Look at the Xbox 360’s cancelled ‘Goldeneye 007’ HD remaster
It’s one of those bits of gaming trivia that punches a specific generation of players square in the gut: There was once an Xbox Live port of Goldeneye 007 in the works, but it was cancelled. It’s true — Activation was porting the Nintendo 64 classic to the Xbox 360 back in 2008, but the project was canned when Microsoft and Nintendo couldn’t reach a licensing agreement. The good news? Today we finally get a look at what the game would have been — known leaker Rare Thief has posted 30 minutes of gameplay footage.
For fans of the original game, the video is a bittersweet revelation. Here, we see everything fans wanted from the XBLA remake: the complete, classic single player campaign, new high resolution textures, a much improved framerate of 60 fps and the complete multiplayer experienced tailored to online play over Xbox Live. Better still are the new features players missed out on, including new multiplayer levels, an option that equals all character heights (Take that, Oddjob) and an option to instantly switch between classic and HD graphic modes.
It’s nice to see what almost was, if a bit sad to know we’ll never be able to play it. That’s something we’ll all have to come to terms with — but hey, at least we still have Goldeneye: Source.
Source: Rare Thief, YouTube
Have a virtual visit to the Bauhaus with Harvard’s collection
Bauhaus, for the uninitiated, was a German art school that unfortunately closed its doors back in 1933. It was home to thousands of paintings, sculptures, photos and other various artifacts created by artists studying everything from architecture to graphic design.
While the school itself is no longer in operation, you can still peruse artwork you would have found there with Harvard’s massive collection of over 32,000 pieces of art available online for you to browse through at your convenience.
The artwork collection is a worthy tribute to the art school, which will be celebrating its 100th anniversary coming in 2019. Harvard Art Museum’s comprehensive look at the school features drawings and photographs as well as an essay about the school’s impact on the design world. You can also access a map of where you can see physical versions of some of the Bauhaus works in real life in Boston from the very same platform.
Check out the collection and get your daily quota of culture in for the day.
Via: Wired
Pokémon Go Gains New ‘Appraisal’ Feature for Highlighting Attack and Defense Capabilities
Popular augmented reality game Pokémon Go was today updated to version 1.5.0, adding new features to make gym battling more straightforward. New to the game is a “Pokémon Appraisal” feature, which will see in-game Team Leaders offering tips on each Pokémon’s attack and defense abilities to help trainers determine which Pokémon to use in gym battles.
While longtime Pokémon players are often already aware of which Pokémon are ideal to use against other Pokémon in a battle, the appraisal tool offers valuable information on abilities and weaknesses for those who are newer to the Pokémon universe.
According a blog post on the update, it also includes unspecified “minor bot fixes” and a promise that Niantic is working hard on “new and exciting features” that will be added to Pokémon Go in the future.
– Implemented Pokémon Appraisal: Trainers will now be able to learn about a Pokémon’s attack and defense capabilities from their Team Leader (Candela, Blanche, or Spark) to determine which of their Pokémon have the most potential for battle.
– Fixed a bug that kept defeated Pokémon at 1HP; these Pokémon will now return as fainted Pokémon. We’re working on rebalancing the training battle, stay tuned.fixes
Earlier today, a report suggested interest in Pokémon Go is steadily declining, so Niantic will need to implement new features to keep players interested. Daily active users, downloads, and the amount of time users are spending on Pokémon Go each day are said to be “well off their peaks and on a downward trend.”
Pokémon Go can be downloaded from the iOS App Store for free. [Direct Link]
Tag: Pokémon GO
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Fossil evidence of supernovae found on the sea floor
Astrophysicist Shawn Bishop of the Technical University in Munich looked for evidence of supernovae in an unlikely place: on the sea floor. Now, according to a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Bishop confirmed that there is a fossil record of a supernova event buried in the sediment at the bottom of the ocean.
Specifically, Bishop was searching for the isotope iron–60, which is produced during a supernova and blasted out into space. Bishop’s hypothesis was that iron–60 particles from a supernova would oxidize as they passed through the Earth’s atmosphere, becoming rust that settled on the ocean floor where it was consumed by “magneto tactic” bacteria to create the magnetite chains they use to detect magnetic fields. By examining sediment core samples using accelerator mass spectrometry, Bishop found atoms of iron–60 preserved in the microfossil remains of these ancient bacteria. Once he compared the iron-60 concentrations in several different core samples, Bishop believes he found a terrestrial record of a supernova that occurred 2.2 million years ago in the Scorpio Centauri cluster — which actually corresponds nicely to iron-60 deposits found on the moon.
A second study led by Anton Wallner of The Australian National University published similar findings in the journal Nature earlier this year, identifying evidence of a particularly rough period when the Earth was being blasted by a series of nearby explosions. What’s more: the evidence also suggests that one of the supernova events found in the fossil record may have set off the ice ages of the Pleistocene era, some 2.5 million years ago.
Via: Gizmodo
Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Technical University of Munich
Visa-powered payment ring is now available to everyone
That Visa-based payment ring is no longer limited to athletes who made it to the Olympics in Rio. Anyone can now pre-order an NFC Ring that lets you tap to pay at many store terminals without pulling out your phone or twisting your wrist. Plunk down about $53 (£40) and you can get one in your size around its expected December ship date. As with the Apple Watch, you don’t need your phone around once you’ve set it up — it uses anonymizing tokens to make payments all by itself. It’s not flawless (we found that you have to hold it at an angle for best results), but it’s far subtler than many existing payment methods.
Source: NFC Ring, Infineon
PSN’s first Humble Bundle gives you Capcom games at a discount
Humble Bundle is best-known for its PC game offers, but it’s branching out in a big way. It’s partnering with Capcom and Sony to launch PSN’s first-ever Humble Bundle, the appropriately titled Humble Capcom PlayStation Bundle. Pay at least $1 and you’ll both get a handful of Capcom titles as well as donate some of your purchase toward the American Red Cross, Rettsyndrome.org and Save the Children. You can choose how much goes to charity versus the developer, so there’s an incentive to splurge in the name of a good cause.
As always, what you get depends on how much you’re willing to spend. Everyone who chips in will get Strider, Final Fight: Double Impact, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3 and a 45 percent discount for Street Fighter V. They’re nothing to write home about (Strider is the only PS4 title at this tier if you’re not buying SFV), but it’s still a good value. Naturally, things get more interesting the more you’re willing to pay. Pay above the average and you’ll snag the HD remasters of Okami and Resident Evil alongside four other games. Spend at least $15, meanwhile, and you’ll score Devil May Cry HD, Resident Evil 0 Remastered and a half-off coupon for Mega Man Legacy Collection.
If you like what you see, you’ll have until September 5th at 2PM Eastern to take advantage of the Humble Bundle. It’s not a killer deal, but it could be a good way to catch up on games that you missed the first time around. And look at it this way: if this offer proves to be a hit, you might just see other developers offering PSN bundles of their own.
Source: Humble Bundle, PlayStation Blog
Amazon is rebooting Scorsese’s ‘The Departed’ into a TV series
Streaming services continue to gobble up popular titles to adapt and reimagine for their content-craving audiences. But unlike Netflix’s recent decision to adapt the timeless children’s novel Anne of Green Gables, Amazon Studios has shown that it’s willing to go in a bit harder of a direction. After announcing last week they’d be making a series exploring Playboy creator Hugh Hefner’s life, Deadline reported today that the company will be re-imagining Martin Scorsese’s 2006 mobster drama The Departed as a TV series.
While Scorsese’s picture deals with undercover intrigue between the FBI and local Irish mob in Boston, itself adapted from the Hong Kong-based film Internal Affairs, the Amazon show will be set in Chicago, Illinois amid warring drug gangs. According to Deadline, its plot will revolve around a young cop going undercover inside a Latino gang, which plants their own man inside the police department.
The series will be written and executive produced by Jason Richman, creator of network police drama Detroit 1-8-7. While no cast or other creative roles have been announced, the production houses Vertigo Entertainment, Initial Entertainment Group and Plan B Entertainment, which all helped create Scorsese’s film, are returning to produce the show.
Source: Deadline
U.S. International Trade Commission Says Fitbit Didn’t Steal Trade Secrets From Jawbone
Back in 2015, Jawbone sued Fitbit for “systematically plundering” confidential information, stealing patented technology, and acquiring trade secrets from former Jawbone employees, and since then, the two have been embroiled in an ongoing legal dispute.
It looks like Fitbit is temporarily off the hook, though, as the United States International Trade Commission today said Fitbit did not steal Jawbone’s trade secrets, putting an end to Jawbone’s efforts to win an import ban against Fitbit. Without the ban, Fitbit will be able to continue importing and selling its fitness trackers in the United States.
U.S. judge Dee Lord ruled there was no violation of the Tariff Act and that neither party “has been shown to have misappropriated any trade secret.” The International Trade Commission previously invalidated Jawbone’s patent claims and said Jawbone was “seeking a monopoly on the abstract ideas of collecting and monitoring sleep and other health-related data.”
In a statement given to Business Insider, Jawbone said it would seek a review of the ruling before the full Commission and will proceed with its trade secret case against Fitbit, which is set to be heard by a jury in California.
Both Jawbone and Fitbit make popular fitness tracking devices, but while Fitbit has continued to produce new activity trackers, Jawbone has not released a new fitness-related product since 2015. Earlier this year, following reports suggesting it was going out of business, Jawbone said it was committed to creating new wearable products. Jawbone is now said to be working on a clinical-grade health tracking device related to heart monitoring.
Tags: Fitbit, Jawbone
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Galaxy S7 Active Review: #1 in almost every category
Exclusive phones suck. Period. More people need access to a phone like the Galaxy S7 Active, which is currently locked down to just AT&T users like myself. After using the Galaxy S7 Active for a couple weeks, one thing has become clear to me. This phone is the best Android phone… wait, the best phone in general in four out of the five categories I am judging it on.
Build
This phone isn’t aiming to be in the hands of today’s designers or fashion experts, so don’t expect this device to blow you away with how good it looks. Grab a Galaxy S7 Edge if you’re going for a stunner. What Samsung sought out to do with this phone is build a tank of a device that will withstand anything. And they succeeded.
I’ve left this phone in the sink with the water running over it while I fixed myself a drink, I’ve dropped it out my car window going about 25 mph, and I even got bored and buried the thing under half a foot of dirt and left it there for a little while. All of these actions left the phone unscathed and ready for more.
The downside is this is a pretty ugly phone to say the least. The phone is made of rugged plastic that makes no attempt to match the sleek style of the regular Galaxy S7. The navigation buttons stick out too much, and remind me of a messaging phone before smartphones got popular. This phone was built for the outdoors, not for getting compliments.
I can’t tell you the extent of how the glass will hold up after so many drops (however there are videos out there showing some amazing results), but after dropping it out of a moving car window onto pavement with not even a scratch on the glass… I think you’ll come to trust this phone’s durability. Major props to Samsung for creating a phone like this, it easily competes with Motorola’s Droid Turbo 2 and the Moto Z Force.
Display
There’s not much to be said here that hasn’t already been said by Nick Schiwy in his Galaxy S7 review. Samsung continues to make the best smartphone displays in the world, and the S7 Active is no exception. We’re seeing the same panel put on the regular Galaxy S7, which is a 1440×2560 Super-AMOLED display, with an added layer of glass for durability. This added layer does make the regular S7 slightly more attractive, as the Active has slightly worse viewing angles when you tilt the phone to its side. The screen still amazes me with how bright it gets outside and how impressive games and movies look on it, as the AMOLED panel on this trumps all other AMOLED screens on the market because of Samsung providing its latest screen technology exclusively to its own premium phones.
Camera
The S7 Active shares the same incredible camera that the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge have, which have been continuously praised as the best smartphone cameras in the world. I used this phone around the same time I was testing the OnePlus 3 and Moto Z Force, and neither of these two truly compare with the S7 Active’s camera.
I don’t really like taking videos on smartphones because the stabilization generally looks bad, but the S7 phones are on a whole new level. While taking 1080p 60 FPS video, I truly realized why so many people love Samsung cameras. The fluidity of 60 frames per second on top of Samsung’s stabilizing mode (which can be toggled, but I don’t see why you would turn it off) creates a video-recording experience I’ve never used before. This phone creates the perfect opportunity to hike, mountain climb or even swim while taking some of the best photos possible on a phone.
Performance
This is the section where I’ll calm down a bit and not give Samsung every award. With the help of AT&T, the S7 Active comes with apps I’ll never use that I’m unable to uninstall. The phone gave me suggestions on what AT&T services I should use like connecting to DirectTV. I was not a fan…
However, I recommend you check out our guides to installing a new launcher to avoid all of AT&T’s services and bloatware if you prefer. These launchers allow you customize your homescreen and hide apps you never want to see again.
Anyway, only after using the OnePlus 3 did I notice a couple jitters when using the S7 Active, and it just wasn’t the same smoothness I was use to, nor the memory management. This phone comes with 4GB of RAM, but when multitasking it feels identical if not slower to switch between apps than my Idol 4S, which only has 3GB of RAM. This is frustrating because memory management has been a problem for Samsung for a long time. I will say, coming from using the OnePlus 3 to the S7 Active is vastly different from someone upgrading to this phone from a device a year or two old. All-in-all, you’re going to be satisfied with the performance on the S7 Active.
Battery
If you’re on AT&T, and you’re sick of your phone not lasting you half-way through the day, you are going to be dumbstruck with how good battery life is on this phone. To give you an idea, the Galaxy S7 Edge has a 5.5 inch screen with a 3,600 mAh battery. More screen size means more power consumption. The Edge has incredible battery life, giving most users around 5 hours of on screen time. The Galaxy S7 Active has a 5.1 inch screen – with a 4,000 mAh battery. This is a huge battery even for phones with much bigger screens. I’ve been consistently getting around seven hours of screen on time, which is ludicrous for me.
Easily, I’ve been making it into the evening of the second day of usage on a single charge with around 8-12% battery left, with heavy usage (not even you can kill my phone this time, Snapchat). There’s not much else to say here folks. Take this thing camping for a night or two, and you might find yourself not needing an extra battery pack at all.
Conclusion
Like I said in the introduction, whether you’re looking for a phone with the best display, best camera, best durability, or best battery life, The S7 Active covers all those areas in one rugged package. Performance isn’t the best out of all the offerings, but with the Snapdragon 820 chip it’s still extremely close to every other high-end Android phone.
Of course, this phone isn’t for everybody (not that a lot of people have a choice, AT&T…) because it’s not the prettiest phone out there and some people may prefer a bigger screen or less ugly navigation buttons at the bottom of the phone, but if looks aren’t an issues for you, you literally cannot go wrong choosing this phone over any other at the AT&T store.
Boomerang uses AI to help you write emails people will read
Why don’t you get a response to every email you write? It’s possible your recipient is busy. Maybe it didn’t reach them. Or maybe, just maybe, you didn’t write a quality email in the first place.
Boomerang’s Respondable widget that you can download right into your browser to be used within Gmail. Its aim? To help you craft better emails that improve your response rates. Using machine learning algorithms that improve based on how you pen your various emails to different recipients, it uses that intelligence to assist you when it comes to how you write your messages.
When you activate Boomerang, you get a new bar inserted into the window you use to compose messages that will change in real-time depending on what you write. Clicking on it brings up a new menu that offers suggestions based on the text in the window. Subject length, word count, question count, and reading level are available for free users, with positivity, politeness, and subjectivity measurements available for anyone who springs for the Advanced Features options.
I put Boomerang Respondable to the test and it did a decent job of measuring the message I sent to a willing Engadget guinea pig. I kept it short to a few paragraphs, asked one question, and kept my subject line to a reasonable length. With a few tweaks I was able to swing the “response” meter to “likely,” which was in the green zone. I didn’t reach “Very likely,” which is a cool teal that I feel a little disappointed I didn’t try enough to reach.
Respondable is an interesting tool that could absolutely help you compose better emails, but I also wonder how well these algorithms actually work. I’m going to be utilizing it to see if I start to get responses in a more dependable manner.
If you’re interested in trying out the free version, you can get it for both Gmail and Outlook.
Source: Boomerang
