The Morning After: Thursday December 22, 2016

Good morning! If you need some last-minute gift ideas, don’t worry — we’ve got your back.

Issues in the news include Uber ending its self-driving car tests in San Francisco, a Nokia vs. Apple patent battle and an early look at Sling TV’s AirTV player.

It’s pretty bad when the DMV has the moral high groundUber shuts down its self-driving cars in San Francisco

After a week or so of posturing, the battle between California regulators and Uber has come to an end. The ride-sharing company pulled 16 self-driving cars off the road after the DMV revoked their registrations, insisting that Uber needs to obtain an autonomous permit for testing. According to the state, getting the permit (as 20 other companies already have, including Google, Tesla and Ford) could take less than 72 hours.

FuturecraftWhat it’s like to wear a pair of 3D-printed Adidas

The Adidas 3D Runner is pretty difficult to get, but just in case you could acquire them, how would they feel? Edgar Alvarez tried on a pair and found that their 3D-printed midsoles made for a shoe that was not only comfortable but also extremely light. Unfortunately, the heaviest hit could come to a hypebeast’s pocketbook — pairs from the limited release are selling online for as much as $6,500.

Drip-drip go the leaksSling TV is developing its own hardware for cord cutters

It looks like Sling TV’s next step is to build its own Android-powered player, according to a website leak revealed by Dave Zatz. The AirTV Player looks ready to blend local broadcasts and Sling’s live TV streams with internet services like Netflix, but we’ll probably have to wait until the start of CES to find out more.

This time Apple is playing defenseNokia sues Apple for patent infringement

The latest battle over IP is here, as Nokia filed lawsuits against Apple in Germany and the US. The suits cover 32 patents, while Nokia claims Apple declined to expand a licensing agreement the two reached in 2011. Based on recent history, were not expecting for this to wrap up anytime soon, but stay tuned.

Is there anything real on the internet?A Russian bot army “watches” video ads on fake sites 300 million times a day

According to the security firm WhiteOps, it uncovered a botnet built to trick ad networks. Called Methbot, the scheme tricked advertisers into playing videos on fake websites, where they were watched by fake viewers, and then paid for with real money.

From the creators of “Second Life”Sansar is intended as a WordPress for social VR

Linden Lab’s new project is called Sansar, and it’s a toolkit for creators to easily build and share virtual worlds. Interactivity is “fairly limited” at the moment, but its creators expect to improve that over time. Their experience comes from operating “Second Life” for many years, and Sansar has a similar focus on social, with support for hundreds of avatars at a time.

Snapchat survived budget cutsNASA missions were a social media hit in 2016

A combination of interesting missions and effective campaigns kept our attention on what was happening in space this year. Leaning in to pop culture references and dialing back the jargon also helped NASA’s team of social media specialists, as the group manages more than 500 accounts. Everyone wants to crush the ‘gram, but only NASA can do it from the furthest reaches of our Solar System.

But wait, there’s more…

• Families of Pulse nightclub shooting sue Google, Facebook and Twitter
• GM and WiTricity are teaming up to make cars that charge wirelessly
• FCC Republicans promise to limit net neutrality when ‘possible’

Second Life’s creator is building a ‘WordPress for social VR’

None of this is real. The rocks, the stars, the enormous transmitter standing upright like a needle. It’s all a mixture of pixels presented by the Oculus Rift. As I stand on Mars, I urge my senses to surrender to the illusion. I long to be Matt Damon, growing potatoes in a makeshift greenhouse. In reality, I’m standing in a “scene” created by Linden Lab for Sansar, a new virtual-reality platform. A few feet to my left is chief executive Ebbe Altberg, standing in a dinosaur outfit. His avatar waves goofily, breaking my dream within a dream. I can’t help but sigh, accepting once more that I’m just a virtual sightseer.

For the last 13 years Linden Lab has been developing Second Life, one of the most popular virtual worlds online. It’s easy to scoff at the game, with its dated graphics and simplistic activities. But it’s still remarkably popular, averaging 900,000 monthly active users. Part of its appeal is the economy, which allows anyone to buy and sell virtual goods. Talented users can sense what will soon be popular, be it clothes, furniture or vehicles, and make them with 3D modelling software. They’re then imported and sold on the in-game marketplace for “Linden Dollars,” which can be exchanged for real-world cash. Designers made $60 million this way last year.

Now, Linden Lab is applying the same approach to virtual reality. The latest headsets are packed with potential, but crafting compelling software is expensive. To make a decent VR sandbox, you need a game engine, a team of talented engineers and artists, and people to manage hosting and distribution. That’s fine for a large video game developer, but unrealistic for a museum, a charity or a book publisher. With Sansar, Linden Lab hopes to create “a WordPress for social VR.” While the company handles the technical aspects, crafty creators are free to build unique assets. Anyone who wants to make their own world can buy these items or import their own, quickly building a shareable and reliable VR experience.

Mars is but one example of what people could make. If NASA or SpaceX wanted to show people the red planet, they might create a world in Sansar. The scene whipped up by Linden Lab is a beautiful, but surprisingly empty playpen. I can’t pick up boulders, for instance, or hack away at discarded machinery. Altberg admits that interactivity is “fairly limited” in Sansar right now, but promises to expand it over time. The “scene” we’re standing in now was constructed in half a day, he stresses, and is meant to illustrate the platform’s flexibility.

A hazy outpost on Mars.

A world on the platform could be small or stretch many kilometers. Teleporters will help you to stitch them together, creating globetrotting tours or history-spanning adventures. Like Second Life, the format is skewed toward social interactions. You could hold a business meeting in VR or show aspiring homeowners around their dream property. You could gather at the lake with some wakeboarding fans or talk about politics in a park. The limitations of a “scene” will be set by its creator, but Altberg expects them to naturally start small. “If you think about how you function socially in everyday life, most of the scenarios you run through are with small groups of people,” he said. “Family, three or four people. Coworkers, you might have a meeting with six people.”

Altberg hinted, however, that there could one day be public events such as parades and football matches that demand larger groups. “Ultimately, we’ll get into the hundreds of avatars that you can have in this place concurrently,” he said.

Sansar will facilitate basic games and group play, too.

I feel a tap on my shoulder and take off the Oculus Rift. Peter Gray, senior director of global communications for Linden Lab, is preparing to load another scene for us. In the final version of the game, world switching will be triggered with an “Applas” search directory. Today, as part of an early demonstration, one of the team’s engineers is forced to intervene. I can let it slide, though. After all, I’m standing in London, while Altberg is logged in from the company’s offices in San Francisco. A few technical kinks are to be expected. Social VR on its own isn’t new, however; I’ve had similar meetings in AltspaceVR and Hello VR’s Metaworld.

As Gray prepares to load an ancient tomb, I ask him about the creation side of the platform. What will developers use to create new assets in Sansar? Pretty much anything, apparently. Right now, Sansar is in what the company calls “Creator Preview.” It’s effectively a closed alpha, allowing a small group of people to upload items and populate the marketplace. They can use “a variety of third-party tools,” Gray says, such as MIA, a 3D sculpting tool popular in the video-game industry. “We want the experts in 3D content creation to continue using the tools they’re already familiar with,” he stresses. On a desktop PC, Bjorn Laurin, Linden Lab’s VP of product, shows me some software that will allow people to lay out their scenes. It’s a simple drag-and-drop interface with a searchable inventory and top-down perspective. I watch as he pulls trees into position and decides where the sun and other important light sources should be.

The “Creator Preview” will ensure lots of assets are ready for the public launch.

“In the future, we’ll introduce additional tools aimed at people like you and me,” Gray explains. “You’ll be able to adjust terrain using voxels, that sort of thing.” Before I can quiz him further, I hear my headset connecting to the next scene. I slip the Rift back on, stepping into … nothingness. Just a blue, empty abyss. Confused, I spin around. Behind me, about 20 meters away, is a large hole. Altberg is standing on the other side and gestures for me to follow. “Come in the door over here,” he urges. I point with the Oculus Touch controller and hold down the trigger, an arcing path appearing in front of me. I release the button and watch as my avatar bursts forward. To go beyond the Rift’s room-scale tracking, teleportation is a must. I repeat the process a few times, blinking my way across the chasm until I’m standing next to Altberg again.

Immediately, I feel like Indiana Jones. An Egyptian tomb is laid out before me, symbols and torches lining the walls. It feels different than the Mars scene. A little more real. The scene was created using photogrammetry, a technique that combines 360-degree photography and positional data, usually collected through LIDAR (the laser-based equivalent of RADAR.) A research organization and a Paris university collaborated on the project, crunching the data for roughly a day using a supercomputer. A tiny slice made up of 50 million polygons was given to Linden Lab, which crunched it down to 40,000. The project was finally imported into Sansar, creating a scene that anyone can now walk through, examine and touch.

In the real world, there is no public access to this particular tomb. I am, therefore, standing in a place that’s normally off limits. Altberg imagines teachers, or tour guides, pointing to the wall paintings and giving out history lessons. Future versions of Sansar will also have interactive elements, including audio triggers, that can hide prerecorded segments. “Over time you’ll see more real-world places uploaded into Sansar,” he said. “You could visit a vacation spot you’re considering and get a feel for it before you go there. Or before you never go there, because it’s too expensive or, like this one, there just isn’t public access.”

Before I leave, Altberg wants to show me one last scene. It’s a circular room like the one Professor Xavier uses to access his mutant-seeking device, Cerebro. Instead of a blank wall, an enormous TV screen wraps around us. A three-minute video of a surfer plays on loop, the sounds of the ocean and a dubstep backing track buffeting our earholes. The picture is ridiculously pixelated; the video has been stripped straight from GoPro’s YouTube channel, presumably in a low resolution. But it shows what a user’s home might look like in Sansar. A personal space, but one that can still facilitate conversation and relaxation.

A home in Sansar could look like anything.

It’s unclear how much Sansar will cost for people who want to design their own VR world. Linden Lab envisions a low, monthly fee that will grant creators access to a virtual plot of land. They can build whatever they want on top, and then choose whether to charge an entry fee for visitors. Designers will, of course, also have the option to sell their individual items on the in-game marketplace. Sansar is therefore like a canvas. Linden Lab will provide some basic paintbrushes, but the hope is that artists will bring their own. They’ll pay the company to store and display their work — similar to an art gallery — and then earn some cash when someone requests a viewing or permission to rework it as part of something new.

“We want to make it so everybody can participate in this medium,” Gray says. “You can create your own virtual experience, share it with other people, invite them in, communicate with them naturally and then monetize it, should you wish.” A grand vision, but a familiar one. Linden Lab pioneered this model with Second Life, pushing its users to build content for the rest of the community. Sansar is just the next step — a Second Second Life — or Third Life, if you will. The difference this time, of course, is the entry fee. Almost anyone with an internet connection can access Second Life, while Sansar will be limited to high-end headsets. When it opens to the public in “early 2017,” it might be a quiet, desolate place to begin with.

‘Overwatch’ comic unavailable in Russia because of homophobic law

Overwatch’s comic series, which attempts to add more backstory to the swathe of characters inside the team shooter, has just published its Christmas special. Alongside festive cheer, present-giving and the rest, the issue reveals that Tracer is gay. She shares a kiss with her partner after sharing presents, and that’s about it. While Overwatch has insinuated that the game’s cast may have more than one LGBT character, this is the first time it’s been pointed out explicitly. It’s all too explicit for Russia, and the country has banned the comic.

While it’s not saying the reason outright, the ban is likely due to the kiss between two women, falling under “gay propaganda” aimed at minors.

As Kotaku reports, Russian Overwatch fans can see the cover, but cannot click through. Instead they get a huge warning box outlining that the comic isn’t available “in accordance with Russian law”, although it doesn’t mention the specific law outright. The government can fine, imprison and deport anyone who flouts this — a rule that also covers public demonstrations or speeches.

Blizzard hasn’t yet responded to our request for comment on the issue, but we’ll update here when we hear back.

Via: Kotaku

Source: Twitter (@Malkythera)

‘Civilization VI’ adds Poland to the fray

Civilization VI was rightly lauded as a return to form for Firaxis following the unfortunate diversion that was Beyond Earth. But, as you’d expect from the first iteration of a complex 4X strategy game, things haven’t been perfect. An update last month brought DirectX 12 support and a considerable interface upgrade, along with the standard balancing and AI improvements. This month, the game’s developers are adding more features, refinements and, for a price, a new civilization to toy with.

For full notes on what’s new, you can head to Firaxis’ website. There’s no headline item per se, but the addition of an “Alert” action that lets you sleep units until they see an enemy, and killing the bug that had Great Admirals randomly spawning on top of wonders (making them functionally useless). Rest assured there are plenty of balancing, AI tuning, aesthetic and bug fixes that should add some polish to the game.

Speaking of adding polish, a new $4.99 (£4) DLC adds the ability to play as Jadwiga, Poland’s Medieval queen. Jadwiga has some interesting abilities, not least of which is the power to steal territory by building encampments or forts. Doing so will also help spread your religion to nearby cities. Sure, it sounds like a very quick way to get someone to declare war on you, but adding a “culture bomb” to standard military buildings is a very interesting mechanic nonetheless. The pack also comes with a 60-turn scenario that will have you defending Poland, Prague and Vienna from invaders.

Firaxis appears to be taking a different approach to updates and DLC this time around, and that’s understandable. With Civilization V, it released a game that, while offering many improvements, stripped out much of the functionality of the previous title. That enabled it to release DLC that significantly expanded on the original game. As Civilization VI arrived pretty much feature-complete, it seems the developer is content to just release small iterative updates for now, with fresh scenarios and civilizations appearing as DLC.

Source: Firaxis

The Morning After: Wednesday December 21, 2016

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

The end of the year is creeping closer, and our latest candidate for a 2016 look-back is Tesla. Beyond Elon Musk’s big year, we’re digging into CG actors from Rogue One, what’s up with Macs, and The Emoji Movie.

N.E.R.D.Why “Rogue One” is a warning sign for digital resurrection

If you haven’t seen the latest “Star Wars” flick yet, avert your eyes. Lucasfilm used CG to include Peter Cushing in the role of Grand Moff Tarkin, despite the fact that Cushing passed away in 1994. Some found the special effect distracting, and Devindra Hardawar investigates what this means for the future of actors both living and dead.

No, you don’t have to wear shadesLG’s laser projector is bright enough to work in the daytime

Ahead of CES, LG revealed a new projector that won’t wow you with its resolution, but manages to be a showstopper anyway. That’s because this 1080p beamer is capable of 2,000 lumens of brightness, all from a 4.6 pound package small enough to sit on a table.

Because it’s not the iPhoneWhy Apple is ignoring the Mac

We haven’t seen a new Mac desktop computer in a long time, and a Bloomberg report looks inside Apple for reasons why. A lack of direction from the top, and a drain on resources caused by iOS and issues with the MacBook Pro are cited as specific issues. Of course, Apple says it has “great desktops” on the roadmap, so the real question is how long the faithful will wait for a refresh.

Cleaner energy and safer roadsTesla’s master plan was realized in 2016

The road from niche sports car builder to mass-market sensation has been a long one, but Tesla is almost there. Despite a few setbacks, like Autopilot accidents and problems with doors on the Model X, it’s in position to be the company Elon Musk has always dreamed it could be. Now it’s time to deliver on the hype.

366 miles between fill-upsHonda’s next-gen hydrogen car is here

The first of Honda’s next-generation hydrogen-powered cars has just arrived in California. The new model is more efficient than the ones it replaces, and is available for $370 a month for three years with just under $3,000 down. That price that includes 20,000 miles per year and up to $15,000 of hydrogen fuel. Given the amount of “free” fuel involved, Honda is virtually giving these cars away to people willing to give hydrogen a shot.

Everything but the kitchen sinkSamsung Gear S3 Frontier review

Samsung’s Gear S3 Frontier does everything you’d want a smartwatch to do, but because it runs the company’s Tizen OS, there aren’t many apps to add to the experience. What’s there, though, is very good: An LTE radio, automatic fitness tracking, Samsung Pay and a great interface to boot. If you can deal with the considerable size, it might be worth your time. But with watches based on Google’s Android Wear 2.0 coming soon, senior mobile editor Chris Velazco suggests it might be smart to hold off on a purchase for now.

But wait, there’s more…

• Prostate cancer laser treatment cures half of trial subjects
• “The Emoji Movie” teaser trailer
• Prisma’s AI-powered photo app drops the squares and adds a GeoFeed
• Get your votes in for the first-ever Steam Awards