Upcoming Mobile Game ‘Mario Kart Tour’ Will Be Free-to-Start

Nintendo last week announced that its next mobile game will be “Mario Kart Tour,” but with a launch date aimed at any time before the company’s fiscal year ending March 2019, not much information is known about the game. Today, DeNA CEO Isao Moriyasu was reported as saying that Mario Kart Tour will be free-to-start (via TouchArcade and The Wall Street Journal).

The “free-to-start” terminology is somewhat vague, but when compared to Nintendo’s previous use of the phrase it could suggest where Mario Kart Tour is headed. For example, Nintendo currently describes Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp as free-to-start on the game’s website, while Super Mario Run’s website explains that “you can download and enjoy a portion of Super Mario Run for free.”

DeNA CEO said “Mario Kart Tour,” a Nintendo-DeNA smartphone game planned for FY18, will be free-to-start.

— Takashi Mochizuki (@mochi_wsj) February 8, 2018

While far from a definitive answer, this suggests Nintendo might lean towards its recent trend and make Mario Kart Tour a game that’s free to play, with in-app purchases that help with certain tasks. Out of Nintendo’s four mobile games so far, three have followed this model (Miitomo, Fire Emblem Heroes, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp), while only Super Mario Run has used the pay-once price tier.

Tags: Nintendo, DeNA, Mario Kart Tour
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Apple News Introduces Coverage Portal of 2018 Winter Olympics in Partnership With NBC

Apple News will be a go-to source for coverage of the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, which officially begin with Friday’s opening ceremony, although some competition is already underway.

A new section devoted to the Winter Olympics is now available within the “For You” tab of Apple News in the United States, and it will feature articles, videos, and other coverage of the games over the next two weeks.

Apple has partnered with NBC for the new section, but coverage will be provided from a variety of sources, according to Ingrid Lunden at TechCrunch. Live streams and full replays of specific events will link directly to the NBC Sports app, while clips from events will be viewable within Apple News itself.

The portal will also feature a planner for viewers to figure out when specific events are scheduled, and it will allow users to add events they want to watch to their calendars. There will also be a medal tracker and daily roundups given a 14-hour-plus time difference between South Korea and the United States.

Tags: NBC, Apple News
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Crucial iPhone source code posted in unprecedented leak

Critical, top secret Apple code for the iPhone’s operating system was posted on Github, opening a new, dangerous avenue for hackers and jailbreakers to access the device, Motherboard reported. The code, known as “iBoot,” has since been pulled, but Apple may have confirmed it was the real deal when it issued a DMCA takedown to Github, as Twitter user @supersat noted.

iBoot is the iOS code that ensures a secure boot by loading and checking that kernel is properly signed by Apple before running the OS. The version that was posted to Github, supposedly by a Twitter user named @q3hardcore, was for iOS 9, but much of it likely still exists in the latest version, iOS 11.

Fun thing about the DMCA: it required Apple to state, under penalty of perjury, that the iBoot source code was legit: https://t.co/PKHZqcEe6h

— Karl (@supersat) February 8, 2018

The code can’t be compiled because certain files are missing, but researchers and hackers who know what to look for could probe it for vulnerabilities. “This is the biggest leak in history,” author and security researcher Jonathan Levin told Motherboard. “The leaked sources of iBoot … bring us closer to a truly liberated iOS booted on generic arm boards and/or emulator,” he added on Twitter. Levin and other security researchers believe the code is the real deal.

iPhones used to be relatively easy to jailbreak before Apple introduced the “secure enclave co-processor” with the TouchID of the iPhone 5s. Now, it’s nearly impossible for hackers to even find bugs in iOS code, making iOS exploits relatively rare, unlike in Windows and Android. As such, the iBoot leak is exposing code that hardly anyone has seen before.

The iBoot dump first appeared last year on Reddit, but received little notice from the security community until it hit Github. Apple considers iBoot to be such a critical part of iOS that it offers $200,000 for vulnerabilities, the most in its bug bounty program. That means the release of the source code could amount to a gold rush for many researchers.

Via: Motherboard

Source: Github

Viacom closes its VR studio

VR hasn’t yet become the shot in the arm the entertainment industry was hoping it would be, and so things have to change. Viacom has decided to close down Viacom Next, its emergent technology group which produced VR content like The Melody of Dust and Are Aligned. Variety reports that some staffers will lose their jobs, while others will be given the chance to transfer to other parts of the media conglomerate.

The company issued a statement saying that it remains “deeply committed” to building new technologies through augmented and virtual reality. Viacom Next started out exploring esoteric art projects in VR, and worked with the NYC Media Lab to explore the relationship between music and virtual reality. Its only notable partnership with the wider Viacom family was to produce the Transformers ARKit title Cade’s Junkyard.

Source: Variety

HP’s new 4K display lineup has USB-C connectivity

HP made its focus on its business audience clear with its latest range of laptops, and now the brand has rolled out a new lineup of 4K displays, and a multiple display dock, to further reinforce its commitment to professional users. The collection includes the new EliteDisplay S270n, plus three Z-series displays in sizes from 27 to 43 inches.

The standalone S270n is a 27-inch IPS display that can operate with a single USB-C cable, supporting an eye-watering 10000000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 14ms response time and 4K native resolution at 60Hz. The new HP Z27, Z32 and Z43 (the numbers correspond to the display size, in case you missed that) can also be used with a single USB-C cable, offering 4K resolution at 60Hz, 5000000:1 contrast ratio and 10-bit color displaying over a billion colors. The Z27 and Z32 come ready-calibrated from the factory – good news for designers and engineers.

An interesting addition to the range, however, is the Thunderbolt Dock G2. This can support up to two 4K displays and can be rigged with an optional audio conferencing module. Like HPs new laptop range, the focus is clearly on optimum presentation and conferencing quality here, and the dock facilitates this without wires and connections cluttering up the place. It’s not available until May, with pricing to be confirmed, but the displays are available now, starting at $549 for the S270n, $559 for the Z27, $899 for the Z32 and $799 for the Z43.

Via: Windows Central

Source: HP

Microsoft tests a password-less Windows 10 S

Microsoft’s latest Insider Preview update is a huge one, and for Windows 10 S users, it means being able to ditch system passwords. The tech giant is testing the ability to unlock the security-focused Windows flavor through an Authenticator App you can install on your phone. You simply have to set up Windows Hello with the app, and you won’t see Password as a sign-in option anymore anywhere in the platform’s interface. Even if you don’t use Windows 10 S right now, you might be able to access this feature someday. According to reports, Microsoft plans to drop 10 S as a standalone product in order to offer it as a mode to both Home and Pro users.

In addition to giving Windows 10 S users a password-less experience, the latest version of Insider Preview also enables HDR video playback in more computers. Microsoft says a lot of modern machines are capable of playing HDR but need to be calibrated in the factory to be able to do so. This update adds a calibration tool to the platform: just go to Video Playback settings and click “Change calibration settings for HDR video on my built-in display.”

If you’re worried about your privacy after Windows Insider Build 17083 installed a Diagnostic Data Viewer on your computer, then you’ll love this update. You can now delete whatever data the tool collected by going to Diagnostics & feedback under Privacy. Microsoft has also given Windows 10’s experimental eye control capabilities a boost. The Windows team made it easier to scroll emails and websites, added direct left and right click capabilities into the launchpad and added quick access to Start, Timeline and settings. If you don’t want to accidentally click stuff with your eyes while reading or watching videos, you can now pause and hide the eye control launchpad. Reactivating it is as sample as glancing at the pause button placed at the top or at the bottom of the screen.

The latest Preview gives the Game bar a makeover, as well. It now comes with new buttons that give you quick access to your captured footage, lets you toggle your microphone and camera and allows you to quickly change the title of your stream. Other features include Bluetooth improvements, fullscreen mode on Edge, multi-lingual text predictions and a long list of bug fixes. You can now download and install all these features if you’re a Windows Insider in the Fast Ring or if you’ve opted to Skip Ahead all the Fall Creators Update builds.

Source: Microsoft

iTunes Launches $20 ‘Award Winning’ Movie Bundles Ahead of 90th Academy Awards

Following a discount on bundles for movies in the Cloverfield and Mission: Impossible franchises earlier this week, Apple on iTunes has now launched a collection of “Award Winning” film bundles focused on categories from the Academy Awards. The sale is debuting just under one month before the 90th Academy Awards on Sunday, March 4.

The categories include Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Picture, and vary from time periods like Classic to Contemporary. Each HD bundle is priced at $19.99, allowing those interested to grab four movies for the price of about two.

There are also a few “Under $10” Oscar film categories lined throughout the iTunes Movies store, broken into sections including “Best Original Screenplay” and “Best Adapted Screenplay.” In the list below you’ll find all of the Award Winning bundles, a few films from the Under $10 categories, and some other recent releases on iTunes that received notable discounts this week.

$19.99 Award Winning Bundles (HD)

• Classic Best Pictures – Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, An American in Paris, Ben-Hur

• Classic Best Actor – Yankee Doodle Dandy, Captains Courageous, Sergeant York, The Philadelphia Story

• Classic Best Actress – Gaslight, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?, Jezebel, Cabaret

• Musicals – Gigi, The Great Ziegfeld, Singin’ in the Rain, An American in Paris

• Contemporary Best Pictures – Argo, Unforgiven, The Departed, Chariots of Fire

• Contemporary Best Actress – Driving Miss Daisy, The Blind Side, Million Dollar Baby, The Color Purple

• Contemporary Best Actor – The Aviator, Shine, Mystic River, Training Day

• Dramas – Gravity, A Streetcar Named Desire, LOTR: The Return of the King, Network

2018 Oscar Nominations

• Blade Runner 2049 (4K) – $14.99, down from $19.99

Under $10 Oscar Winners

• La La Land (4K) – $6.99, down from $19.99

• The Pianist – $7.99, down from $12.99

• The Imitation Game – $7.99, down from $12.99

• Django Unchained – $7.99, down from $9.99

• Manchester by the Sea – $7.99, down from $14.99

• The Big Short – $9.99, down from $14.99

Recent 4K Price Drops

• It (2017) (4K)- $14.99, down from $19.99

• Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (4K) – $14.99, down from $19.99

• Deadpool (4K) – $9.99, down from $14.99

For more of the Oscars-related discounts on iTunes, you should be able to find the Award Winning bundles and Under $10 films featured heavily in the storefront’s rotating carousel and just below the New and Noteworthy section, respectively.

If you don’t yet have the Apple TV 4K to watch 4K iTunes movies on, don’t forget that DirecTV Now’s sale on the device remains ongoing in 2018 after initially launching last November. With the offer, when you sign up for four months of the streaming TV service at an upfront cost of around $140, you’ll get the 32GB Apple TV 4K for free.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

This means that you can get the latest 32GB Apple TV 4K for about $40 cheaper than its traditional price point of $180, and if you’re not a fan of DirecTV Now when the four months end, you can cancel the service at any time. Check out our original blog post on the DirecTV Now/4K Apple TV offer for more information, and head over to our full Deals Roundup to discover other sales happening this week.

Related Roundup: Apple Deals
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Microsoft’s Windows 10 Store is getting more web apps

Thanks in a roundabout way to Google, you’re about to see more apps on the Windows 10 Store. Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are like app versions of websites that work even when you’re offline and offer services like push notifications — minus the installation fuss of regular apps. Android popularized them by letting you add them to your home screen when you load certain websites. Now, Microsoft is introducing Progressive Web Apps to the Windows 10 Store, making them “first-class app citizens in Windows,” on par with Universal Windows Apps (UWAs).

Microsoft emphasized that PWAs use modern HTML tech like service worker, fetch networking, cache API and others to provide a more app-like experience. However, they must run without platform-specific code, so that they could work not just on Windows 10, but Linux or MacOS too. From a user point of view, there’s less fuss, because such apps update automatically behind the scenes without any user intervention.

UWAs can be easier for developers to create, as they’re often simply advanced versions of websites. It should be fairly easy for developers to convert “Electron” Windows 10 apps to PWAs, because they’re also powered by HTML and CSS. Presumably, developers could easily port Android Progressive Web Apps by just creating a Windows 10 wrapper, too. (Apple is also working on incorporating the tech in Safari.)

Much as Google has with Chrome, Microsoft will start introducing PWA tech to the next version of its Edge browser via EdgeHTML. It will start previewing PWAs for the Windows 10 Store on Insider builds soon, and plans to release them to everyone later in the year.

Source: Microsoft

Twitter made its first profit, but still can’t grow its user base

Back in October, Twitter promised that by the time the fourth quarter rolled around, it would be profitable, or just about. Since then, however, the company lost its de-facto CEO and continues to raise the ire of figures on both sides of the aisle. It comes as something of a surprise then, that Twitter has managed to turn its first ever quarterly profit of $91 million. If there was ever cause for optimism that the 12-year-old company will survive, it’s the fact that it’s now making money.

But for every silver lining, there’s a grey cloud, and Twitter can’t rely upon rosy user numbers to bolster the good mood. In the second quarter, the company claimed that it had lost around a million users, but later admitted that its math was wrong and the figure was much worse. Three months later, and figures had rebounded to 330 million monthly active users. In the fourth quarter that number has held steady, with a million-user fall in US users cancelling out the commensurate increase internationally.

Twitter blames the fall in numbers on two things: a change to Safari’s app integrations, and the project that’s euphemistically-titled “information quality efforts.” The latter is, unsurprisingly, the project which is attempting to purge the site of automated accounts that are designed to spread “malicious activity.”

If there’s reason for optimism, it’s that (otherwise-secret) daily active user figures have increased by 12 percent year-on-year, so the people who use Twitter are using it more. It appears that the 280 character limit change has had the desired effect to bring folks back to the platform who were frustrated at having to be so succinct. In addition, Twitter believes that the relatively-new ability to thread tweets has pleased Seth Abramson plenty of users.

The profit that Twitter has turned seems not to be coming from the US, where it has 68 million users, but from the 262 million living overseas. Domestic advertising revenue fell by 8 percent year-on-year, to $406 million, but foreign ad sales increased by 17 percent to $326 million.

Twitter’s 2017 financial year, as a whole, can’t be entirely saved by a profitable quarter, and overall yearly revenues fell 3 percent compared to 2016. On the positive side, net losses overall were down to $108 million, compared to $457 million in the previous year, although all red ink is still red ink.

Source: Twitter (.PDF)

Buzz Aldrin wants you to buy this $150 solar backpack

Buzz Aldrin: revered engineer, astronaut of our time and now, the face of high fashion backpacks. Bag brand Sprayground has released a new collection, “Mission to Mars”, and the campaign sees Aldrin playing the role of a flight coach, modelling the collection’s pieces as he hangs around Mars surrounded by attractive astronauts going about their space business. At the center of the collection is a limited edition solar backpack which comes with a power pack, so it’s as useful as it is futuristic looking, which you’d expect for its $150 price tag. Aldrin has been increasingly vocal in recent years about his plans to get astronauts to Mars, so at least we know they’ll look good when they get there.

Source: Sprayground