu, villain M. Bison, Ken and Chun Li morph into cars and planes.

Tipsters pointed Transformers fan site Seibertron to the new line, which seems to reuse old models from previous years’ Transformers toys. Ergo, Ryu is Optimus Prime (called Convoy in Japan), M. Bison is Megatron, Ken is Hot Rod and Chun Li is Arcee. They’ll be released in paired sets, with the more complex Ryoptimus and M. Bisotron going for about $115 US while Kot Rod and Charcee cost around $76. The rumor mill has both coming out in May 2018. Check out the full mock-ups below, which Seibertron put together:

Via: Rock Paper Shotgun

Source: Takara Tomy Mall

Overcast Podcast App Gains New ‘Black’ Dark Theme, End of Episode Sleep Timer, and More

Popular third-party iOS podcast app Overcast reached version 4.0.1 on Thursday, bringing some much-requested features including a new true-black dark theme and sleep timer option.

New Black dark theme compared to Light theme with System font option enabled
The new Black theme, shown above, joins the existing Light and Dark themes, and has been designed with the iPhone X in mind, offering a slick new look for the smartphone’s 5.8-inch OLED display as well as being easier on tired eyes.

As before, users who like to change things up depending on the time of day (or night) can swipe up or down with two fingers to quickly change between a light and dark interface – the only difference being that the Light-Switch gesture now simply chooses the most recently used dark theme.

In another neat UI appearance tweak, users can now also opt to turn on the system font for whichever theme they choose.

Elsewhere, there’s a new sleep timer option that stops playback at the end of the currently playing episode, plus a bunch of smaller improvements including one that’s supposed to fix auto-resume playback after taking a call.

Overcast 3.1 is available as a free ad-supported app for iPhone and iPad from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Tag: Overcast
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Facebook Tests Yet Another Snapchat-Like Feature With Messenger ‘Streaks’

Facebook is continuing its seemingly relentless trend of copying Snapchat with the testing of a new feature that plays on the latter’s streak feature, which encourages users to “keep your streak going” when messaging friends.

Facebook Messenger streaks include an emoji status to indicate friends that a user is currently in a streak with – who they’ve messaged for at least two days in a row – and encourages them to keep chatting to keep the streak alive.

Messenger is testing out streak counts… Streak counts really bug me. pic.twitter.com/leDRemkSR3

— case (@CaseSandberg) November 22, 2017

A spokesperson for Facebook Messenger who spoke to Mashable confirmed its testing of the feature, saying it was a way “to see at a glance fun facts about the people you message with”.

“For example, a lightning bolt may appear next to the name of a person you’ve messaged with for at least three days in a row, and a counter will indicate how many consecutive days you’ve been chatting. We’re interested to see if people enjoy this insight, but we don’t have any additional information to share at this time.”

Streaks have been a popular feature with younger Snapchat users for some time, with many seeing them as a fun, addictive challenge to see how long they can make a streak last for. Whether or not the trend catches on with the wider age demographic of Messenger users is a different proposition, and will undoubtedly dictate the chances of a wider rollout.

In its last straight-up feature clone, Facebook created a facsimile of Snapchat’s day-long, vanishing post idea in Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram, which gained 100 million users following the Snapchat-like update last year.

Tags: Facebook Messenger, Snapchat
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Do AirPods kill intimacy? No way, says Apple’s holiday ad

Have you ever been strolling along the street listening to your favorite tune when a spotlight suddenly picks you out and you find yourself pulling extraordinary dance moves all the way home? Thought not.

It does, however, happen to the star of Apple’s new ad for its wireless AirPods.

It’s a snowy night in the city, and the protagonist whips out her iPhone X to select Sam Smith’s gentle Palace track. With her AirPods firmly lodged in her ears, the song compels her to dance majestically through the city, with passers-by apparently doing their best to avoid eye contact with the odd woman prancing along the snow-covered sidewalk.

But then, inevitably, she bumps into someone. It’s a guy, and instead of yelling at her to “get the hell outta my way,” he looks at her in a way that suggests they’re going to spend the rest of the ad together. And quite possibly their lives.

With gazes firmly locked, she stuffs one of her AirPods into his ear, prompting Smith’s track to crank up again. Off the pair go, dancing through the night together. With one AirPod each.

And perhaps that’s the point of the ad. When the AirPods launched in 2016, there was much talk about how Apple’s wireless earbuds destroyed that unique intimacy that comes from getting tangled up with someone special, as might happen when sharing wired buds. The physical link isn’t there with the wireless buds, nor that potential for closeness or frisson of uncertainty, though Apple clearly begs to differ. Or perhaps the ad is telling us that no matter your movements, the wireless AirPods will not slip out of your ears and disappear down a drain.

Despite the dangerously distracted dancing, the happy couple manages to avoid stumbling into a canal or getting mown down by a bus, allowing them to perform the kind of dance moves that would hospitalize most of us within seconds of trying them.

As Apple’s ad comes to a close, the couple quits rocking out and instead gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes, AirPods still wedged firmly in ear holes. But then the spotlight goes off, daylight returns, and his AirPod is gone, confirming that it may be wise to think twice about sticking one of your earbuds into a stranger’s ear.

The Platonic ideal of a smartphone [#acpodcast]

This week, Daniel Bader, Andrew Martonik, and Russell Holly dig in with the OnePlus 5T and try to figure out why it seems like almost all smartphones are starting to look alike. They also talk about the importance of buying a phone for what it can do now — not what it might be capable of later.

Google is in the news once again with another trust and reputation-violating faux pas. This time, it’s been secretly collecting users’ cell tower locations.

Finally, friends don’t let friends buy a cheap, crappy Android tablet this Holiday season. What are the best options, if any? Check out this week’s show!

Show Notes and Links:

• OnePlus 5T review

• From the Editor’s Desk: How far can OnePlus go with community-driven software and hardware?

• OnePlus 5T: Should you pay extra for 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage?

• OnePlus 5T is the company’s fastest-selling phone

• Google has been secretly collecting Android users’ cell tower locations, risking a hit to its reputation

• Please don’t buy a crappy cheap tablet on Black Friday

Podcast MP3 URL: http://traffic.libsyn.com/androidcentral/androidcentral362.mp3

Black Friday Stream: All of the best deals in real-time

Black Friday 2017 is finally here, and the Thrifter team will be covering all of it with you right here!

That’s right. Team Thrifter will be bringing you complete coverage of all things Black Friday right here, and we hope you’ll join us. Our live coverage of the fun will begin on November 22 at 10 p.m. EST. There will be deals from just about every retailer you can think of, and some will definitely be better than others. Black Friday deals have been known to sell out in just minutes (sometimes less), so this is the quickest way to be alerted to these deals as they are happening!

Join the Thrifter Deals Stream

All Our Black Friday Picks 2017

We know not everyone can browse tons of deal feeds to find the best deal, so we’ve simplified it for you. This list will constantly be updating, so be sure to check back frequently.

• Smart Home
• Amazon Devices
• iPhone, iPad, MacBook
• Google & Android
• 4K HDTVs
• PlayStation
• Xbox
• Nintendo
• Toys
• Lego
• Fashion & Beauty
• Everyday Essentials
• Amazon Deals
• Best Buy Deals
• Walmart Deals

Smart Home

HDTVs

Toys

PlayStation

Google & Android

Amazon Devices

Amazon Deals

Best Buy Deals

Walmart Deals

Apple

Xbox

Nintendo

Everyday Essentials

Fashion & Beauty

LEGO

Our nights keep getting brighter

Our nights are getting brighter and they have been every year since 2012, according to a new study published today in Science Advances. Researchers led by Christopher Kyba at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences used satellite imagery to track changes in nighttime outdoor artificial lighting around the world and they found that between 2012 and 2016, the amount of lit area grew by 2.2 percent per year. The amount of brightness from continuously lit areas also increased by 2.2 percent per year. So not only is more area being illuminated at night, already lit areas are getting even brighter. “We’re losing more and more of the night on a planetary scale,” said the journal’s editor, Kip Hodges.

Some areas stayed largely the same year over year, but many of those regions, including those in Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the US, were already among the brightest to begin with. Lighting increased throughout South America, Africa and Asia. And the numbers are likely to underestimate the problem because the satellite used doesn’t pick up blue light emitted by LEDs, which have been used more and more in the last few years.

“The numbers are truly shocking, given that we know illuminating the nocturnal environment can have widespread ramifications for the environment and human health,” University of Exeter researcher Thomas Davies, who wasn’t involved with the study, told Gizmodo. And exactly how much it will impact human and environmental health is unclear since nighttime illumination is a fairly new phenomenon. “Artificial light at night is a very new stressor,” said Franz Holker, one of the researchers on the project. “The problem is that light has been introduced in places, times and intensities at which it does not naturally occur and [for] many organisms, there is no chance to adapt to this new stressor.”

And unless we change how we’re lighting our outdoor spaces, this trend will likely continue. “In the near term, it appears that artificial light emission into the environment will continue to increase, further eroding Earth’s remaining land area that experiences natural day-night light cycles,” said the study.

Image: Carla Schaffer / AAAS

Via: Washington Post

Source: Science Advances

’League of Legends’ pro suspended 20 months for domestic violence

Back in October, League of Legends player Li “Vasilii” Wei Jun livestreamed alleged domestic abuse against his then-girlfriend. The Chinese team Newbee immediately terminated his contract and the League Championship Series launched an investigation. Today, the organization suspended Vasilii from professional games for 20 months, which begins in January 2018 at the start of the next competitive season. Riot took the opportunity to modify its rules and allow for harsher punishment for potential future cases of domestic abuse.

This is double what Riot established as the maximum sentence for ‘Ongoing Misconduct’ in its Global Penalty Index. In its ruling, the studio stated Vasilii’s ‘particularly egregious’ behavior justified extending the punishment: “Whereas making these threats toward another another professional player on stage might warrant a 10 month suspension, physical intimidation and threats of domestic abuse should be punished much more harshly. Additionally, Vasilii has been punished for violent tendencies before – in an incident last year he showed physical aggression onstage, smashing a keyboard and physically intimidating a camera operator during a match.”

This pushed Riot to tweak its rules so that serious domestic abuse incidents would earn harsher punishment. Per its words: “The current limitation of 10 months would not be appropriate for cases such as actual domestic abuse, which would warrant an Indefinite Suspension.”

Riot didn’t deem Vasilii’s actions deserved the new maximum sentence. Earlier in its ruling, the judgment pointed out that “Although the investigation results don’t show proof that Vasilii physically assaulted his girlfriend, he made credible threats of physical violence and death threats toward a defenseless person in a private home that were intimidating enough for her to call the police.” While the company asserted its ongoing right to modify punishments based on ‘aggravating circumstances’ particular to each incident, it’s unclear what line must be crossed for an indefinite suspension.

Via: Kotaku

Source: LoL Pro League

Follow-up to the compact iPhone SE is reportedly set for a 2018 launch

The iPhone X and iPhone 8 may well be some of the best handsets on the market, but they’re also pretty pricey. You may not remember this though — Apple also offers a smaller, lower-cost device, called the iPhone SE.

The SE has gone a few years now without an update, but fresh reports indicate that Apple is finally working on an update to the device. Tentatively called the iPhone SE 2, the device is rumored to keep the 4-inch design on the original SE, but will get an upgrade to the latest Apple processor, and possible get a few camera upgrades.

The report comes from China Economic Daily, which notes that the new iPhone SE will cost around $450 — the same price of the original SE when it launched. Since then, it has been discounted to $350.

So when will we finally see the iPhone SE 2? The report notes that it could show up before July, which would make sense — the original iPhone SE launched in March 2016, so it’s very possible that Apple wants to stick with that release schedule. The report also mentions that the phone will be assembled by Taiwanese manufacturer Wistron at a factory in India.

The report follows pretty closely with previous rumors. Another recent report, this one from Focus Taiwan, noted that the iPhone SE 2 would launch in the first quarter of 2018 — which would be from January to March.

Other reports have been a bit more specific when it comes to specs. Tekz24 reports that the phone will come with Apple’s A10 Fusion chip, 2GB of RAM, and options for either 32GB or 128GB of storage. The rear-facing camera will reportedly come in at 12-megapixels, while the front-facing camera will sit in at 5-megapixels. Of course, that report should be taken with a grain of salt — we haven’t heard of Tekz24 before, so we’ll have to wait and hear other rumors about the phone’s specs, or possibly wait until the phone actually launches to get official specs.

While the current iteration of the iPhone SE hasn’t really gotten a true upgrade since launch, it did get a storage bump to 64GB or 128GB — up from 32GB or 64GB — in March.

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• iPhone 8 Plus vs. iPhone 7 Plus: Should you upgrade?
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