Elden Ring can be pretty horrifying. Sometimes it’s the monsters, eldritch horrors with way too many appendages and exposed arteries. Other times it’s the environment, shrouded in misty white fog and just a few obelisk structures as haunting music hums in the background. Such is the case with this nightmarish invasion …
Source: Kotaku – Elden Ring Invader Stumbles Into Creepy AF Nope-Fest
Enlarge / Let’s see, you landed on my “Google Ads” space, and with three houses… that will be $1,400. (credit: Ron Amadeo / Hasbro)
Google is once again not putting its foot down on big developers who refuse to use its in-app billing system. The Play Store always required developers to use Google Play’s in-app billing system, but many big developers like Netflix and Spotify simply ignored the rule and did their own billing anyway. Google never punished these companies, but it did announce a deadline to switch to Google Play billing by September 2021—and then allowed extensions to March 31, 2022. This is the second time the deadline has gotten close to arriving, and we’re again seeing cracks in Google’s attempts to enforce its rules. The latest news is that Google is expanding third-party billing in the Play Store, at least for one huge streaming company.
Google’s latest blog post said the company is now launching a “pilot” program called “user choice billing.” Google said the program will “allow a small number of participating developers to offer an additional billing option next to Google Play’s billing system.” The only announced participating developer is Spotify, one of the two highest-profile companies to continuously ignore Google’s rules. Google said, “This pilot will help us to increase our understanding of whether and how user choice billing works for users in different countries and for developers of different sizes and categories.”
Google says the program is based on the work it was forced to do in South Korea, where a law that passed in 2021 requires app stores to allow third-party payments. In Korea, when you press the checkout button in Google Play, a card pops up asking you which payment processor you want to use. Previously, apps would kick users out to an external webpage (sometimes a webpage embedded right in the app, making for a seamless checkout experience), but now, you’ll be able to do this through Google Play.
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Source: Ars Technica – Google Play’s billing crackdown arrives soon, but Spotify has a special deal
Fans of Heather Fawcett’s YA and middle-grade books (including Even the Darkest Stars and The School Between Winter and Fairyland) won’t be surprised to hear her adult debut, due out in January, keeps within that same fantastical vein—though its characters are early 20th century academics rather than kids on quests.
Source: Gizmodo – The First Chapter of Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries Kicks Off a Magical, If Freezing, Adventure
Every piece of electronics goes through countless iterative prototypes before finding their way into consumers’ hands, but those prototypes are rarely seen by the general public. That’s what makes this prototype of an Atari Pong console so interesting; only two were ever created, and in a time before rapid prototyping…
Source: Gizmodo – The Creator of the Pong Console Just Sold a Prototype at Auction for Over 0,000
Mozilla today launched MDN Plus, a paid subscription product on top of the existing (and recently re-designed) Mozilla Developer Network (MDN), one of the web’s most popular destinations for finding documentation and code samples related to web technologies like CSS, HTML and JavaScript. From a report: The new subscription offering will introduce features like notifications, collections (think lists of articles you want to save) and MDN offline for when you want to access MDN when you’re not online. There will be three subscription tiers: MDN core, a free limited version of the paid plans; MDN Plus 5, with access to notifications, collections and MDN offline for $5 per month or $50 per year; and MDN Supporter 10 for those who are willing to pay a bit more to support the platform in addition to getting a direct feedback channel to the MDN team (as well as “pride and joy,” Mozila says). As the name implies, that more expensive plan will cost $10 a month or $100 for an annual subscription.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Mozilla Launches Paid Subscriptions To Its Developer Network
I was originally on the fence about watching Jujutsu Kaisen 0, the new anime film based on the manga of the same name, a prequel to the wildly popular Jujutsu Kaisen manga series. I’ve read Jujutsu Kaisen 0 and am entirely caught up on Jujutsu Kaisen so I didn’t think the film would have much to offer me. I was wrong. …
Source: Kotaku – The Jujutsu Kaisen 0 Film Is A Fresh Take On The Manga
Chuck Lever III has submitted the NFSD file-system server changes for the in-development Linux 5.18 kernel with a few interesting changes in tow…
Source: Phoronix – Linux 5.18’s NFSD Adds Support For NFSv4 Birth Time File Attribute
Enlarge / Dell XPS 17. (credit: Dell)
Dell updated its largest XPS clamshells on Thursday to include the latest mobile chips from Intel. Now, 12th-gen “Alder Lake” chips are available in the 17- and 15.6-inch versions of the XPS.
Both the XPS 17 and 15 now have options for an Intel Core i5-12500H or i7-12700H. The former has four performance cores (P-cores), eight efficiency cores (E-cores), and a turbo clock speed of up to 4.5 GHz, while the latter has six P-Cores and eight E-cores and can hit up to 4.7 GHz. To get Intel’s highest-end i9-12900HK, which has six P-cores and eight E-cores and can hit 5 GHz, you’ll have to get the smaller-screened XPS 15.
Based on press materials, Dell seems to be planning to put the i9-12900HK in the XPS 17, too, which would make sense, as it’s the largest, more expensive XPS. We’ll update this story if we hear back about when that model will be available.
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Source: Ars Technica – Dell’s XPS 17 and 15 laptops now sold with 12th-gen Intel CPUs
The Batman director Matt Reeves tweeted out that the film’s ARG viral website has released the extended prisoner scene that was cut from the film. In it we get a longer look at Barry Keoghan as the Joker. At this point it’s pretty obvious its him—following the series of puzzles participants in the Riddler’s games on…
Source: Gizmodo – The Batman Deleted Arkham Scene Reveals Barry Keoghan’s Joker
Last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Jamie Lee Curtis announced that, not only will she officiate her youngest daughter’s wedding in the actress’s backyard, but she will do so while wearing World of Warcraft cosplay.
Source: Kotaku – Jamie Lee Curtis Will Officiate Her Daughter’s Wedding In World of Warcraft Cosplay
Apple’s iPhones and other devices have become increasingly expensive, and the company may be using alternative sales models to help soften the blow. Bloombergsources claim Apple is developing a subscription service for the iPhone and other hardware. Akin to the iPhone upgrade program, you’d pay a monthly fee rather than an up-front cost or financed instalments.
Full details of what would be included weren’t available as of this writing, but the service would include regular upgrades and launch in either late 2022 or early 2023. Pricing is also unknown. Apple’s current upgrade program currently requires $35 or more per month to get both yearly iPhone upgrades and continuous AppleCare+ coverage.
The company hasn’t been shy about moving toward subscriptions. Digital services like Apple Music, TV+ and Fitness+ have accounted for a rapidly growing slice of the firm’s revenue, and have helped soften the ups and downs of seasonal sales cycles as well as a relatively stagnant phone market. A broader hardware subscription offering would expand this strategy — Apple could count on a steadier revenue stream, particularly from customers who’d otherwise wait longer to replace their gadgets.
Developing…
Source: Engadget – Apple is reportedly planning an iPhone hardware subscription service
Running a restaurant requires a lot of hard work—hard work that’s only gotten harder in recent years with rising labor costs, supply chain difficulties, and the impact of a little thing known as the global pandemic, aka the Era of Staying Home and Learning How to Make Your Own Bread and Fancy Meals. And all of this is…
Source: LifeHacker – 17 of the Trickiest Ways Restaurants Get You to Spend More (and How to Avoid Them)
Despite previously saying that it would only order 5,000 all-electric models of its next-gen postal truck, today the USPS announced that it’s doubling that figure to just over 10,000.
Produced by Oshkosh Defense, the NGDV (Next Generation Delivery Vehicle) is slated to become the new workhorse of the USPS, with the first batch of trucks scheduled to hit the road sometime in 2023. And as part of the USPS’ efforts to upgrade its aging fleet, the service placed an initial order of 50,000 vehicles featuring a mix of gas and electric-powered trucks.
However, after learning that only 10 percent of those trucks would be EVs, the EPA and the Biden Administration requested the USPS to reconsider the distribution of its order. So now the USPS has increased the number of new electric postal trucks on order to 10,019 BEVs, which is a significant improvement, but still in the minority compared to gas-powered models.
Postmaster Lous Dejoy says “Today’s order demonstrates, as we have said all along, that the Postal Service is fully committed to the inclusion of electric vehicles as a significant part of our delivery fleet even though the investment will cost more than an internal combustion engine vehicle. That said, as we have also stated repeatedly, we must make fiscally prudent decisions in the needed introduction of a new vehicle fleet. We will continue to look for opportunities to increase the electrification of our delivery fleet in a responsible manner, consistent with our operating strategy, the deployment of appropriate infrastructure, and our financial condition, which we expect to continue to improve as we pursue our plan.”
Upgrades on the NGDV include air conditioning, built-in 360-degree cameras, better braking and traction control, and much improved safety thanks to things like air bags and a new collision avoidance system. That said, with the USPS having over 190,000 trucks currently in service, this initial 50,000 order only represents a fraction of what the service will need to fully modernize its fleet. So while the mix of gas and electric NGDVs might not be ideal right now, there should be room to expand electrification in the future.
As you collaborate on your Google Sheets while using Google Meet, do you ever feel like gaming on your Chromebook is a little lackluster? It seems like the Chrome OS team would agree with you. As such, the current Chrome OS Alpha now includes Steam.
Chrome OS being a Linux-based operating system, it was only a matter of time before native
Source: Hot Hardware – Steam Gaming Is Now Available To Test On These Chromebooks
Atari is celebrating its 50th anniversary with some smoking new kicks. The venerated gaming company announced on Thursday that it is collaborating with sustainable footwear maker, Cariuma. The collection will feature five designs atop two of Cariuma’s most popular sneaker styles, the Chuck Taylor-esque OCA Low and the Vans-adjacent Catiba Pro.
The Catiba Pros retail for $98 and will come in black and white variants while the $89 OCA Lows will include a red color scheme in addition to the black and white. Though both prominently feature the Atari logo, the two styles will be discernible from a distance given the Lows sport the words “Game On” opposed to the Pro’s depiction of a pixelated Cariuma logo. The sneakers are constructed from eco-friendly materials including GOTS-certified organic cotton canvas, natural rubber and recycled plastics. What’s more, for every pair purchased, Atari and Cariuma will plant two trees in the Amazon rainforest.
This isn’t the first time that the worlds of fashion and gaming have collided, Playstation has released branded footwear through Nike and Adidas has previously paired with Xbox — there was even an Atari speaker hat released not too long ago. The Atari x Cariuma collection is available online at Cariuma.com
Source: Engadget – Atari collaborates with Cariuma to create a 50th anniversary sneaker collection
Gigabyte today announced the BRIX Extreme, calling it the “most powerful mini PC in the world.” That’s probably dialing up the marketing hype a notch above where it should be, but bold claim aside, these new BRIX Extreme systems look both attractive (from the renders we’ve seen) and capable (from the spec sheet and list of features).
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Source: Hot Hardware – Gigabyte BRIX Extreme Mini PC Packs A Punch With Up To A 12-Core Intel Alder Lake CPU
Enlarge / Players selling tools like this can be hard to discourage with anything short of technical protections or legal action.
SAN FRANCISCO—If you’re a developer of an online game, you’re probably used to treating cheaters like vermin that need to be exterminated in order to maintain the health of your game. But Clint Sereday and Nemanja Mulasmajic—Riot Games alumni and co-founders of anti-tamper company Byfron Technologies—argued in a GDC presentation that cheaters aren’t always simply the enemy; they can often be some of a game’s best players, customers, collectors, and content creators.
Attacking cheaters with a zero-tolerance, one-size-fits-all policy can be akin to attacking your game’s community, the pair argued. “Cheating is born out of a love for the game a lot of times,” Sereday said, and in those cases, seeking to reform or dissuade the cheaters can be more effective than trying to ban them.
In their talk, the co-founders broke down the motivations they see driving cheaters in online games. Each one requires a different approach to maintain the integrity of the game without destroying the community’s trust in the process.
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Source: Ars Technica – Stop treating cheaters in online games as “the enemy”
A young man’s persistent hiccups were a sign of a far scarier health problem, according to a recent case report from doctors in India. The man turned out to have an aggressive brain tumor, one that had started to cause pressure on his brain. After he received cancer treatment, though, his hiccups began to subside.
Source: Gizmodo – A Man’s Chronic Hiccups Turned Out to Be a Brain Tumor Symptom
Apple is working on a subscription service for the iPhone and other hardware products, a move that could make device ownership similar to paying a monthly app fee, Bloomberg News reported Thursday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. From the report: The service would be Apple’s biggest push yet into automatically recurring sales, allowing users to subscribe to hardware for the first time — rather than just digital services. But the project is still in development, said the people, who asked not to identified because the initiative hasn’t been announced, Bloomberg News reports.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Apple Is Working on a Hardware Subscription Service for iPhones
