FromSoftware has confirmed the rumors that had been circulating since earlier this year that Elden Ring is getting a big DLC. In an announcement posted on the game’s Twitter account, the Japanese developer said that an upcoming expansion entitled Shadow of the Erdtree is currently in development. It also shared a key artwork for the expansion, but it has yet to reveal details on what it’s going to be about and when it’s going to be released. 

On its company account, FromSoftware also wrote in Japanese that it might take a bit of time for the company to announce further news about Shadow of the Erdtree. It remains to be seen how big the expansion is going to be, and if it’s going to add a substantial amount of gameplay to the already vast world of Elden Ring. 

FromSoftware’s announcement comes shortly after Elden Ring’s first release anniversary on February 25th. Bandai Namco, the game’s publisher, expected to sell 4 million copies in five weeks. Instead, it sold 12 million units of the Souls-type game within a span of 18 days. Elden Ring has won several awards since then, as well. The developer has only released one DLC for it so far, though, and fans are eagerly awaiting a major update like this. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/elden-ring-expansion-shadow-of-the-erdtree-112516898.html?src=rss

Source: Engadget – Elden Ring’s first expansion is called ‘Shadow of the Erdtree’

OnePlus is having quite an eventful Mobile World Congress. In addition to revealing its latest experimental phone that it envisions to have liquid cooling capabilities, the company has also announced that it will be launching its first foldable smartphone in the second half of 2023. With this revelation, OnePlus has confirmed previous rumors that it’s working on a foldable device similar to Samsung’s offerings. The company teased a mysterious Q3 2023 launch with what seemed to be silhouettes of devices that fold in the background at the OnePlus 11 event earlier this month, but it fell short of saying what exactly it would be releasing. 

Despite its confirmation, OnePlus remains tight-lipped on what a foldable device from the company would entail. XDA Developers reported in January that it found two trademark listings with the China National Intellectual Property Administration for a OnePlus V Fold and a OnePlus V Flip. In today’s announcement, OnePlus only talks about one smartphone, so it’s unclear if it’s actually developing two at the moment. All Kinder Liu, President and COO of OnePlus, had to say at the event was:

“Our first foldable phone will have the signature OnePlus fast and smooth experience. It must be a flagship phone that doesn’t settle because of its folding form, in terms of industrial design, mechanical technology, and other aspects. We want to launch a device that aims to be at the pinnacle experience of today’s foldable market.”

The company promised to release more details about its foldable device in the coming months. Aside from that, it also shared its plans to build a more cohesive ecosystem within the next three to five years. It said the ecosystem will enable OnePlus to provide seamless connection across its phones, tablets, wearables and internet-of-things devices. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/oneplus-will-launch-its-first-foldable-smartphone-later-this-year-110040331.html?src=rss

Source: Engadget – OnePlus will launch its first foldable smartphone later this year

Polar isn’t as big a name in fitness watches as competitors like Garmin, but it believes it has a way to extend its footprint: license its technology to those rivals. The company is now making 25 fitness algorithms available to some companies. “Powered by Polar” watches can use the brand’s activity, health and sleep tracking know-how in combination with their own hardware and services. Third parties won’t have to pour years of research into their products just to get started, Polar claims.

The first watch to use Polar’s framework is Casio’s new G-Shock G-Squad GBD-H2000. There aren’t many official details at tis stage, but the sequel to the GBD-H1000 is expected to feature a similarly chunky design while adding Polar’s fitness science and a gyroscope. It should still include solar-assisted charging, GPS and a host of sensors that include an altimeter, barometer, compass and thermometer.

Polar isn’t a complete stranger to offering fitness tech to business customers, such as online tracking tools. It has solutions for coaches, fitness classes, schools and teams. However, this is the first time it’s providing tech directly to the competition. In theory, this brings advanced fitness tracking to a wider range of devices, and might let watchmakers consider fitness products that simply weren’t options before now.

To some extent, though, this is an acknowledgment that Polar’s in-house watches aren’t the strongest sellers. The firm describes itself as a “top 10 player” in wearables, but that still leaves it trailing the heavyweights. Garmin was the only fitness-first watch brand whose shipments cracked the top five in the second quarter of 2022, according to Canalys estimates, and it had 5.5 percent of the market. Algorithm licensing could help Polar boost its profits and influence regardless of how its device sales fare.

Source: Engadget – Polar is bringing its fitness tracking tech to rival watches

LastPass has posted an update on its investigation regarding a couple of security incidents that took place last year, and they’re sounding graver than previously thought. Apparently, the bad actors involved in those incidents also infiltrated a company DevOps engineer’s home computer by exploiting a third-party media software package. They implanted a keylogger into the software, which they then used to capture the engineer’s master password for an account with access to the LastPass corporate vault. After they got in, they exported the vault’s entries and shared folders that contained decryption keys needed to unlock cloud-based Amazon S3 buckets with customer vault backups.

This latest update in LastPass’ investigation gives us a clearer picture of how the two security breach incidents it went through last year were connected. If you’ll recall, LastPass revealed in August 2022 that an “unauthorized party” gained entry into its system. While the first incident ended on August 12th, the company said in its new announcement that the threat actors were “actively engaged in a new series of reconnaissance, enumeration, and exfiltration activities aligned to the cloud storage environment spanning from August 12th, 2022 to October 26th, 2022.”

When the company announced the second security breach in December, it said the bad actors used information obtained from the first incident to get into its cloud service. It also admitted that the hackers made off with a bunch of sensitive information, including its Amazon S3 buckets. To be able to access the data saved in those buckets, the hackers needed decryption keys saved in “highly restricted set of shared folders in a LastPass password manager vault.” That’s why the bad actors targeted one of the four DevOps engineers who had access to the keys needed to unlock the company’s cloud storage. 

In a support document (PDF) the company released (via BleepingComputer), it detailed the data accessed by the threat actors during the two incidents. Apparently, the cloud-based backups accessed during the second breach included “API secrets, third-party integration secrets, customer metadata and backups of all customer vault data.” The company insisted that all sensitive customer vault data aside from some exceptions “can only be decrypted with a unique encryption key derived from each user’s master password.” The company added that it doesn’t store users’ master passwords. LastPass also detailed the steps it has taken to strengthen its defenses going forward, including revising its threat detection and making “a multi-million-dollar allocation to enhance [its] investment in security across people, processes, and technology.”

Source: Engadget – LastPass says hackers broke into an employee PC to steal the company’s password vault

Back in late October, we saw Xiaomi releasing its 210W mobile charging tech by way of its Redmi sub-brand, and this was eventually beaten by a 240W version from Realme — part of the Oppo and OnePlus family — in early February. Given that it’s MWC week, today Xiaomi swiftly responded with a whopping 300W demo, which brought the charging time down to a little under five minutes — almost half that of the two aforementioned achievements. Xiaomi added that this new 300W charger comes in the same size as its earlier 210W counterpart, thanks to a better modular design plus heat dissipation on the inside.

The 300W demo featured a Redmi Note 12 Pro+ modified with a 4,100mAh battery, which is a little smaller than the 4,300mAh in the 210W Redmi Note 12 Discovery Edition (and the Realme has a far more generous 4,600mAh). As you can see in the video, the phone reached 20 percent in just a little over one minute, followed by the 50 percent mark in 2 minutes 12 seconds, and then 100 percent in just a little under 5 minutes. The power meter indicated a peak input of a little over 290W for the charger, and it also managed to sustain 280W and above for around two minutes at one point.

The company said the battery here pack more powerful 15C cells (as opposed to the 10C cells in the Discovery Edition), which consist of new carbon materials in place of some of the conventional graphite parts, thus reducing the electrodes’ thickness by 35 percent. Together with an improved electrolyte formula, this lithium ion battery can pack a higher power density with a faster charge and discharge rate, while apparently reducing the amount of heat produced in the process. These ultra-thin cells are then stacked with thermal materials in between as part of a new “sandwich” design, in order to optimize heat dissipation while making better use of internal space. As far as safety is concerned, Xiaomi claimed that there are over 50 features built into the system to keep tabs on the current, voltage and temperature on each charging chip.

Xiaomi’s announcement today has definitely set another milestone for the mobile industry, though the company didn’t mention whether this 300W charging tech will be mass produced. Nor did Xiaomi share figures on charging cycles, which makes for a sober reminder of how battery lifespan can be affected by higher charging power.

Source: Engadget – Xiaomi’s 300W demo fully charges a phone in five minutes