Google is reportedly working on a video game streaming service

It sounds like Google might be working on a game streaming service. According to a report from The Information, the tech juggernaut has been floating the idea for a streaming service (like PlayStation Now or NVIDIA’s GeForce Now) for around two years. The service is codenamed “Yeti” and Google is apparently even testing hardware for it as well. The Information’s sources say that the service might stream to a Chromecast, and that hiring Phil Harrison last month as VP of hardware — formerly of Microsoft and Sony’s gaming divisions — could point toward a standalone gaming console.

You probably shouldn’t get your hopes up yet, though. Whatever the device or service is, it was supposed to debut last year, and, well, we still haven’t heard an official peep about it. If you’re thinking, “Man, Google is late to the whole Android micro-console fad,” you’re not alone. These gizmos were all the rage a few years ago, but have since died out almost completely. It’s hard to get game developers to sign on to make exclusive games when there isn’t a guaranteed audience — just ask Ouya — and who really wants to play a mobile game on their TV?

The biggest hurdle with streaming, though, is lag. On Netflix and Hulu it isn’t such a big deal because the only interacting you do is pausing or starting a stream for the most part. But gaming, by its very nature, requires constant inputs, and those have to travel from your home to Google’s servers and then back to wherever you’re playing. Milliseconds add up pretty quickly and compared to playing games on a local device, the pause between pressing a button and it actually happening can be extremely off-putting.

It should be noted that NVIDIA seems to have figured out how to sidestep this with its GeForce Now service that uses remote computing so you can play a graphically demanding game on meager hardware. There’s the chance that Google’s various data centers around the globe could help with its efforts, of course, and with I/O coming up we might hear more sooner rather than later.

Source: The Information

‘Monster Hunter: World’ is the best way to fight bosses with friends

Monster Hunter: World is the latest entry in a decade-plus game franchise dedicated to killing huge monsters. But the series has another reputation: barely explained mechanics, labyrinthine menus and difficult co-op play. Capcom smoothed out a lot of those rough edges for Monster Hunter: World and released it simultaneously worldwide, which has made it the most accessible of the franchise. Now, finally, it can take the crown as the best co-op boss fight experience out there.

Fighting giant enemies is a thrilling niche in gaming, from blowing up Kraid in Super Metroid to taking on one titanic monolith after another in Shadow of the Colossus. But those are insular single-player journeys, not communal experiences. When games have tried team boss fights before, most notably in MMOs, they’re often at the end of a long raid after slogging through a multilevel dungeon. Monster Hunter: World is the large boss fight distilled, a stripped-down contest between small humans and colossal beasts in 20- to 50-minute chunks.

Fighting a boss in the time it takes to wash a load of laundry is great. And the game makes it decently easy to drop into a hunt in progress, which means you’re not wasting time assembling a party like you would in an MMO. You’ll have to learn an obtuse method to hop into another player’s mission, but considering how rough it was to join forces in previous Monster Hunter games, the mechanism is far more accessible and reliable in this iteration.

Monster Hunter: World’s most unsung contribution to boss fights, however, is liberating players from the shackles of classes. The game doesn’t force everyone to gravitate toward a role and a restricted ability kit; nobody has to play the healer or the tank. Instead, you choose from a wild assortment of weapons, each with its own semi-absurd play style. The Long Sword is a balanced weapon with some reach that won’t leave you too open, while the enormous Buster Sword is so heavy you’ll careen around the battlefield trying to time your achingly slow, catastrophically damaging swings. Of course, it’s easier to hit a monster when a buddy is distracting it, so you’ll often fluidly switch between mini-roles during battle, according to your team’s needs and weapon capabilities.

If you want to fill a traditional role, like support, you can. But you do it by using the game’s bonkers logic, like shooting your allies with armor-boosting arrows. Me, I’m a purist: Give me a set of bagpipes that I can slam into an enemy one moment and use to play a healing melody the next, and I will live that bard life. The game makes you commit to this play style, leaving you agonizingly open while you toot your battle horn. But even this cumbersome process has its own seductive flair: While my allies are frantically dodging a flailing mega-dinosaur, I’m blaring a slow-marching dirge like a Jurassic Jack Churchill.

All of this — the relative ease of joining up, the variety of weapon play styles — wouldn’t matter if the monster battles weren’t actually fun. And for the most part, they are, even if they don’t pose the same challenges as “traditional” bosses. Monsters don’t have complex attack patterns or multi-stage forms, but they are frequently lethal and imposing, thanks to their own idiosyncratic behaviors, which make them feel wild, unbound and unpredictable. Sometimes they wander into one another’s territory, triggering violent turf battles where prehistoric titans tear into each other. Sometimes they’ll outright leave a fight to eat smaller creatures and regain health. Sometimes they’ll sleep. Like Odysseus’ crew, you’ll have to summon the courage to sneak up and stab a giant being many times your size, and hope you’re quick enough to evade its wrath.

It’s refreshing that these beasts are such ciphers — unknown quantities in an unknown land. In many games, bosses contain a multitude of previously encountered challenges, as a sort of game mechanics final exam. You don’t get the methodical preparation of clearing dungeon floors in Monster Hunter: World; instead, you are sent into the wild with only a beast’s name to chase. It’s not hard to bypass every smaller creature on the way to your chosen mark, so there’s no real opportunity to warm up: Once a monster knows you’ve come for its head, you’re in the fight until one of you dies.

Every time I (or a friend) land the killing blow on a monster, I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding in. Although you can see the strength of each strike, and there are some small tells when it’s really injured, the game’s monsters have no health bars. This forces players to keep hustling and treat every fight as if it’s endless, until suddenly it’s over.

In keeping with the game’s weirdly pragmatic aesthetic, the post-combat denouement is a visceral, communal harvesting of the fallen beast until nothing is left. If you’re on voice chat with your friends, everyone nervously giggles at this macabre ritual of ripping out materials needed to improve gear, literally creating weapons and armor from the flesh of your enemies. But there’s something utterly righteous and primal about it too. You’ve just survived life-or-death combat with a giant, deadly boss — and you’re just minutes away from jumping into your next battle.

HomePod Music Streams Don’t Count Toward Apple Music and iTunes Device Limits

Yesterday, reviews for the HomePod launched online and with them new details about Apple’s smart speaker began emerging ahead of its release date on February 9. One new tidbit of information came from Rene Ritchie’s review of the speaker on iMore, which confirmed that any music streamed via HomePod does not count toward an Apple Music subscription’s device streaming limit. Additionally, HomePod does not count toward the 10 device limit placed on devices associated with an Apple ID.

This means that subscribers with single memberships to Apple Music will be able to ask Siri to play a song on HomePod while listening to music on another iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Prior to HomePod, if single membership users streamed Apple Music on an iPhone and then began listening to music on a Mac, for example, the iPhone would disconnect from the music and serve up a warning about the new stream.

#HomePod doesn’t count against any simultaneous device or streaming limits.

Set up 10 of them. Leave the house. Listen on your iPhone. Everyone at home can still listen on any/all HomePods.

(That part’s glorious.) https://t.co/6u4sQbU5Pm

— Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) February 6, 2018

When users get their HomePods this weekend, it appears that they won’t have to worry about the speaker taking up similar streaming limits on their Apple Music accounts. Apple Music family plans already support simultaneous streaming across multiple devices, but the HomePod feature should work the same for those users as well.

That includes HomePod not counting against any Apple Music device or concurrent stream limit — set it up one or more HomePods with your iPhone or iPad, leave the house with that device, and anyone who stays or comes home can still listen to Apple Music on any or all the HomePods you’ve set up.

Another small tidbit relates to how HomePod affects each user’s music recommendations within the “For You” tab of Apple Music. According to The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple, there’s a toggle in the HomePod section of the Home app (where the speaker will be controlled on iOS devices), and turning it off allows users to prevent the HomePod’s streams from impacting how Apple Music’s algorithms recommend new music.

When using the feature, no music streamed via HomePod will count towards the subscriber’s overall taste profile, but if users want HomePod streams to affect recommendations they can ignore the setting.

One thing about having multiple people access the HomePod that bothered me was that it would affect my “For You” section in Apple Music.

When you love songs, play songs and add songs to your library, Apple Music will suggest similar music, assuming that is what you want. If someone else, or a group of people come over and start playing genres you don’t like, it would screw everything up.

Well, it turns out I didn’t have to worry about that after all. There is a setting in the Home app that allows you to prevent the music played on HomePod from affecting the “For You” section of Apple Music.

This way, when users know a lot of people will be around the HomePod — at a party, for example — they can toggle the setting off. Then, if other people begin asking HomePod to play music that doesn’t particularly align with the tastes of the main account, that Apple Music subscriber’s New Music Mix and other song/artist recommendations won’t be thrown off.

The same setting will also control the albums and playlists that appear on an Apple Music profile. In leaked screenshots posted by iGen in January, it was confirmed that turning off this one setting will prevent both music recommendations from being affected as well as “Listening To” history from being updated. It also synchronizes the playback status of podcasts on all devices connected to the same Apple ID.

If you’re interested in reading up on everything else we know about the HomePod so far, be sure to check out our full HomePod Roundup.

Related Roundup: HomePodTag: Apple MusicBuyer’s Guide: HomePod (Buy Now)
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Apple Seeds Second Beta of watchOS 4.3 to Developers

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming watchOS 4.3 update to developers, two weeks after seeding the first beta and two weeks after releasing watchOS 4.2.2, a minor update focusing on bug fixes and performance improvements.

Once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Apple Developer Center, the new watchOS beta can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on the iPhone by going to General –> Software update.

To install the update, the Apple Watch needs to have at least 50 percent battery, it must be placed on the charger, and it has to be in range of the iPhone.

watchOS 4.3 brings support for Nightstand mode in portrait orientation, a feature that was previously only available when the watch was in landscape orientation.

There’s a new charging animation when the Apple Watch is placed on the charger, and your Activity data is now displayed on the Siri watch face.

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The update also includes the return of a much-desired feature that allows music playing on the iPhone to be controlled using the Music app on the Apple Watch. In prior versions of watchOS, the Music app could only be used to control music playing from the watch itself. With tvOS 11.3 installed, there’s also an option to control music playing on the Apple TV with the watch.

Apple plans to release watchOS 4.3 to the public in the spring, and until then, it will be limited to developers. Apple offers public betas of tvOS, iOS, and macOS, but watchOS betas are not available for public beta testers.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 4Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Buy Now)
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Apple Releases Safari Technology Preview 49 With Bug Fixes and Feature Improvements

Apple today released a new update for Safari Technology Preview, the experimental browser Apple first introduced almost two years ago in March of 2016. Apple designed the Safari Technology Preview to test features that may be introduced into future release versions of Safari.

Safari Technology Preview release 49 includes bug fixes and feature improvements for Service Workers, Fetch, Intelligent Tracking Prevention, CSS, Rendering, SVG, JavaScript, Web Inspector, Media, Storage, Security, and Accessibility.

The Safari Technology Preview update is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store to anyone who has downloaded the browser. Full release notes for the update are available on the Safari Technology Preview website.

Apple’s aim with Safari Technology Preview is to gather feedback from developers and users on its browser development process. Safari Technology Preview can run side-by-side with the existing Safari browser and while designed for developers, it does not require a developer account to download.
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Apple Releases Second Beta of iOS 11.3 for Public Beta Testers With New Battery Health Feature

Apple today released the second public beta of an upcoming iOS 11.3 update to its public beta testing group, one day after seeding the second beta to developers and two weeks after releasing the first public beta.

Beta testers who are members of Apple’s beta testing program will receive the new iOS 11.3 beta update over-the-air after installing the proper certificate on an iOS device.

Those who want to join the beta testing program can sign up on Apple’s beta testing website, which gives users access to iOS, macOS, and tvOS betas. iOS betas are not always stable and should not be installed on a primary device.

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iOS 11.3 is a significant update that introduces multiple new features like Messages on iCloud for storing your iMessages in iCloud, and ARKit 1.5, a new, upgraded version of ARKit that can more accurately map irregularly shaped surfaces and recognize and place virtual objects on vertical surfaces like walls.

Four new Animoji are available for the iPhone X (lion, skull, dragon, and bear), the Health app has a new Health Records feature where you can store your medical records, and AirPlay 2 features are available in both iOS 11.3 and tvOS 11.3.

Starting in iOS 11.3 beta 2, the update includes a new “Battery Health” feature that’s designed to provide iOS users with more information about their batteries.

Battery Health offers details on maximum battery capacity and peak performance capability, and for devices with degraded batteries, it provides information on if and when a device is being throttled with performance management features. It also provides a way for customers who do have a device with a degraded battery to turn off performance management all together.

By default, iOS 11.3 disables performance management on the iPhone, and the feature is only re-enabled once a device experiences an unexpected shutdown.

Other new features in iOS 11.3 include an Apple News “For You” section that displays the top videos of the day, Advanced Mobile Location (AML) for sharing more accurate location data when placing an emergency call in a supported country, and a new Privacy icon that will show up whenever Apple asks you for info. iBooks has also had the “i” removed from its name, so it’s just “Books” now, and in the App Store, you can sort app reviews by rating and date.

Business Chat, which will let you interface with businesses like Wells Fargo, Delta, Hilton and Lowe’s right in the Messages app is coming when iOS 11.3 is released, and improvements to Apple Music will bring better support for music videos. Apple says iOS 11.3 will be released to the public in the spring.

Related Roundup: iOS 11
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Apple Seeds Second Beta of tvOS 11.3 to Public Beta Testers

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming tvOS 11.3 update to its public beta testing group, one day after providing the second beta to developers and two weeks after releasing the first tvOS 11.3 public beta.

The new tvOS 11.3 public beta can be downloaded by going to the Settings app on the Apple TV and navigating to the Software Updates section under “System.” “Get Public Beta Updates” will need to be toggled on, and once it is, the Apple TV will download the beta software.

tvOS 11.3 introduces support for AirPlay 2, allowing the Apple TV to be added to the Home app as part of a HomeKit setup.

With AirPlay 2, you can play the same music on multiple Apple TVs in different rooms, and when AirPlay 2 officially launches, that same functionality will extend to other AirPlay 2 devices like HomePod and AirPlay 2 compatible speakers.

Other new features in tvOS 11.3 include enhancements to Match Content support, automatic frame rate switching on the fourth-generation Apple TV (a feature that was added to Apple TV 4K in a past update), and automatic mode switching for AirPlay video sessions.

Related Roundup: Apple TVBuyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Buy Now)
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Snapchat Announces Live Feature for Major Events Coverage, Starting With 2018 Winter Olympics

Snap Inc. today announced an all-new Live feature that will allow users of the iOS and Android apps to stream key snippets of major televised events, the first partner being NBCUniversal in time for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang.

Beginning this Saturday, February 10, Snapchat users will see these live streams of the Olympics in the app’s Discover page. NBCUniversal will also be Snapchat’s first media partner to create custom Context Cards surrounding a major live event. These cards include behind the scenes looks at the event from athletes, schedule of the Games, earned medals for nations and individual athletes, and more.

Snapchat has provided live coverage of events like this before, including during the 2016 Rio Olympics, but the company said that the new initiative is a significant expansion of its efforts in this space, as well as its partnership with NBCUniversal. The coverage will include two original shows from NBC Sports as well, called Pipe Dreams and Chasing Gold, which were created exclusively for Snapchat.

The Olympic updates will start on Friday, February 9 with themed lenses, filters, and stickers, before the new Live feature launches on Saturday. Snap said this coverage will last throughout the Olympics and users can expect one major moment from the Games to be shared on the app every day. As Live support for the Olympics debuts, the company is also still rolling out a major app redesign to its user base around the world.

The Olympic-related news comes one day after Snap’s latest earnings call, during which it reported that it increased to 187 million daily active users worldwide in the quarter that ended December 31, 2017. That’s a rise from 178 million in the third quarter of the year, and reportedly convinced investors that Snapchat “can survive competition” with rival Instagram.

Tag: Snapchat
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How to print from a Chromebook

Chromebooks are compact, agile laptops meant to do most of their work in the cloud. But from time to time, you probably still need to print something. When a printing job comes along, don’t get taken off guard: Here’s how to make sure your printer is ready to use and how to print on a Chromebook.

It should be noted that we’re going to go over the Google Cloud version, which requires a Wi-Fi printer. This is the ideal method with the average modern printer. However, if connecting to a printer via Wi-Fi isn’t an option for you, then we suggest connecting your Chromebook to a printer with a USB cable first and skipping the parts about connecting over a network.

Set up your printer

Since this is happening over Google Cloud connections, you first must make sure that your Chromebook and the printer are speaking to each other. Here’s what to do.

Step 1: Make sure the printer is turned on and connected to the internet. If you are using someone else’s printer or a printer that’s already been set up, you probably don’t have to worry about this. However, you will need to connect a new printer before you can get anything done.

Step 2: Start up your Chromebook and check your network settings. You want to make sure that your Chromebook is connected to the same Wi-Fi network as the printer, and not a nearby network.

Step 3: Assuming this is the first time every using this printer, you need to help your Chromebook to recognize the right printer. In Chrome OS, click your account photo and then select Settings to begin. From here, scroll down and choose Advanced. This should give you access to several more sections, including the Printing section.

Step 4: In Printing, look for an option that says Printers or Google Cloud Print (depending on what version you have). Now look for an option that says Add Printers or Manage Cloud Devices. This will take you to a window where you will be able to see any new devices that your Chromebook is aware of, with the ability to Add new devices. Select the right printer and Add it to your Chromebook. You can also type up the information manually if something goes wrong.

Find the page you want to print

Okay, now your Chromebook has recognized the printer and is ready to go, so let’s get started.

Step 1: Head over to the page that you want to print out. Once there, press the Ctrl and P keys at the same time to open up the printer window.

Step 2: The printer window should appear on the left of your screen. Look for the first section marked Destination. This will show you where the page is going. Chrome may automatically recognize your printer, but it’s smart to double-check this. Select Change in this section, which will open up a number of categorized options to save or print the page in various ways.

Step 3: Since you just set up your printer, you will probably find it as an option in Recent Destinations—you should also see it under the category Google Cloud Print if it’s not in Destinations for whatever reason (it may well appear in all three sections, actually). Check to make sure that the name and model are correct—you don’t want to choose the wrong printer by mistake—and then select your printer.

Test the printing function

Now you are ready to finish up!

Step 1: Take a look at the other printing options, including Pages, Copies, Color, and so on to make sure everything is correct. When you are ready, choose Print to begin.

Step 2: Wait for the printer to print. This may take a little time, especially for the first time, so don’t be surprised if you have to wait a couple minutes. When the printer starts working, head over and check the page to make sure it printed correctly and is what you want.

Troubleshooting: If the printer just isn’t responding, head back into Settings and check to make sure that you have added the right printer model and that all information appears correct. If your printer Wi-Fi connection appears spotty, try a good old-fashioned reset and re-connection to see if this helps fix the problem.

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‘It’s still tripping me out” — Elon Musk on Starman’s space adventure

Shortly after the Falcon Heavy achieved its historic launch (and landings) on Tuesday, February 6, SpaceX fired up a live-stream of its deployed cargo — a cherry-red Tesla Roadster with Starman in the driving seat.

The real-time video of “a car in space” has now finished, but the four-hour video remains online and has already been dipped into more than six million times by viewers around the world.

Three cameras fixed to the car show a casual-looking Starman with one hand on the wheel and his left arm leaning on the door. Drifting through space.

While some questioned the authenticity of the stream, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reassured doubters, saying in a press conference later on Tuesday, “We’d have way better CGI if it was fake.”

During the 30-minute press gathering, a good number of the questions came from reporters keen to know more about the Roadster and its spacesuit-clad driver.

“It just has the same seats like a normal car has, it’s literally a normal car, in space … I kinda like the absurdity of that,” Musk said.

The CEO pointed out that his old car is carrying a miniature payload all of its own. “If you look carefully at the dashboard, there’s a tiny Roadster with a tiny spaceman.” And, in another nod to Bowie, the late artist’s Space Oddity track is blasting out of the stereo.

Musk: “Silly and fun things are important.”

He acknowledged that the cargo taken into space by the Falcon Heavy on its maiden mission was “kinda silly and fun,” but added that “silly and fun things are important.”

Elaborating, Musk said, “Normally, for a new rocket, it launches like a block of concrete, and that’s so boring. The imagery of [the car and Starman] is something that’s going to get people excited around the world … and it’s still tripping me out.”

“Maybe it’ll be discovered by some future alien race thinking, ‘What the heck were these guys doing, did they worship this car? Why do have a little car in the car?’ That’ll really confuse them.”

On the subject of Starman’s spacesuit, the SpaceX boss said it was “the real deal,” designed for future crew on manned missions aboard SpaceX rockets.

“That is the actual production design, the real one looks just like that … that’s the real deal … it took us three years to design that spacesuit, it was real hard. It’s easy to make a spacesuit that looks good but doesn’t work, or that works but doesn’t look good … it’s really difficult to make a spacesuit that looks good and works.” Musk thinks his team nailed it.

At around 10.30 p.m. ET, Musk confirmed that the upper stage of Falcon Heavy had successfully fired, sending the Roadster and Starman on its mammoth space adventure toward Mars and beyond. If it doesn’t crash into something along the way, that is.

When asked what the Falcon Heavy launch had taught him, Musk said simply, “That crazy things come true.”

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