‘Star Wars Battlefront II’ revives microtransactions for cosmetics

Star Wars Battlefront II’s pay-to-win loot crate fiasco more or less ended when Electronic Arts made it so the game’s Star Card power ups could only be earned through gameplay. A month later, the company is cautiously reintroducing the buy-with-real-money Crystal currency, but you can only use it to snag cosmetic upgrades. Oh, and there’s a new stormtroopers-versus-ewoks mode that will be available on April 18th for a limited time.

Set during the events of Return of the Jedi, Ewok Hunt is a last-man-standing battle pitting players on either side of the imperial occupation of Endor’s moon. A lone player starts as one of the stealthy, furred natives hunting down the others, who are all stormtroopers. When someone playing one of the Empire’s foot soldiers dies, they rejoin the game as an Ewok, whittling down the survivors until they’re all eliminated or they last long enough to be extracted.

The reintroduction of microtransactions-bought Crystals is potentially dicey, but EA made it clear in the announcement and FAQ that they can only be used to purchase items that don’t affect gameplay. Plus, if you want, you can use the play-generated Credits currency to pick up these ‘Appearances’ instead. The Battlefront II team has added 50 more of the cosmetic options to the game with this update, including Han and Leia in their Endor outfits as well as The Last Jedi costumes for Rey and Kylo (no, not shirtless).

Now that the pay-to-win furor has died down, the game’s team will release more limited-time modes like Ewok Hunt along with ‘Seasons’; Season Two will start in May, and news about it will drop early that month.

Source: Electronic Arts

Facebook removes Pages of two groups run by Richard Spencer

Earlier this week, during his testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Mark Zuckerberg responded to a question from Representative Eliot Engel (D-NY) about hate groups by saying, “We do not allow hate groups on Facebook, overall. So, if there’s a group that their primary purpose or a large part of what they do is spreading hate, we will ban them from the platform, overall.” But while that may be the policy, it has proven to be a bit difficult to implement. Following that testimony, Vice News found that a number of organizations the Southern Poverty Law Center considers to be hate groups still had Facebook presences, including two linked to white nationalist Richard Spencer. After Vice approached the platform about them, Spencer’s Pages were taken down.

The Pages in question belong to the National Policy Institute, Altright.com — both of which are run by Spencer — and The Nationalist Initiative, a spinoff of another group connected to the Charlottesville rally. Vice asked Facebook about “several other prominent hate groups” and as of this afternoon, these three Pages had been taken down while others remain functional.

In recent months, a number of companies have removed groups or individuals for hate speech, and for racism in particular. Google, Facebook, Reddit, Squarespace, Spotify, OkCupid and Twitter are among those that have done so. In 2016, Twitter temporarily suspended Spencer from its platform, though his account is currently active.

Via: Vice News

Sega brings ‘Football Manager Touch 2018’ to Nintendo Switch

It’s officially official: We told you it was coming soon, and now a few days later Football Manager has made its way to the Nintendo Switch. As for which version it is, if you had money on Touch, you’re a winner. Meaning, this is a version of the game that’s the same across Linux, Mac, mobile platforms and PC. The Switch version uses both touchscreen and traditional Joycon controls, and it’s the first console version with the full 3D match engine. It’s currently on offer through the Nintendo eShop for $40 (US) / £30 (UK) — so decide now if you really still have time to finish a few more shrines in Breath of the Wild.

#NewSigning… 🤝 pic.twitter.com/6iIXQX2AUG

— Football Manager 😎 (@FootballManager) April 13, 2018

Source: Football Manager, Nintendo

The FCC leaked pictures of a gold iPhone X

On the same day that an Apple memo urging employees to stop leaking company info leaked, the company is now dealing with another, well, leak. But, this time it wasn’t anyone from inside Apple who spilled the goods; it was the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). As spotted by 9to5Mac, a gold iPhone X appears to have arrived at the FCC offices, which is surprising considering Apple hasn’t made an official announcement about the new color on its flagship smartphone. The tones on this iPhone X are quite shiny and, at a glance, look like a darker version of those on the gold iPhone 8. One of the main differences with the gold iPhone X is that it has black bezels, whereas the gold iPhone 8 comes with white ones. Apple just tried a similar formula with the Product RED iPhone 8 Plus we checked out yesterday.

Even though the FCC isn’t a random person on the internet who claims to have a gold iPhone X, don’t get too excited about it until Apple confirms its existence. Something worth noting, as 9to5Mac points out, the leaked iPhone X has a model identifier of “A1903,” which is different than the “A1865,” “A1901” and “A1902” that are already out on the market. If this gold iPhone X is indeed the real deal, though, then it probably won’t be too long until Apple launches it.

We reached out to Apple for comment and will update this post if we hear back.

Via: 9to5Mac

Source: FCC

Retouch Me review: a photo correction service for those with no photo editing skills

How many times have you snapped a selfie and, upon seeing the result, found yourself wishing you had more hair volume or that you were skinnier? These imperfections can be easily adjusted using professional editing programs like Photoshop. But what do you do if you don’t know Photoshop? You ask a friend… or you can install an app to help you with editing.

These days, there’s an app for everything. So why shouldn’t there be one for getting flawless photos and selfies? Enter Retouch Me, a photo correction service which puts you in direct contact with trained designers, who are available at any hour of the day and night.

Setup

Setting up the app is pretty simple. Just grab it from the Google Play Store and install it on your Android device. The app is free to download, but if you want to get your photos and selfies retouched you will have to pay cash.

Once you fire up the app, you’re prompted to pick a photo you want to get retouched (or to take a new one).

Select an image and start tapping on the adjustments you want the designer to do to them. Options are grouped into two categories: Body and Face.

You can pick from numerous options including:

• Slimmer waist
• Flat stomach
• Remove fat folds
• Remove skin flaws
• Longer legs
• Thinner arms
• Remove tattoos
• Iron clothes
• Remove pimples
• Whiten teeth
• Enlarge eyes
• Enlarge lips and many more

But to get your photo retouched you need stars. To see your star balance, check the bottom left of the screen.

How do you get stars? Well, you’ll have to purchase them using real money. 20 starts cost $1, while purchasing 80 will take you back with $3.99. If you want to go big, you also have the option of buying up to 3000 stars.

You can also earn stars (or credits). You can watch an ad for one star or like RetouchMe on Facebook or Instagram for five stars each. Writing a review on Google Play will get you an additional 10 credits.

Once you stocked up on stars, pick the retouches you want to apply to your photo. For example, a nose correction, ear reduction or lips enlargement will cost you 10 stars.

Smoothing the skin takes more effort so it will take you back with 20 stars. But the majority of options cost 5 or 10 stars.

After you decide on the retouches you want to be applied, you simply tap the Send to Designer button in the upper right corner and wait. It takes up to an hour before you get the edited photo back.

So, how are the results? In my experience, they were ok, but nothing out of the ordinary. I sent in a few pics and asked the app to smooth my skin, remove a pimple and add more volume to my hair.

While the designer who retouched my image(s) did everything I asked for, it’s nothing I couldn’t have done myself using a photo app like AirBrush.

For another image, I requested a bosom enlargement, as well as a tan. As you can see below, the retouches are a bit awkward.

Once you get the results back, you can easily compare the old and new image to be able to see the differences more clearly. You can also rate the designer who retouched your photo and opt to have the RetouchMe logo on your pic.

From the same window, you can also share the retouched images on social media (Facebook, Twitter) or save it to your device.

Conclusion

RetouchMe is a very intuitive app, so anyone will be able to get their photos retouched easily. Photo retouching apps are as easy as ever, so there are plenty of options to make these alterations on your own. But, that being said, if you want to just have someone else take on the task RetouchMe is the way to go.

If you want to find out more about Retouch Me, you can visit its website or find it in the Google Play Store.

Oppo R15 Pro hands-on: Notch too bad

Oppo is slowly creeping into just about every region of the world. Whether in China or India, the company has become synonymous with the rapidly expanding Asian phone market. This isn’t a company that makes flagships though (that’s OnePlus‘ job); it makes affordable mid-ranged devices for everyone. But what happens when the line between a high-end and budget device begins to blur?

That’s what Oppo is trying to accomplish with the new R15 range. This is the Oppo R15 and R15 Pro hands-on.

Oppo wants to blur the line between budget and flagship by sacrificing small features it thinks people will overlook.

Generally, we judge a smartphone’s worth by the age of its SoC. Does it have the newest Snapdragon? Flagship. Latest Exynos? Flagship. Last year’s Snapdragon? LG. What Oppo is trying to do with the R15 is create a mid-range device that, besides the chipset, is so similar to other current high-end devices that the line between them gets seriously blurred.

The Oppo R15 and Oppo R15 Pro use the Mediatek Helio P60 and Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 respectively, which are, by definition, mid-range options. If you take the brains out of the equation, the 128GB of storage and 6GB of RAM will likely throw you for a loop. The number-crunching SoCs don’t run at the highest clock speeds, but you’ll be able to store your entire media library on this thing (with optional expandable storage) and jump between apps faster than you can blink.

See also:

Everything you need to know about Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 (video)

Following yesterday’s keynote teaser, Qualcomm has followed up by lifting the lid on its latest mobile platform – the Snapdragon 845. The chipset sports improvements across the board, ranging from new processing technology to an …

Oppo wants this phone to be full of compromises you don’t really notice. This phone isn’t QHD. It’s got the oh-so strange resolution of 2,280 x 1,080. But… it has an OLED panel.

Do you see what I mean? The OLED screen overshadows its relatively low resolution. The 20MP front-facing camera and 18.99:9 (or 2.11:1) aspect ratio make the phone’s notch seem like a less of a problem. The compromises at the core of this phone make it affordable, and the “misses” are almost always overshadowed by a benefit the average user will likely care about more.

That front-facing camera I mentioned earlier is paired with some “AI” tech that can map cat ears to your face and help soften your skin. It’s a gimmick and will probably get old after one or two photos, but it’s still fun. Oppo can brand the features whatever it wants as long as they map accurately to my face, which they do.

USB Type-C needs to become the standard for every device.

The rear cameras (I say this casually as dual cameras are normal now) are high quality too. The standard model carries resolutions of 16MP and 5MP, and the Pro variant sports 16 and 20MP shooters. The resulting images looked good, though a bit washed out, during our hands-on time with the devices. Oppo also showed us the phones in an extremely well lit and photogenic room, so we’ll have to take this thing out into the real world to test it in a more realistic environment.

The bottom of the phone houses a speaker, Micro-USB port, and a headphone jack. The lack of USB Type-C is something I personally don’t think Oppo has any excuse for, but it’s just another compromise, this time overshadowed by being able listen to your music with normal headphones, instead of having to rely on Bluetooth or dongles. VOOC Flash Charge is also available on this device, so while I will not forgive the abandoning of a reversible connector, it will still be able to get a quick battery boost from a few minutes on the brick.

Biometric security options include an elongated fingerprint reader on the rear (the correct placement) and a face unlock feature. The face unlock feature is already acting inconsistently in my first day with the phone, so I would likely just use the fingerprint sensor to avoid unnecessary annoyances.

Other compromises include a lack of proper waterproofing (forgivable) and NFC capabilities (unforgivable), though Oppo told me it may add these features to select markets as it releases the device in new regions. The severity of these compromises are obviously tailored to the user, but an NFC chip should be included in every phone on the market, no matter the cost. I live in San Fransisco, but contactless payments and NFC chips are everywhere!

See also:

Turned off by the notch? Cover it up with this free app!

Love it or loathe it, the notch is 100% here to stay. Whether you blame Essential or Apple for popularizing the notch, the reality is that more and more OEMs are opting for display cutouts. …

If you like iOS, you’ll like the Oppo R15’s ColorOS 5.0. There is no app drawer and swiping to the left reveals an eerily familiar set of widgets and quick functions. You can even enable swipe-up gestures to get rid of the navigation bar and take advantage of the extremely small bezels. I don’t really care if this is a blatant copy, I like it. This OS is based on Android 8.1, so kudos t0 Oppo for at least giving us the latest Google has to offer (for security’s sake).

The Oppo R15 and R15 Pro are very attractive phones, depending on how you feel about the notch. The standard model comes in three colors including Rogue Red, Frost White, and Nebula Purple (a gradient from dark purple to black). The Pro comes in Infinity Black and Ruby Red (another gradient from red to black). Why all these companies got together and decided to make gradient phones I will never know, but I’m very happy they did.

We’ll have the opportunity to spend much more time with the Oppo R15 and Oppo R15 Pro in the coming weeks. Until then make sure you watch the video above to get a good sense of what the phone looks like and stay tuned to Android Authority for more gradient-colored notch device news and reviews.

US lawmakers question FBI’s decision to sue Apple in 2016

After the 2015 San Bernardino shooting, the FBI sued Apple to forcibly unlock the suspect’s iPhone, asserting that the agency had exhausted all options before taking legal action. In the event, the bureau ended up reportedly paying an external vendor to break into the device. But last month, the Department of Justice poked holes in that justification with a report stating the FBI didn’t do everything it could before bringing Apple to court. Today a bipartisan group of lawmakers sent a fact-finding letter to the agency’s director Christopher Wray questioning whether the FBI could indeed have taken other action before the lawsuit.

Ten members of the House of Representatives, split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, sent the letter. To them, the DOJ’s report undermines the FBI’s statements that only Apple could have opened up the phone — and that they didn’t investigate all technical options “”precisely because they wanted the suit against Apple to go forward,” according to Reuters.

Apple famously resisted the FBI’s attempts at coercing them into breaking into the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, and since then, we’ve learned that the agency has tried and failed to break into around 7,800 devices due to encryption, which Wray has called a ‘major public safety issue.’ But rising awareness of supposed phone-unlocking third-party tools from firms like Cellebrite and GrayShift have undermined the FBI’s story. Lawmakers want to know if the bureau has consulted with these vendors, and if not, why their solutions aren’t suitable.

Finally, the legislators want to know if the bureau is erroneously trying to break into devices when they could just get it from a cloud-based Internet service. After all, this is how the agency got information from the 2017 Texas shooter’s iPhone after serving Apple with a warrant for data on his iCloud account.

Via: Apple Insider

Source: Reuters

Amazon Fire Tablet 7 vs. Fire Tablet Kids Edition: Which should you buy?

You want to get your youngsters an Amazon Fire Tablet, but which version is right for you?

The Amazon Fire Tablet 7 is a great buy at $50 (Prime members can save $15 right now, however), especially for the kids. It’s capable enough to keep them entertained while not costing enough to pull your hair out if it gets accidentally destroyed. You can also get all the (non-Google) major content services on there as well as a dedicated kids mode to keep those little fingers from buying a new laptop on your Amazon account.

But when you go to buy, there’s both a “regular” 7-inch and a Kids Edition, which now also has an 8-inch version. Underneath, they’re both regular Amazon Fire tablets. So what’s the difference, and which one should you buy?

Let’s break it down.

What’s the difference?

When you spend $50 on the standard Fire Tablet what you get is the 8GB model with special offers, meaning ads on the lock screen. And that’s it. No case or added extras, just the basic tablet and a charger in a choice of your preferred color.

When you buy the Kids Edition, it costs more at $100 (though Prime members can currently save $25 on that), but with that, you get the 16GB tablet, also with a roughy-toughy kid-proof case to keep it nice and safe during those inevitable falls. Amazon also throws in a “no questions asked” two-year warranty, so if the worst does happen, you just send it back and get a new one. The Kids Edition also comes with unlimited, free access to 10,000 kid-friendly books, movies, TV shows, educational apps, and games with one year of Amazon FreeTime Unlimited included.

For an additional $30, you can get the Fire 8 Kids Edition which comes with 32GB of internal storage and a better-looking display.

Value added

The biggest thing to consider when thinking about getting the Kids Edition is the value-added inclusions Amazon gives you. The case itself retails for around $25 if you buy it separately, the 16GB 7-inch tablet costs $70 and then there’s the FreeTime Unlimited subscription on top.

If you buy the basic $50 Fire Tablet you’ll have to pay extra for each of these, and you won’t get a two-year warranty, either. Likewise if you get the basic Fire 8, which starts at $80. You get the same value-add for less than the cost of buying everything separately.

Different cases

You don’t just have to get Amazon’s case to protect a Fire Tablet from the kids. The FreeTime is no doubt a tremendous case that’s friendly to small hands while still allowing easy access to all the ports and buttons.

There are a number of cases available at various prices though that will do just as good a job. So you can protect a Fire Tablet and give it to your little ones if it’s not just for them.

It’s not inconceivable you might want to use it yourself from time to time!

The best kid-proof cases for the Amazon Fire Tablet

So which should I buy?

If you’re purely buying a tablet for your kids, spend the extra and get the Kids Edition. It’s worth the investment, not least for that worry-free two-year warranty. But it’s a single purchase that comes 100% child-equipped, with that tough-as-hell case and the included one-year subscription to kids content. And if you can stretch to the extra for the Fire 8, that’s the one to get. It’s well worth the extra $30.

You can provide the same experience by buying a regular Fire Tablet at $50. But you should probably only get one of those if you’re going to be buying for an older child/teenager or it’s going to be used by yourself a decent amount of the time. If that sounds more like your scenario, then this option is for you. Buy a more grown-up case and slap in a microSD card and use it as a grown-up would!

See at Amazon

Updated April 13, 2018: This post has been refreshed to ensure you still have the latest details on both versions of the Amazon Fire Tablet.

Russia is banning access to Telegram

Users can still access the app by using a VPN.

Telegram, one of the world’s most popular messaging apps, has been banned in Russia. Telegram was ordered to hand over its encryption keys to the Russian government late last month, and this ban is the country’s answer to Telegram declining to do so.

The order was filed by Roskomnadzor (AKA The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media) and was approved by Russia’s court on April 13. Speaking to TASS News, Judge Yulia Smolina said –

The court decided to meet the requirements of Roskomnadzor, impose restrictions on access to Telegram messenger and stop providing technical conditions for the exchange of messages.

Pavel Durov, Telegram’s Founder and CEO, says that its users in Russia will still be able to use the app thanks to “built-in systems”, but the use of a VPN will likely be required for full access. There’s no exact date as to when the ban will go into effect, but Roskomnadzor has already added the app to its official list of banned websites.

Speaking on behalf of the company, Telegram’s lawyer, Pavel Chikov, stated –

They [the Russian governemnt] have demonstrated again and again that the court system is devoted to serving the interests of the authorities. They no longer even care about external appearances.

Telegram’s battle with the Russian government initially began in 2017 when it first decided to not provide access to its encryption keys for users’ messages, but the Federal Security Service has been on the messaging service ever since.

Download: Telegram (free)

Some Android OEMs discovered to be lying about security patches [Update]

Samsung, LG, and Motorola are among those at fault.

Update, April 13: Google has given the following statement to the Verge:

We would like to thank Karsten Nohl and Jakob Kell for their continued efforts to reinforce the security of the Android ecosystem. We’re working with them to improve their detection mechanisms to account for situations where a device uses an alternate security update instead of the Google suggested security update. Security updates are one of many layers used to protect Android devices and users. Built-in platform protections, such as application sandboxing, and security services, such as Google Play Protect, are just as important. These layers of security—combined with the tremendous diversity of the Android ecosystem—contribute to the researchers’ conclusions that remote exploitation of Android devices remains challenging.

Missed patches certainly make your phone more vulnerable compared to those that are up-to-date, but even so, that doesn’t mean you’re entirely unprotected. Monthly patches definitely help, but there are general measures in place to ensure that all Android phones have some level of enhanced security.

Once a month, Google updates the Android Security Bulletin and releases new monthly patches to fix vulnerabilities and bugs as soon as they pop up. It’s no secret that many OEMs are slow to update their hardware with said patches, but it’s now been discovered that some of them claim to have updated their phones when, in fact, nothing’s changed at all.

This revelation was made by Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell from Security Research Labs, and their findings were recently presented at this year’s Hack in the Box security conference in Amsterdam. Nohl and Lell examined the software of 1200 Android phones from Google, Samsung, OnePlus, ZTE, and others, and upon doing so, found that some of these companies change the security patch appearance when updating their phones without actually installing them.

Samsung’s Galaxy J3 from 2016 claimed to have 12 patches that simply weren’t installed on the phone.

Some of the missed patches are expected to be made on accident, but Nohl and Lell came across certain phones where things just didn’t add up. For example, while Samsung’s Galaxy J5 from 2016 accurately listed the patches it had, the J3 from the same year appeared to have every single patch since 2017 despite missing 12 of them.

The research also revealed that the type of processor used in a phone can have an impact on whether or not it gets updated with a security patch. Devices with Samsung’s Exynos chips were found to have very few skipped patches, whereas those with MediaTek ones averaged out with 9.7 missing patches.

After running through all of the phones in their testing, Nohl and Lell created a chart outlining how many patches OEMs missed but still claimed to have installed. Companies like Sony and Samsung only missed between 0 and 1, but TCL and ZTE were found to be skipping 4 or more.

• 0-1 missed patches (Google, Sony, Samsung, Wiko)
• 1-3 missed patches (Xiaomi, OnePlus, Nokia)
• 3-4 missed patches (HTC, Huawei, LG, Motorola)
• 4+ missed patches (TCL, ZTE)

Shortly after these findings were announced, Google said that it’d be launching investigations into each of the guilty OEMs to find out what exactly’s going on and why users are being lied to about which patches they do and don’t have.

Even with that said, what’s your take on this? Are you surprised by the news, and will this have an impact on the phones you buy going forward? Sound off in the comments below.

Why I’m still using a BlackBerry KEYone in Spring 2018