Stargate Origins is now available in the Stargate Command app

A special treat for die-hard Stargate fans has finally arrived.

In a time before the SGC, before Atlantis, and long before a much too short trip aboard an Ancient ship, there was Catherine and Paul Langford. The original stewards of the Stargate are getting their own series in this massive universe, and that show is available right now if you know where to look.

That’s right, ‘gate fans, you can now watch the first three episodes of Stargate Origins in the Stargate Command app.

For the uninitiated, Stargate Command is a central hub for all things Stargate. From this app you can watch every episode of all the shows, all of the movies, and tons of behind-the-scenes content. It is now also the first home for this new short series about the time before the ability to dial the gate had been discovered.

Instead of the 45-minute long Stargate episodes you are used to, Origins episodes are 8-minute shorts. The first three episodes are available now to those with an All Access pass, with plans to release the show to everyone with the app at 7PM Eastern on February 15th. Once the first three episodes have been unlocked for everyone, All Access pass holders will be able to watch the rest of the show. Currently, Stargate Command has no plans to make the whole show available to anyone without an All Access pass.

If you’re up for the All Access pass, it is available for a one-time $20 charge. Stargate Command promises a lot of additional features available to these members soon, but for now the biggest benefit by far is access to this fun new trip through the Stargate story. And now that the app has full Chromcast support, you can also enjoy the entirety of the Stargate story on your television. Enjoy!

Grab the Stargate Command app from the Google Play Store!

Xbox party chat launches on Android and iOS

It’s now easier to keep up with your Xbox gaming pals when you’ve ventured beyond the living room. After several weeks of public testing, Microsoft has launched party chat in its Xbox apps for Android and iOS. If you use Xbox Live, you can use this to your fellow party members through voice or text wherever you happen to be. That can be helpful if you want to keep up with an in-game raid while you’re rushing home, or if you just want to leave a party channel open as a semi-permanent group chat.

This gives Microsoft a slight edge over Sony: you can certainly message fellow PlayStation owners through official apps, but live voice chat isn’t an option unless you turn to a third-party service. While this probably won’t make or break your choice of console, it’s something to consider if you frequently play online with a close-knit group.

Via: The Verge

Source: App Store, Google Play

A road trip with Nissan ProPilot Assist

By Joel Stocksdale

We’ve had a bit of experience with the Nissan ProPilot Assist system here at Autoblog. I was the first to try it out with a Rogue prototype during a press test drive, and we later got one to test for the 2018 Tech of the Year award. In each instance it managed to impress us with its ease of use and general effectiveness. It did so enough to merit a spot as a Tech of the Year finalist.

However, every experience we had with the technology was fairly brief, with only short highway jaunts to demonstrate how it works. Long highway jaunts is really what ProPilot is meant for, so to find out just how helpful it is, I drove a 2018 Rogue equipped with its new ProPilot Assist option to the Chicago Auto Show.

Overall, ProPilot Assist really is a boon for long-haul drives. It all comes down to how it takes care of the minute corrections and adjustments that have to be made on highways. There are always some imperfections, wind, changing road markings or minuscule curves that demand input from the driver to stay centered and on-course. They don’t seem like they would be that taxing, but over the course of three, four, even five hours, to say nothing of the 13-hour journeys I did in college, it adds up fast.

ProPilot Assist handles all that for you, keeping the car centered, even through mild highway curves. It became so effective on straight sections that I relaxed my hand to the point the steering wheel no longer detected my presence and the car warned me to put my hand back on the wheel. And yes, like other adaptive cruise control systems with steering assist, ProPilot Assist does make you commit to this token gesture of control.

For good reason, too. There are times that the system starts to get a little too close to one side or the other. And of course, there are some turns in which the car doesn’t turn enough to stay in the lane and needs additional driver input. This is why you’re required to keep a hand on the wheel, and why you have to still pay attention. Yet, keeping a guiding hand in place for minor corrections is less tiring than doing the job entirely yourself. As I discovered, I arrived in Chicago feeling more relaxed, less tired, and generally comfortable than I would’ve expected in a regular do-it-yourself car.

The other thing that’s great about ProPilot is that it’s still so easy to use. Provided that you have the steering assist setting on, it comes on when setting the cruise control. It starts handling the steering as soon as it recognizes the lane markings, which only takes a few seconds. When you want it to stop, just switch off your cruise control. And if you want just cruise control without ProPilot steering assist, simply press the button on the dash with a little steering wheel icon.

One caveat regarding ProPilot is that although it’s a great feature that works well, the 2018 Rogue it’s attached to is not the strongest crossover SUV. It has a comfortable ride and plenty of space, but when I was actually operating the steering, I found it dead and oddly weighted. The engine is also fairly coarse and the handling is lackluster. Yet, if I was staring down constant long trips or daily stop-and-go gridlock, it might be easy to forgive those shortcomings for ProPilot Assist.

‘Dab on ’em Haterz’ turns surviving the internet into a game

Last month, Dab on ’em Haterz launched on Steam, an indie game that puts the player in charge of a YouTube creator who must sift through comments and presumably stay sane in the process. It’s up to our hero to give negative feedback a good dabbing that banishes it from his queue and nets him some money. But it’s in his head, of course. Forever scraping away at his self-confidence and belief in humanity. Yes, Dab on ’em Haterz seems a microcosm of living on the internet in 2018.

As Julia Alexander of Polygon described it, the game presents players with the unenviable task of ingesting YouTube-style comments and dabbing away the endless stream of hate. You have to purge a certain amount to progress to the next level, but naturally just keeping up with the rate of bilious and often bigoted and racist words is a physical and psychological stress. People don’t need a reason to hate you — they’ll find one.

Per the historians of internet culture, Dab on ’em Haterz’s title comes originally from the Carolina Panthers’ Cam Newton, who said a similar phrase during a postgame press conference. YouTuber Jake Paul evolved it into an expression encouraging his fans to shake off hate. The game is about what it’s like to create on the internet in 2018, about the unending struggle to deflect negativity and embrace the good feedback from fans, though the bad is what sticks around. Dab on ’em Haterz is available now on Steam for $2.

Via: Polygon

Source: Dab on ’em Haterz

Redmi Note 5 review

2017 was a great year for Xiaomi and the company crossed RMB 100 billion in revenue. In India, the company’s biggest market outside of China, Xiaomi became the biggest smartphone vendor towards the end of the year.

Much of that success in India was piggybacking on Redmi Note 4, the bestselling smartphone in the country last year with 9 million units sold. Now, it is time for the successor of that dependable budget smartphone that became a benchmark in its segment for other brands to emulate.

With Redmi Note 5, the Chinese OEM aims to continue that momentum at the top. It’s a progressive update to the Redmi Note 4 and Xiaomi chooses to go with ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach.

The affordable smartphone market in India is very crowded, and Xiaomi has carved out a comfortable space for itself. Will the Redmi Note 5 help Xiaomi in its dream run or is there little to impress in this iteration? Let’s find out in our detailed review!

For this review, I took the Indian variant of the Redmi Note 5 for a spin… the one with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage.Show More

Design

At first glance, the Redmi Note 5 looks identical to the Redmi Note 4. That is, if you’re looking at the rear. It’s the same chassis with antenna lines running across the top and bottom which break up the design while improving signal reception.

But up front, the difference is immediately apparent. The taller display takes much of the front with minimum bezels on the top and bottom and thin edges on the sides. There’s a 2.5D curved-edge glass up front with tapered edges on the side for better ergonomics. The device fits just fine in the palm and one-handed usage isn’t much of an issue.

At 8.05 mm, the Redmi Note 5 is slimmer than its predecessor, but at 180 grams, it’s definitely heavy. The additional heft though is distributed quite well, so you really don’t feel any discomfort using it for an extended time. That said, it feels sturdy and the build quality is solid.

For some, the design of Redmi Note 5 will be boring. There’s nothing new or revolutionary, of course, but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and Xiaomi chooses to not deviate from its trademark design instead of attempting something new or outlandish. There’s a new color variant, yes – Lake Blue – apart from the usual Black, Gold, and Rose Gold.

Display

One of the key highlights of the Redmi Note 5 is its display. Xiaomi adopts the latest trend of displays with 18:9 aspect ratio – a trend that went mainstream in 2017 and trickled down to the budget segment as well.

The Redmi Note 5 sports a 5.99-inch Full H+D IPS display – the 2160 x 1080 resolution translating to a pixel density of 403ppi. According to the company, compared to a traditional 5.5-inch smartphone, Redmi Note 5 fits the same in your hand, while offering 12.5% more display area.

The display is bright, and the colors are quite vivid with deep contrasts. The text and images are sharp and the color accuracy is first-rate. The display is a tad reflective, although the viewing angles are great. Overall, it’s an excellent display for a budget smartphone.

Performance

The Redmi Note 5 packs in the same internals as the Redmi Note 4. The choice of the dated octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset may irk a lot of power users who judge their smartphones based on specifications sheet, but in the real-world usage, the smartphone doesn’t disappoint. It comes in two RAM configurations – 3 GB and 4 GB – with 32 GB or 64 GB of internal storage.

For a mid-range SoC, Snapdragon 625 offers a great balance between performance and energy efficiency. It might not be a powerhouse as the 636 is (which powers the Redmi Note 5 Pro), but chugs along nicely through everyday tasks.

The Redmi Note 5 was able to handle almost everything I threw at it. There was no lag switching between apps and while multi-tabbed browsing – granted I was on the top end variant with 4GB of RAM. A slight performance degradation is expected with the 3 GB variant, but nothing that could be a showstopper.

Multi-tasking on the Redmi Note 5 is a breeze, and it can handle graphic-intensive games without breaking a sweat. Essentially, it can handle everything with aplomb and essentially justifies Xiaomi’s decision to stick with the older processor and keeping the price in check.

The Redmi Note 5 packs in a 4000 mAh non-removable battery. The large capacity combined with software optimizations on MIUI and the power efficiency of Snapdragon 625 makes it a battery powerhouse. I was able to squeeze in two days of battery life – over a day in case of heavy usage – and it lasted over 14 hours in my continuous video playback test.

But it hurts that there is no support for quick charging – even more important in smartphones with large battery capacity. It takes over two and a half hours to charge the phone from zero to 100% using the supplied charger.

Hardware

The Redmi Note 5 features a hybrid SIM tray, so you can either use two SIMs or one Nano-SIM and one microSD card. You might want to keep this in consideration when making a choice between the 32 GB and 64 GB variant if you want to use two SIM cards.

It’s disappointing to find a microUSB port in a smartphone released in 2018. I would’ve liked a Type-C port instead, although a lot of people wouldn’t have an issue with it. Also, just like its predecessor, the Redmi Note 5 too gives NFC connectivity a miss.

Camera

The Redmi Note 3 disappointed in the camera department and Xiaomi focused on improving the camera with the Redmi Note 4, but barely climbed a few steps. With Redmi Note 5, it’s an evolutionary upgrade again – something one expects from one generation to another.

This time around, Redmi Note 5 has a 12-megapixel camera with a larger pixel size of 1.25um pixels and f/2.2 aperture. In well-lit conditions, it manages to take some great landscape shots. When shooting close-ups of objects or macro shots too, the color reproduction is quite good and there are plenty of details. Sharpness is a mixed bag though. The camera focuses quickly, which is also great for taking some fine shots of moving subjects.

It’s low-light conditions where the camera struggles, as is often the case with mid-range and budget smartphones. There are some improvements from the last time, but in most cases, quite some noise creeps in with a significant loss of detail and sharpness. The larger pixel size helps in capturing more light but due to lack of electronic stabilization, several shots ended up being blurry.

The 5MP front camera sports a f/2.0 lens and most selfies in well-lit conditions come out good enough for those social shares. Indoors or in low-light though, it’s a hit-or-miss, again like most smartphones in this price segment.

In terms of video recording, the rear camera can record videos at 1080p resolution and the quality is good enough. The video recording on the front camera has also been upgraded to 1080p but there’s nothing special there.

Software

The Redmi Note 5 runs the latest iteration of the company’s proprietary UI layer, MIUI 9. But MIUI 9 is based on Android 7.1.2 Nougat, and it is disappointing to have a smartphone launch in 2018 with neither Android Oreo out of the box nor a definite timeline for the upgrade.

That said, MIUI is one of the popular Android customizations, and although it’s a tad bloated, it packs in a lot of features and has its share of fans. With MIUI 9, the Android skin has gone better – especially in terms of performance and app-startup times. With the internals it packs, Redmi Note 5 just breezes through with MIUI 9.

The Redmi Note 4 has a few preloaded apps – Amazon Shopping, WPS Office, and Hungama. While these can be uninstalled, there’s also Xiaomi’s own Music, Gallery, and Browser apps and similar apps from Google.

The overall software experience on the Redmi Note 5 is great, and there are a bunch of useful features that you’d only appreciate once you start using it. But Android Nougat, mind you.

Specifications

Gallery

Pricing and final thoughts

After the massive success of Redmi Note 4, the Redmi Note 5 had tough shoes to fill. And looks like Xiaomi played safe to sustain the momentum. The real upgrade to the last year’s device is Redmi Note 5 Pro, but Redmi Note 5 is a nice progression from the predecessor that presents itself as a fantastic value-for-money device. It’s an evolutionary device, not a revolutionary one.

The Redmi Note 5 is an evolutionary device, not a revolutionary one.

In India, the base model comes with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB storage and retails for ₹9,999 ($156) which should a be a fine choice for a lot of casual users, however, if you don’t mind spending more and want the power, you can pick up the top variant with 4 GB of RAM and 64  GB storage for ₹11,999 ($187).

The Redmi Note 5 is not perfect – the camera still misses the beat – but it is a well-rounded package that one wouldn’t hesitate to recommend – especially if one needs a big screen and long battery life. Packed in a neat chassis, the smartphone performs great and is a compelling smartphone that gets a direct entry into any best-of lists.

Intel expands bug bounty to catch more Spectre-like security flaws

To say Intel was caught flat-footed by the Meltdown and Spectre flaws would be an understatement. However, it has a potential solution: enlist more people for help. It’s widening its bug bounty program to both include more researchers and offer more incentives to spot Meltdown- and Spectre-like holes. The program is now open to all security researchers, not just by invitation, and includes sweeter rewards for discovering exploits. You now get up to $100,000 for disclosing general security flaws, and there’s a new program dedicated to side channel vulnerabilities (read: issues like Spectre) that offers up to $250,000 through December 31st, 2018.

The higher bounty stems in part from the complexity of demonstrating exploits. Unlike most purely software-driven attacks, the speculative execution tricks behind Meltdown and Spectre require extensive know-how.

The end date on the side channel bounty sets a firm limit on what the program will achieve, although Intel’s promise of more secure chips in 2018 could reduce the need to single out these sorts of attacks. The bug bounty program will continue to “evolve,” Intel added, so it’s not set in stone. There’s no question about what the chip giant wants, though: it’s racing to identify as many processor-related flaws as it can while its CPUs are known to be vulnerable and interest in the subject is high.

Via: GeekWire

Source: Intel

Essential Phone gets 8.1 Oreo beta with fix for jittery scrolling

Available as an OTA update for previous beta testers.

The Essential Phone’s received a heap of updates since its release, and following up on its word, Essential is now releasing the Android 8.1 Oreo update in the form of a beta. Previous beta testers for 8.0 Oreo will get an over-the-air update to 8.1, and if you’re not currently enrolled, Essential will add a link to sideload the new software on its website.

So, what’s new with 8.1 on the Essential Phone? While the addition of dynamic icons for the calendar and clock apps is a nice touch, the star of the show here is a fix for “slow-scrolling jitter.”

Essential Phone owners have been complaining about jittery/laggy scrolling on the phone for months now, and while a fix sooner than now would have been appreciated, it’s nice that Essential is at least finally addressing this. The company notes that this fix is still in a beta state, so expect it to improve over the next couple updates.

Essential also says that the 8.1 update comes with Google’s latest February security patch, making it one of the first companies other than Google itself to push this to its hardware.

If you own an Essential Phone and have Android 8.1, have you noticed an improvement in scrolling performance?

Essential Phone review, four months later: The sun is setting on this experiment

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Bury Me, My Love selected as the top game at Google Play Indie Games contest

It’s a text messaging adventure game that tells the story of a Syrian migrant trying to get to Europe.

Download: Bury Me, My Love ($2.99)

The Google Play Indie Games Contest wrapped up this week with Bury Me, My Love chosen as the big winner. Developed by a team based in France, the game is a slow-burning “reality-inspired game” that tells the fictional story of Syrian refugee Nour and her husband Majd and their communication through text as Nour attempts to migrate to Europe.

Lately you may have seen some apps that try and tell stories through the medium of text messaging, and on its surface Bury Me, My Love seems like another one of those apps. Iin this game, however, you are part of the story and the choices you make playing the role of Majd will affect Nour’s journey as she trys to migrate safely to Germany.

The game can be played out in real time or with a fast play option. Playing in real time, you will receive message notifications as Nour completes different legs of her journey and sends her husband updates on her progress or when she needs some advice. Alternatively, you can switch to fast play to keep the updates coming or if you want to get through the story quicker.

Bury Me, My Love does a brilliant job capturing the experience of being a Syrian refugee and delivers it in a very familiar format — through texts between two partners.

At first, I was kind of underwhelmed by the game, but that’s because it’s a really slow-burning story that takes a while to unfold. The struggles migrants face trying to escape a war-torn country makes the process long and arduous, and Bury Me, My Love does a brilliant job capturing seemingly genuine glimpses into that experience in a familiar format — through texts between two partners.

Based on your choices, Nour is able to visit over 50 different locations and there are 19 potential endings available, each with widely divergent outcomes. I’m still on my first playthrough and am enjoying how I can passively check in whenever a new notification pops up. I’ve yet to reach any shocking content but given what we know about the hardships refugees face, the realities of the Syrian refugee crisis, and the developer’s warning about the game experience having an effect on sensitive, younger players I find myself very cautious with the decisions I make in this game.

Compared to the more traditional games that Bury Me, My Love was set against in the contest, it certainly stood out from the crowd with its unique yet passive gameplay and serious subject matter. And it’s likely not going to be as popular as some of the more traditional puzzle and adventure games on the finalist list. But having just played through a small section of the game so far, this is certainly a unique gaming experience.

What did they win?

For winning the contest the developers will receive €150,000 in vouchers for promoting their game and tickets to attend both the 2018 Google I/O event and the 2018 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco 2018 along with other prizes from Google.

Old Man’s Journey and Yellow were selected as runners-up, and will also receive vouchers for marketing along with passes to attend the 2018 Google I/O event.

Here are the remaining seven games that rounded out the top 10:

• Captain Tom Galactic Traveler
• I Love Hue
• Jodeo
• KAMI 2
• Kenshō
• No More Buttons
• The Big Journey

You should see the 10 finalists popping up in your Google Play app as part of the “New Indie Highlights” or “Our Indie Picks” collection in the coming weeks.

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Echobox Explorer Review: Intoxicating sound (with a heckuva hangover)

You’ve got to love the weird world of Android. I mean, where else can you shell out half a grand for a portable Hi-Fi player that looks like the product of a drunken evening between an expensive hip flask and a budget mid-2011 smartphone?

Fortunately, the distinctively shaped Echobox Explorer isn’t just an excuse to make halfhearted booze jokes; it’s a portable audio player that kicks out genuinely great sound thanks to a potent combination of powerful DAC and a capable headphone amp. Unfortunately, where Echobox splurged on the sound it skimped on the basics: a poor Wi-Fi radio makes it slow to stream; bad shielding on that radio makes for prominent earphone interference; and an ancient Android version with no Play Store makes for a subpar user experience.

If you’re enough of an audiophile to consider a Digital Audio Player in 2018, the Echobox Explorer is probably already on your radar — so should you take a hit off this faux flask? The answer’s right up above, in the MrMobile Echobox Explorer review!

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‘The Evil Within 2’ has a new first-person mode for up-close horror

Originally released in October of last year, The Evil Within 2 is a bleak, tense take on the horror genre, where exploration and discovery are just as important as the scares. The game was designed as a third-person experience, much like producer Shinji Mikami’s famous Resident Evil series. Now, however, developer Tango Gameworks has launched a free update that will make the entire game playable in first person perspective.

Switching from third- to first-person perspective is a simple menu option. You can change back and forth easily at any point in the game, too. Even the free trial has the feature so you can see how it looks even if you haven’t purchased the full game.

“A lot of players like playing horror games in first-person, so for those who want to see some of the game’s situations through Sebastian’s eyes, it’s a really neat experience,” said Tango Gameworks’ Shinsaku Ohara in a statement. “I think exploring Union in first-person makes the scale feel even bigger than it does when you’re in third-person. Also, being able to see our environments and enemies up close allows players to get an even better look at how much effort went into their designs.”

Via: Polygon