PlayStation Vue Now Supports Apple TV App

Live TV streaming service PlayStation Vue recently added support for Apple’s TV app on fourth and fifth-generation Apple TV devices, as well as on iOS. With this addition, PS Vue subscribers can now sync the on-demand movies and TV shows they watch within Sony’s app to the TV app, making it easier to jump directly into a PS Vue stream.

The update is evident when browsing for movies and TV shows in the TV app, with PlayStation Vue now listed as a location to stream content alongside previously supported apps like HBO GO, Prime Video, Showtime, Starz, Hulu, and others. If you subscribe to PS Vue and have the app installed, you can add PS Vue-compatible films and TV series to your Up Next list, and as you watch them in the PS Vue app, Apple’s TV app will update and keep track of your progress.

As some users on Reddit pointed out, live sports also appear to be supported, so you’ll be able to add games to your Up Next list, then jump directly into the game from the TV app to PS Vue and start watching. Apple hasn’t noted PS Vue as a supported app yet on its website, but numerous users have reported seeing a splash screen when opening PS Vue on Apple TV, asking them for permission to connect to the TV app.

While there are nearly 90 apps supported in the TV app now, including a few live news apps, PS Vue’s addition marks one of the first times an over-the-top live TV streaming service has been added. Rivals like DirecTV Now and YouTube TV lack this compatibility.

Related Roundups: Apple TV, tvOS 12Tags: PlayStation, PlayStation VueBuyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Caution)
Discuss this article in our forums

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme vs. Dell XPS 15

Rich Shibley/Digital Trends

Small laptops are great, but for a blend of productivity and portability, 15-inch models are perfect. Two of the best manufacturers for laptops of that size are Dell and Lenovo, so picking between two of their flagship devices in that range isn’t easy.

Shouldering that task though, we pitted the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme versus the Dell XPS 15 in a head to head on design, performance, and portability.

Design

Dan Baker/Digital Trends

Neither the Dell XPS 15 or the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme is a style icon compared to more form-focused laptops like the XPS 13 or MacBook Pro, but they’re hardly bad looking either. The ThinkPad X1 Extreme sports thinner bezels than its last-generation counterparts, but retains the boxy-look so classic of the range. It mounts its camera in the top bezel, which is a much more favorable position for flattering video calls than the XPS 15’s base mounted camera, but that does come hand in hand with a thicker top bezel in turn.

The Dell alternative does have thinner bezels and an altogether more modern looking design than its Lenovo counterpart. It’s a little thinner than the ThinkPad but does weigh in heavier with the larger battery option. It has a silver exterior paint job compared to the ThinkPad X1’s overall black coloring, which impacts personal preference more than anything tangible.

Both laptops feature great keyboards with crisp, responsive keys and comfortable layouts. The Lenovo keyboard is slightly more enjoyable to use long-term, although either would be good for day to day use. The main difference here is the ThinkPad’s TrackPoint, which some people still swear by.

The XPS 15 sports a number of port options on its flanks and rear, offering up a pair of USB-A 3.1 Gen 1 ports (fast, but not that fast), an HDMI 2.0 output, a single Thunderbolt 3 compatible USB-C connector, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The ThinkPad sports a slightly more expansive port selection, with two Thunderbolt 3 compatible USB-C ports, a pair of USB-A 3.1 ports, an HDMI 2.0 output, a smart card reader, SD card reader, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a network extension port that when combined with an adapter dongle can be used for ethernet connections.

Performance

Rich Shibley/Digital Trends

The ThinkPad X1 Extreme has a starting price of $1,860 and offers an 8th-gen Intel Core i5-8400H CPU, 8GB of DDR4 memory, an Nvidia  GTX 1050 Ti graphics chip, and 256GB of M.2 SSD storage. All of that powers a 15.6-inch 1080p, IPS display that can hit a brightness of 300 nits. Due to some surprisingly favorable online sale prices at the time of writing, you can spend less than $100 more to get 16GB of RAM, 512GB of SSD space, and a Core i7-8750H CPU. Other update options include a more powerful CPU — Core i7-8850H — up to a terabyte of PCIexpress SSD storage, and a 4K display. The most expensive model costs $2,834.

The XPS 15 has a much more modest starting price of $1,000 for its entry-level model, though the hardware configuration is less impressive also. It has an 8th-gen Intel Core i5-8300H CPU, 8GB of DDR4 memory, on board Intel UHD 630 graphics, and a terabyte of hybrid HDD/SSD storage. For $1,400 you can upgrade to a much more capable Core i7-8750H CPU, with 256GB of SSD space, and a GTX 1050 Ti graphics chip. All models apart from the very top ones come with a 1080P display, with options for more storage space and memory throughout the range.

The best configuration is $2,900 and comes with an Intel Core i9-8950HK CPU, 32GB of DDR4 memory, a terabyte of PCIexpress solid-state storage, and a 4K display.

The XPS 15 certainly offers more value at the lower end, with comparable hardware to the entry-level ThinkPad for a few hundred dollars less. However, once you get up to around the $2,000 mark the specifications and costs even out and they are far more comparable in terms of bang for buck. Our review configurations both had the 8750H CPU, and the results favored the Lenovo laptop slightly. In addition, its storage write speeds were much more preferable.

The Dell laptop’s display has better contrast ratio — opting for the 4K panel nets better color accuracy too — but the ThinkPad has HDR support, which certainly gives it the edge in supporting media. Games like Battlefield 1 look stunning on the Lenovo notebook. That said, though neither of these laptops is really designed with gaming in mind, their combination of a powerful CPU with an entry-level dedicated gaming chip make them more than capable. Don’t expect to max out AAA games at 4K, but indies, and lower-detail settings are more than possible at decent frame rates.

Portability

Rich Shibley/Digital Trends

No 15-inch laptop is as portable as some of the smaller form-factor alternatives out there, but the two laptops in this head to head aren’t blocky workstations by any means. Indeed, Lenovo has gone out of its way to make the ThinkPad X1 Extreme much sleeker and streamlined than the other laptops in its professionally-targeted range. It measures 14.24 x 9.67 x 0.74-inches and weighs just 4.06 pounds with the 4K panel. If you opt for the 1080P version you can shave off another third of a pound and 0.02 of an inch in height.

The XPS 15 is definitely the trimmer device, at 14.06 x 9.27 x 0.66-inches (0.45-inches at its thinnest point) but not by a huge margin. It is a little heavier, though, weighing 4.5 pounds with the larger battery option.

That battery comes in at 97 watt-hours, with the option of a much smaller 56 watt-hours in some configurations. The version we tested came with the larger of the two and lasted just over 14.5 hours in our video loop test. The Surface Book 2 might beat such a figure, but the ThinkPad falls far behind with its 80 watt-hour charge delivering just five and half hours of video looping. That’s a respectable result, but the XPS 15 is just vastly more efficient.

Efficiency and style trump grunt

Dan Baker/Digital Trends

In our head to head testing of comparable hardware configurations, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme certainly comes out on top, by a little. It also has a better selection of ports, but there’s no denying that it is the more costly of devices — especially at the lower end. It also has much weaker battery life — although few can compare with the XPS 15’s stellar efficiency.

The ThinkPad is certainly worth considering if you like its more professional look, feel, and gorgeous HDR display, but the XPS 15 remains our darling of the 15-inch form factor. It’s the complete package, offering great performance in general usage and gaming, long life on a single charge, and it looks good too.

Overall winner: Dell XPS 15

Editors’ Recommendations

• Dell XPS 15 vs. MacBook Pro 15
• Lenovo Legion Y730 vs. Dell G3 Gaming Laptop
• Dell XPS 15 9570 review
• Need to work from the road? Here are the 5 best laptops with LTE
• Predator Helios 500 vs. Alienware 17 R5

Apple Has Reportedly Acquired Asaii, a Music Analytics Platform ‘Able to Find the Next Justin Bieber’

Apple has acquired San Francisco-based music analytics startup Asaii, according to unnamed sources cited by Axios. The deal, which has not been confirmed by Apple, was reportedly worth less than $100 million.

Asaii built tools that allowed music labels to discover, track, and manage artists using machine learning. The platform pulled data from social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and streaming music services such as Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, and SoundCloud, to find hidden talent.

Asaii offered two products specifically: a music management dashboard for A&R representatives to quickly scout and manage talent, and an API for music services to integrate a recommendation engine into their platforms.

“Our machine learning powered algorithms finds artists 10 weeks before they chart,” the startup’s website states. “Our algorithms are able to find the next Justin Bieber, before anyone else,” another page claimed.

The acquisition will enable Apple to bolster its content recommendations to users, and help it compete with Spotify’s efforts to work directly with smaller artists and music labels, according to the report. Apple Music and iTunes are likely to benefit from Asaii’s machine learning algorithms.

Asaii was founded in August 2016 by Sony Theakanath, Austin Chen, and Chris Zhang, who have collectively worked at Apple, Facebook, Uber, Salesforce, and Yelp previously. All three individuals now work on the Apple Music team at Apple, as of October 2018, according to their LinkedIn profiles.

In an email to customers shared by Music Ally last month, Asaii said it would be shutting down operations on October 14, 2018.

Last month, Apple announced that it completed its acquisition of Shazam, a popular music recognition service that can identify the names and lyrics of songs and music videos. Shazam could be more tightly integrated into Apple products and services as a result, ranging from Apple Music to Siri.

Tag: Apple acquisition
Discuss this article in our forums

Meet the deaf gamers raising awareness for games accessibility

There’s a mission early in the first Destiny game where you are plunged into darkness when fighting a group of enemies called ‘The Hive’. It’s about an hour in and requires players to listen closely for nearby enemies since the game’s torch and motion sensor are limited. This may seem like a simple challenge typical of a first-person-shooter but for those who are deaf and hard-of-hearing, it’s an incredibly difficult part to play through and creates a near insurmountable roadblock to the rest of the game.

“I died about 15 times before I realized I wouldn’t be able to do that part,” Susan, a deaf games critic, told me. “Being that it was maybe an hour into the game, I’d just wasted $60.”

Unable to find any information online that could’ve warned her in advance about how unfriendly Destiny was to the hard-of-hearing, Susan was inspired by her frustration to create a directory of her own. Working with her friend Courtney Craven, the two created OneOddGamerGirl.com, a games review site that specifically rates games on their accessibility.

An early mission in Destiny that can be especially challenging for deaf gamers. The hour long quest requires players to listen closely for enemies in lieu of a limited-range torchlight and the game’s motion sensor.

Their system is simple: Susan plays for about an hour, notes all the parts she found hard, and Courtney replays those same sections to see if the issues are related to deafness. The two then play together with Courtney relaying all the stuff Susan’s missing because she can’t hear.

Time to set a universal standard

Their reviews are concise, identifying the very specific ways a game fails and succeeds in being accessible. The amount of games that are readily accessible from launch is growing, but progress is uneven with the most basic issues still commonplace.

” … Studios need to start bringing in testers or talk to people with REAL disabilities.”

“Currently subtitles – and only subtitles, not full captions – are the only thing that’s standard in most games,” Susan said. “They’d be much better if there was a universal standard for size, resizable is preferred and offered an option of a text background. We’re seeing more and more games that do subtitles right, like the ones that released a patch after feedback that included the ability to scale subtitles.”

Captioning refers to using descriptive text for non-spoken sounds, such as gunfire or creatures growling. Games often build collectibles and mechanics around the sound of the environment – like the chiming nirnroot in the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim — something that, without captioning, can effectively gate content from the deaf and hard-of-hearing.

Chris, a deaf streamer, names Mass Effect: Andromeda and Destiny as games that are terrible with subtitling, the former causing him eye-strain after an hour due to the small, unchangeable font sizes.

Chris streaming on Twitch as DeafGamersTV. DeafGamersTV

“To get accessibility in their games done right, studios need to start bringing in testers or talk to people with REAL disabilities,” He explains. “Then do your homework on how they can implement it in games.”

Under the title DeafGamersTV, Chris has been streaming on Twitch for several years, using the platform to spread deaf awareness and build a gaming community around the subject. His channel attracts deaf and non-deaf watchers alike, with his webcam and chat feed allowing him to communicate in sign and text to his viewers.

Chris gave a talk on accessibility at the Games Developers Conference in 2017. Ubisoft reached out to consult with him on improving their options for deaf and hard-of-hearing players. In general, his advice is to include more options across the board.

Chris/DeafGamersTV

“Let people access the options menu before starting anything,” He advises. “People should be able to set the brightness, button remapping, subtitles settings and other options for different accessibility. If this were to be a standard in gaming then I think maybe more gaming companies would become more inclusive.”

A call to listen and get involved

Although some companies have expressed an interest in making their games more accessible, many have turned a blind eye too. This isn’t the case for David Tisserand, UR Process Manager at Ubisoft, Kait Paschall, Project Manager at Epic, and Karen Stevens, Accessibility Lead at EA Sport. These three are all praised by Susan for their work in advocating for the needs of differently-abled players, each taking part in the Twitter hashtag #a11y to form a better understanding of these communities. But they are few in a big industry.

“The most attention I’ve seen deaf gamers … is when that deaf group did the Destiny raid.”

“[David, Kait, and Karen] have been amazing allies for bringing better accessibility to games and always listen to feedback and are always looking to move game accessibility forward,” Susan said. “Then there’s the studios I, and many others, have reached out to after a game’s release and continually are ignored.” She refused to disclose names but one can gather the list is shamefully long.

Wider games media isn’t any better. Chris has all but given up on most of the standard outlets because they seldom highlight these topics in their criticism or include subtitles in their video content. Nowadays, he prefers to read Susan’s site alongside GameCritics.com, both of which include coverage on accessibility options in all of their reviews.

The truth is coverage is rare and often tied to highlighting specific efforts or events. “The most attention I’ve seen deaf/hard-of-hearing gamers in general get is when that deaf group did the Destiny raid,” Caroline, OneOddGamerGirl co-founder, explained. This is in reference to the clan of deaf Destiny players who defeated the game’s Leviathan raid. While still an incredible moment worth celebrating, it’s clear that these issues and events and the voices behind them could and should be covered and amplified more often. That said, Caroline remains optimistic. “While that wasn’t specific to accessibility, it was a great opportunity to see that there are deaf gamers, which could help take accessibility more seriously.”

Susan as OneOddGamerGirl on Twitter, recently highlighted Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s accessibility settings, lauding the language settings as ‘the most expansive set’ of options she’s ever seen. @OneOddGamerGirl/Twitter

The hope is that when these needs are highlighted and noticed, creators will start making efforts to include them. Visibility is key, and the more we persist in having these discussions, the more they start to have a real impact.

Multiple teams have reached out to thank Susan after reading her reviews and gaining insight on how they can improve their games. The response to her work has been largely positive when it’s found, with the only dissent being the occasional “maybe games aren’t for you” comment, though this is typically left by someone upset that she gave one of their favorite games a low score.

Still more work to do

When it comes to games that have the right idea, Fortnite and Minecraft are noted as having a wide approachability. More recently, Spider-Man for the PlayStation 4 included size options for subtitling, as well as other mechanical features that make playing it more possible for the hard-of-hearing. When a major title like this is so inclusive, it tends to reverberate.

“Spider-Man’s inclusion of a choice of text size and background contrast is a really important step in driving it towards being a standard consideration,” Ian Hamilton, accessibility consultant and curator of the Games Accessibility Guidelines, told me. “Spider-Man himself has a nice in-built accommodation for deaf gamers too; his spidey sense, which can act as a visual cue to replicate information available through sound. When a game of Spider-Man’s popularity and critical acclaim does something [like that], others in the industry really do take notice.”

Ian Hamilton, accessibility consultant and curator of the Games Accessibility Guidelines. Ian Hamilton

Ian’s worked in this area for years, trying to improve and broaden perspective on an industry level. He spoke of a number of special interest and employee resource groups within big studios that help acknowledge these specific kinds of needs, and of more senior staff whose duties include researching accessibility. It’s not much, but it’s something he believes will increase with time.

For now, Susan, Caroline, Chris, and Ian are all in agreement that the most important thing any studio or creator can do is start — start listening, start researching, start trying.

“This is 2018 and technology continues to evolve and these companies need to take advantage of it,” Chris stated. “They just need to listen to know what’s wrong and what to improve.”

“The easiest thing would be for developers to spend some time talking with our community on Twitter,” Susan said. “There’s so many and we all have valuable input, but it seems like it’s the same people over and over that are interested in talking to us.”

Editors’ Recommendations

• Spider-Man’s accessibility options, from the people who benefit from them
• Meet the voice actors of ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man’
• Tap to Alexa makes it easier for deaf community to interact with Amazon assistant
• From sharks to Shaq: Ring CEO Jamie Siminoff’s unusual road to success
• ‘Madden NFL 19’ review