Ecumene Azted is a newly announced survival action RPG where you play as an indigenous warrior in 16th century Mesoamerica trying to fight off Spanish conquistador invaders. The first trailer looks rough in places but is already drawing attention for showing off a game that’s trying something a little different.
After a decade-long wait, the next chapter in Diablo is finally upon us. With it come dozens of dungeons and a sizable open world filled with legions of demons to slaughter. Millions will no doubt answer the call and take up arms, but Blizzard has now issued a special challenge for those willing to brave the game’s…
Garmin has just announced a pair of new smartwatches intended for explorers and extreme fitness enthusiasts. However, these are high-end gadgets with high-end specs and, accordingly, high-end price tags.
First up, the Epix Pro series. The main draw of these watches is that they ship with a bright and crisp AMOLED display, a design choice Garmin has begun to fully embrace, providing a vivid picture without drawing too much battery life. There’s also a built-in flashlight with multiple intensities and a strobe mode, a red-only visual display option for darker conditions and plenty of advanced fitness features.
To that end, the Epix Pro series includes “dozens” of new, preloaded activities like soccer, basketball, horseback riding, racquet sports and plenty more. The fitness trackers now offer endurance scores and hill scores for advanced metrics. Runners and walkers will also receive notifications regarding points of interest along the route. There are new weather map overlays to view local environmental conditions and upgraded shading for making it easier to understand elevations within topographic maps. The Epix Pro line is available now and launches in three sizes (42mm, 47mm and 51mm.) Prices start at $900.
The Fenix 7 Pro series is for serious explorers, with solar charging, a powerful LED flashlight, mapping upgrades and a red safety light, all of which are intended to provide greater awareness when training in the dark, like a ninja. The heart rate sensor also got a significant boost, with new optical sensors and sport-specific algorithms that track your pulse rate across a diverse array of activities. There's no ECG app, however, so you'll have to look elsewhere if that's a primary concern.
The new endurance score feature measures how easy it is to engage in prolonged physical activities, combining V02 sensors, hill scores and previous training data. Just like the Epix Pro, the Fenix 7 boasts an updated mapping system with weather overlays, points of interest and improvements to topographic maps. There’s also new preloaded activities like whitewater rafting and motocross. The Fenix 7 Pro is available in multiple sizes and designs, starting at $800.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/sTmrJOQUber launched its Uber One subscription service in 2021 with the promise of various perks like free deliveries, but the main benefit was a five percent discount on eligible rides. Now, the company is eliminating that in favor of six percent cashback (in the form of Uber Cash) to be used toward rides, Uber Eats and more, TechCrunch has reported. This despite the fact that Uber One doubled its subscriber base to 12 million last year with the discount marketed prominently on the app.
"As Uber One is the best way to save across Uber and Uber Eats, we're making it even easier to use your benefits on Uber's full suite of products," Uber's consumer communications lead Becky Katz Davis told TechCrunch. In a letter to subscribers, the company suggested that consumers use their Uber Cash on fancier vehicles or Uber Eats orders.
The move appears to be a way to help Uber boost its ride count and margins. Uber One subscribers now make up 27 percent of total booking, and over 50 percent in some markets, the company said recently. In addition, the service is "profitable," Khosrowshahi said in an earnings call earlier this year. "And what we find is it’s a very, very effective way, essentially, to draw frequency and higher engagement with our customer base."
Uber One arrived effectively as a replacement for Uber Rewards, the company's airline-like rewards program that was dropped last summer. The shift from discounts to Uber Cash could be a risky play, though. Uber brags on its Uber One landing page that members "save on average $27 per month with Uber One." Now, though, riders will need to do some calculations to see if the new system is worth the $10 per month or $100 annual subscription price.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/VcuNflYThe Romanian Competition Council (RCC) has opened an antitrust investigation against Sony for restricting sale of digital PlayStation games to its PS Store. This isn’t the first time Sony is being investigated for its “walled garden.” The company previously faced lawsuits against the practice, one of which was dismissed in the United States just last year.
As spotted by ResetEra user Idas, RCC claims that Sony may have violated Romania’s competition laws by forcing players to purchase digital games via the PS Store. The authority further believes that Sony “may have abused its dominant position” in the console market by prohibiting sale of game codes via competing distributors.
RCC says that Sony has reduced purchasing options for players, allowing it to charge high prices for games.
Walled gardens have been a point of contention in the tech space. When it comes to video games, however, Sony is the only console manufacturer that doesn’t allow sale of digital game codes via third parties.
In its press release announcing the investigation, RCC revealed that it carried out “inspections” at Sony’s offices in Europe to gather more information and relevant evidence. RCC didn’t say how long its investigation will take.
The post PlayStation Under Investigation for Alleged Anti-Competitive Practices in Romania appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.
Some Shrines in Tears of the Kingdom have obvious solution. Others, well, if you’ve come across the Mayachin Shrine, which contains a giant target and a big ball that perpetually rolls down a slope, well you might still be standing there unsure what to do.
Street Fighter 6 was made for someone like me. I’ve been a casual fan of the Street Fighter series since I was a kid playing the Street Fighter 2 arcade machine in my local store. I still listen to the Street Fighter 3 soundtracks from time to time, own multiple versions of Street Fighter 4, and currently play Street Fighter: Duel on my phone. So it was unfortunate that Street Fighter 5 was a mess at launch; the online experience was rough, and it didn’t even have a practice mode at the time. This turned off a lot of players (including me) right from the start, so though Capcom fixed some of the game’s problems over time, it still had trouble keeping pace with the popularity of Street Fighter 4.
In response, Capcom has put everything into Street Fighter 6, and the effort shows. The flashy graphics and funky-fresh presentation are fantastic, and the game has had multiple betas and events to test servers and get user feedback. Most of all, SF6 leans heavily on approachability, with numerous ways for new players and casual fans to enter the game, choose the controls they want to use, and learn how to play their favorite characters properly. At the same time, the Drive Gauge system has enough complexity for expert, tournament-level players to appreciate. On top of that, World Tour mode is effectively a “Street Fighter RPG” that is a full-on Yakuza-style game that can last well over 40 hours. All told, Street Fighter 6 is truly special and is, hands-down, the best fighting game I’ve ever played.
Approachability in Street Fighter games has always been a rather touchy subject. Fighting games are primarily based on skill, particularly in the context of ranked PvP matches either online or in-person at various esports tournaments, such as EVO and Capcom Pro Tour. So, making a Street Fighter game more approachable is seen by some players as shorthand for oversimplifying the gameplay and controls. On the other hand, not every fan of the series is someone who aspires to be the next great EVO champion, and providing more reasons for more people to pay for a game in a genre that can be intimidating to approach and learn is never a bad idea. Fortunately, Street Fighter 6 shows that it’s possible to be both approachable and competitive without having to necessarily trade one for the other.
First off, the game allows players to choose among three different control schemes, with Modern and Classic being allowed for online play. If you’re a Street Fighter veteran, the Classic setting is as it sounds and requires all the circular and charge inputs with the traditional six-button setup. The Modern setting plays similarly to the control scheme of Super Smash Bros., with special moves and Super Arts mainly assigned to a single button and a directional input.
The main benefit of Modern controls is that you don’t have to do tricky circular movements, like the double full-circle input for Zangief’s Bolshoi Storm Buster, and you can throw out charged moves, like Guile’s Sonic Boom, with more ease and consistency. The downside, though, is that the command list in Modern controls can lose a few unique attacks, and you can’t control the strength of some special moves using different strength inputs. Despite this loss of subtlety, both Modern and Classic are viable for competitive play, so it’s up to you which one suits you most.
The third control scheme, called Dynamic, is available in offline modes and allows players to throw out cool moves with the press of a button. On this setting, you can mash buttons and probably scrape through Arcade Mode on normal difficulty. More to the point, it allows your friends who may have little or no experience with fighting games to pull off sick moves without having to do a single quarter-circle. Combined with Extreme Battle, which is a low-key party mode that can have bulls running and bombs detonating across the screen, a group of players can have a blast without having to take the game all that seriously.
Any player who wants to learn more about Street Fighter 6’s combat system can pour through the straightforward explanations provided in the Tutorials section, which breaks down the intricacies of the Drive system in easy-to-follow steps. The Combo Trials help as well in getting you accustomed to trickier juggles, some of which are more useful than others, given that a few of them have very small timing windows. Beyond that, the new Character Guides for each fighter are far more thorough in explaining the fighter’s strengths and playstyle, particularly when it comes to spacing and proper setups. They will show you a list of basic, intermediate, and advanced techniques and allow you to stop the guide to try them out for hands-on experience.
Beyond that, understanding how to use the fighting system’s flexible Drive Gauge will be one of the foundations for top-tier play, be it in tournaments or Diamond Rank matches. If you’re already comfortable with how Focus Attacks (and FADCs) work in Street Fighter 4 and how V-Shifts and V-Reversals work in Street Fighter 5, the Drive Gauge will feel familiar. The gauge has a lot of utility for both offense and defense, but because of this, it’s easy to drain the meter prematurely if you’re too greedy. It’s used as the resource for powered-up special moves called Overdrive attacks, the Drive Reversal that can counter most moves, the Drive Parry that allows you to block almost anything apart from throws, and the Drive Rush that can extend combos out of cancelable moves. The Drive system has a ton of technical subtleties and will require that players practice quite a bit in order to unlock its full potential.
More importantly, the Drive Gauge rewards assertive engagement and forward momentum. Blocking continuously drains the meter, while normal attacks recover it regardless of whether they hit or are blocked. Running out of Drive Gauge puts the fighter into Burnout, a dangerous state where special moves and super arts can deal chip damage, counterattacks come out slower, and an opponent’s Drive Impact can knock you into a stun (and at that point, you can kiss your health bar goodbye). Watching how top-tier players manage the Drive Gauge while they poke opponents in the neutral game and perform multi-hit combos from different positions is well worth learning.
Street Fighter 6’s starting roster has a solid mix of 18 fighters, with a third of them being new fighters. A few of the rookies have ties to past Street Fighter characters, like the cheerful Lily following in the footsteps of T. Hawk, the streetwise ninja Kimberly learning Bushinryu from Guy, and the drunken kung fu master Jamie being a prodigy of Yang and Yun. The French judoka Manon is similar to Abel but incorporates balletic techniques into her moves, while the hulking gladiator Marisa has a lot of hard-hitting special moves and enormous muscles that would make Zangief blush.
Last but not least is the new villain, JP, a towering cane-wielder and an interesting trap character who uses the same Psycho Power energy that M. Bison and Juri have to keep his opponent away from a distance. Of course, many of the classic combatants like Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Blanka, E. Honda, and Dhalsim return more or less how fans expect, with a special nod to Cammy, who has been given a lot of combo potential. That said, there’s a lot of room for the roster to expand in future seasons, and both Arcade and World Tour modes provide hints on who they could be, including Sodom, Fei Long, Elena, and Dan just to name a few.
On that note, Arcade Mode also plays as expected, though this version in SF6 gives you the option to play it in either five or 12 rounds. Each character’s journey through this mode provides a few cutscenes, many of which expand upon the general story of Ken Masters being set up by an incident in Nayshall.
Meanwhile, the Battle Hub offers a venue for online matches with rows of mock arcade machines to set up a round or two. In between bouts, you can watch other matches live or wander over to the classic arcade area to play old-school Street Fighter and Final Fight games. If you want to head straight into a ranked match, you can skip the Battle Hub altogether and queue for a session through Fighting Grounds. I was able to test out the online portions of the game for several days, though the latest open beta is probably a far better measure of how online play will work, given the higher amount of user engagement. At any rate, I found sessions to be rather smooth, and it didn’t take long to hop into a match. Barring any issues with server load, the online experience seems like it will run well at the game’s launch.
I could quite frankly write another full-length review just on World Tour mode given its wealth of content. As I intimated earlier, this adventure is comparable to a full-fledged Yakuza game. It has a story with 15 chapters, plenty of side missions, more than several side jobs, and even post-game quests. Ever since Street Fighter Alpha 3’s World Tour mode, I have dreamt about what the series could do with an open-world RPG set in the game’s universe. And apart from a few quibbles, SF6’s World Tour delivers more than I could have hoped for.
This mode has you create a character from scratch using the surprisingly robust avatar creator and go on a journey around Metro City and the world at large to become a true street fighter. You start off as a student training under the MMA fighter Luke alongside your fellow pupil and rival Bosch, who eventually gets himself into trouble. Along the way, you’ll meet numerous legendary masters, who are effectively all of the characters on the roster, and potentially learn all of their special moves and Super Arts. So, if you’ve ever wondered what a character with Zangief’s Screw Piledriver, Ryu’s Shoryuken, Guile’s Sonic Boom, and Ken’s Shinryu Reppa would be like, this is your chance to build it. (And outside of Avatar Battle, you won’t need to worry about custom characters in online matches.)
The path from a Level 1 rookie to a Level 99 legend is an arduous one, but there’s plenty to explore along the way. Metro City is full of goons like the Mad Gear Gang from Final Fight and pretty much everybody walking down the street is up for a match. As you progress through the story, you’ll eventually unlock the western part of Metro City and earn flight tickets to other parts of the world.
If that wasn’t enough, there’s a whole additional open-world area like Metro City that you’ll unlock as well. Various stores sell a wide variety of clothes that will boost stats and provide perks, while skill points you earn at every level can be used to improve stats further and add slots for more special moves. Thankfully, the skill tree also unlocks the ability to create a gear appearance, so that you can customize how you look without needing to worry about equipment stats.
Over the 65 hours it’s taken me to complete the story and fully learn every master’s style, I was surprisingly never bored. I reached distant platforms using Chun-Li’s Spinning Bird Kick. I defeated waves of Mad Gear flunkies on the Metro City subway trains. I nearly had my teeth kicked in by a gang of masked marauders until I summoned Guile to rescue me. I spent hours smashing vehicles into bits in Scrap Heap and parrying basketballs in Ball Block Blitz. I bought cool gifts for my masters, like video games for Luke and ultra mild instant curry for Dhalsim. I learned more about each fighter’s backstory and how they fit into the Street Fighter world. And I took pictures of cats because Cammy told me to.
However, World Tour is too easy. Not only will you earn miles that can be used as continues if you fall, but you can carry heaps of items for buffs and recovery during a battle. You can also do a lot of damage before a battle begins just by attacking an NPC with a piledriver. This low difficulty setting was probably intentional to some degree, because the mode is partially framed as one very long tutorial with multiple lessons on how the fighting system works. But a more challenging option for veteran players, perhaps by limiting items in a match and increasing the overall CPU difficulty, would make combat in this mode less of a cakewalk. At the end of day, World Tour is an incredible start for a Street Fighter RPG, but compared to other open-world games, it still has room to grow in terms of the story and visuals.
Street Fighter 6 simply lives up to the hype. From its smooth graphics and fresh presentation to its approachable controls and intricate fighting system, pretty much everything is on point. Not only is the Battle Hub a fantastic multiplayer venue for online play, but World Tour is a revelation. It’s clear Capcom has learned many lessons from Street Fighter 5 and has poured everything it could into this sequel. And in today’s age of modern, live-service gaming, it’s rare to see a game like this come out of the gate swinging with tons of content. In what marks a triumphant comeback for the series, Street Fighter 6 sets a new standard for all future fighting games to come.
Disclaimer: This Street Fighter 6 review is based on a PS5 copy provided by the publisher. Reviewed on Ver 1.000.000.
The post Street Fighter 6 Review (PS5): Shin Shoryuken appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.
According to the latest audit from NASA's inspector general, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket designed to take astronauts to the Moon is substantially over budget and far behind schedule. NASA's spending on the Artemis Moon Program is expected to reach $93 billion by 2025, including the $23.8 billion already spent on the SLS system through 2022. That sum represents "$6 billion in cost increases and over six years in schedule delays above NASA’s original projections," says the report.
One of the issues has been integrating older NASA technology with newer systems. "These increases are caused by interrelated issues such as assumptions that the use of heritage technologies… were expected to result in significant cost and schedule savings compared to developing new systems for the SLS," the audit states. "However, the complexity of developing, updating and integrating new systems along with heritage components proved to be much greater than anticipated."
The Artemis Moon mission project was based on the Constellation program, launched in 2005 with the goal of returning to the Moon by 2020. Following its cancellation, the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 mandated construction of the SLS and required the repurposing of existing technology, contracts and workforce from Constellation.
– Mat Smith
The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.
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NVIDIA’s Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) technology could allow gamers to speak naturally to non-playable characters (NPCs). The company revealed the tech during its generative AI keynote at Computex 2023, showing a demo called Kairos. The dialogue is rather wooden, but feeding voice-based interactions could be an interesting new dynamic in games. It uses NVIDIA NeMo tech for building, customizing and deploying large language models customized with lore and character backstories while using guardrails to protect against inappropriate conversations. It also deploys a speech recognition and speech-to-text tool called Riva, along with NVIDIA's Omniverse Audio2Face "for instantly creating expressive facial animation of a game character to match any speech track." Check out how it looks below.
The Canadian government revealed Tesla will open access to some of its existing Supercharger network to other brands' EVs. This will start later this year with a pilot route between Ottawa, the capital, and Sudbury. There will be 750 opened stations by the end of 2025, and "at least" 350 of those will be speedy 250kW Superchargers. That performance is important, given the focus on long-distance travel. The government is teaming up with partners to help install nearly 3,000 EV chargers in multi-use residential buildings, offices, public places and fleets. The majority of the chargers will be Level 2 with around 100 faster Level 3 outlets.
WhatsApp's newest update takes a page out of work-centric video call platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams. The messaging app is adding a screen-sharing feature that will record and display the contents of your screen with whoever is on the other end of the video call, according to WABetaInfo. Screen sharing is only available to select Android beta testers right now but should roll out to more users in the coming weeks. However, it might not work on older Android models, bigger group calls or with people who don't have WhatsApp's latest version.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/eZhVu4yNASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket designed to take astronauts to the moon is over budget and far behind it's original schedule, according to a scathing new audit from NASA's Inspector General. Furthermore, the report foresees "additional cost and schedule increases" that could potentially jeopardize the entire Artemis mission if problems aren't handled.
NASA's spending on the Artemis Moon Program is expected to reach $93 billion by 2025, including $23.8 billion already spent on the SLS system through 2022. That sum represents "$6 billion in cost increases and over six years in schedule delays above NASA’s original projections," the report states.
The SLS, which finally launched for the first time in November 2022, uses four RS-25 engines per launch, including 16 salvaged from retired Space Shuttles. Once those run out (all engines on SLS are expendable), NASA will switch to RS-25E engines being built by Aerojet Rocketdyne, which are supposed to be 30 percent cheaper and 11 percent more powerful. It also uses solid rocket boosters provided by Northrop Grumman.
The older technology isn't helping with the budget as NASA expected, though. "These increases are caused by interrelated issues such as assumptions that the use of heritage technologies from the Space Shuttle and Constellation Programs were expected to result in significant cost and schedule savings compared to developing new systems for the SLS," the audit states. "However, the complexity of developing, updating, and integrating new systems along with heritage components proved to be much greater than anticipated."
For instance, only 5 of the 16 engine adaptations have been completed, and scope and cost increases have hit the booster contract as well. The latter has been the biggest issue, increasing from $2.5 billion to $4.4 billion since Artemis was announced, and delaying the schedule by five years.
The Inspector General also blames the use of "cost-plus" contracts that allow suppliers to inflate budgets more easily, instead of fixed-priced contracts. The report recommends that upcoming work be shifted to a fixed-price regime and that procurement issues be resolved, among others. NASA management has agreed to all eight recommendations.
The Artemis moon mission project was based on the Constellation program, originally launched in 2005 with the goal of returning to the moon by 2020 and eventually, Mars. Cancellation of that project by the Obama administration was met with widespread criticism, largely because the program guaranteed jobs around the US.
However, the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, introduced the same year, mandated construction of the SLS and requiring the repurposing of existing technology, contracts and workforce from Constellation. It also required partnerships with private space companies. SpaceX, for one, is developing its own Starship rocket system, also capable of carrying astronauts to the Moon and Mars. However, Starship exploded on its first orbital launch mission, and may not fly again soon due to issues with the self-destruct command and the considerable damage it did to local ecosystems.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/piekclwNVIDIA CEO Jensen Hiang made a string of announcements during his Computex keynote, including details about the company’s next DGX supercomputer. Given where the industry is clearlyheading, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the DGX GH200 is largely about helping companies develop generative AI models.
The supercomputer uses a new NVLink Switch System to enable 256 GH200 Grace Hopper superchips to act as a single GPU (each of the chips has an Arm-based Grace CPU and an H100 Tensor Core GPU). This, according to NVIDIA, allows the DGX GH200 to deliver 1 exaflop of performance and to have 144 terabytes of shared memory. The company says that's nearly 500 times as much memory as you'd find in a single DGX A100 system.
For comparison, the latest ranking of the Top500 supercomputers lists Frontier at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee as the only known exascale system, having reached a performance of nearly 1.2 exaflops on the Linmark benchmark. That's over twice the peak performance of the second-placed system, Japan's Fugaku.
In effect, NVIDIA claims to have developed a supercomputer that can stand alongside the most powerful known system on the planet (Meta is building one that it claims will be the fastest AI supercomputer in the world once it’s fully built out). NVIDIA says the architecture of the DGX GH200 offers 10 times more bandwidth than the previous generation, "delivering the power of a massive AI supercomputer with the simplicity of programming a single GPU."
Some big names are interested in the DGX GH200. Google Cloud, Meta and Microsoft should be among the first companies to gain access to the supercomputer to test how it can handle generative AI workloads. NVIDIA says DGX GH200 supercomputers should be available by the end of 2023.
The company is also building its own supercomputer, Helios, that combines four DGX GH200 systems. NVIDIA expects Helios to be online by the end of the year.
Huang discussed other generative AI developments during his keynote, including one on the gaming front. NVIDIA Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) for Games is a service developers will be able to tap into in order to create custom AI models for speech, conversation and animation. NVIDIA says ACE for Games can "give non-playable characters conversational skills so they can respond to questions with lifelike personalities that evolve."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/g7X6P8eJapan and JAXA, the country’s space administration, have spent decades trying to make it possible to beam solar energy from space. In 2015, the nation made a breakthrough when JAXA scientists successfully beamed 1.8 kilowatts of power, enough energy to power an electric kettle, more than 50 meters to a wireless receiver. Now, Japan is poised to bring the technology one step closer to reality.
Nikkei reports a Japanese public-private partnership will attempt to beam solar energy from space as early as 2025. The project, led by Naoki Shinohara, a Kyoto University professor who has been working on space-based solar energy since 2009, will attempt to deploy a series of small satellites in orbit. Those will then try to beam the solar energy the arrays collect to ground-based receiving stations hundreds of miles away.
Using orbital solar panels and microwaves to send energy to Earth was first proposed in 1968. Since then, a few countries, including China and the US, have spent time and money pursuing the idea. The technology is appealing because orbital solar arrays represent a potentially unlimited renewable energy supply. In space, solar panels can collect energy no matter the time of day, and by using microwaves to beam the power they produce, clouds aren’t a concern either. However, even if Japan successfully deploys a set of orbital solar arrays, the tech would still be closer to science fiction than fact. That’s because producing an array that can generate 1 gigawatt of power – or about the output of one nuclear reactor – would cost about $7 billion with currently available technologies.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/u5p9bZDPortugal could become the latest country to effectively ban Huawei and other Chinese firms from participating in its 5G buildouts. As reported by Bloomberg, the government of Portugal this week recommended barring local carriers from sourcing 5G equipment from suppliers based outside of the European Union or from countries that aren’t part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED).
In a statement Portugal’s Higher Council for Cybersecurity shared on Thursday, the government said firms outside those jurisdictions pose a “high risk” to the security of the country’s wireless networks. The document didn’t call out Huawei specifically, but as China isn’t a member of NATO, the OCED or the EU, the company, alongside other Chinese suppliers like ZTE, would effectively be excluded from participating in Portugal’s 5G networks should the country’s cabinet approve the security council’s recommendation.
“Huawei has no prior knowledge of, and hasn’t been consulted about, this matter,” a Huawei spokesperson told the Financial Times. “Over the past two decades, Huawei has worked with Portuguese carriers to build out wireless networks and provide quality services that connect millions of people. We will continue to comply with all applicable laws and regulations, and serve Portuguese customers and partners who rely on our products and services.”
Banning Chinese companies from participating in its 5G networks would be an abrupt turnaround for Portugal, which has enjoyed close relations with the East Asian superpower for years. As the Financial Times notes, Portugal has been one of the biggest per capita recipients of Chinese investment in recent years. Altice Portugal, the country’s largest wireless carrier, signed a deal in 2018 to use Huawei equipment for part of its 5G rollout. If Portugal moves forward with a ban, it would join Canada and a handful of other European countries, including Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, that have recently barred the company from participating in their 5G networks.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/xNFAPbW
Valve removed the Steam listing for Dolphin, a popular emulator for the GameCube and Wii, after it received a cease and desist from Nintendo, developers behind the project claim. The company behind Mario and Zelda accuses the emulator of illegally circumventing its protections, and says it’s merely protecting the…
With the hype around AI reaching a fever pitch in recent months, many people fear programs like ChatGPT will one day put them out of a job. For one New York lawyer, that nightmare could become a reality sooner than expected, but not for the reasons you might think. As reported by The New York Times, attorney Steven Schwartz of the law firm Levidow, Levidow and Oberman recently turned to OpenAI’s chatbot for assistance with writing a legal brief, with predictably disastrous results.
A lawyer used ChatGPT to do "legal research" and cited a number of nonexistent cases in a filing, and is now in a lot of trouble with the judge 🤣 pic.twitter.com/AJSE7Ts7W7
— Daniel Feldman (@d_feldman) May 27, 2023
Schwartz’s firm has been suing the Columbian airline Avianca on behalf of Roberto Mata, who claims he was injured on a flight to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. When the airline recently asked a federal judge to dismiss the case, Mata’s lawyers filed a 10-page brief arguing why the suit should proceed. The document cited more than half a dozen court decisions, including “Varghese v. China Southern Airlines,” “Martinez v. Delta Airlines” and “Miller v. United Airlines.” Unfortunately for everyone involved, no one who read the brief could find any of the court decisions cited by Mata’s lawyers. Why? Because ChatGPT fabricated all of them. Oops.
In an affidavit filed on Thursday, Schwartz said he had used the chatbot to “supplement” his research for the case. Schwartz wrote he was "unaware of the possibility that [ChatGPT’s] content could be false.” He even shared screenshots showing that he had asked ChatGPT if the cases it cited were real. The program responded they were, claiming the decisions could be found in “reputable legal databases,” including Westlaw and LexisNexis.
Schwartz said he “greatly regrets” using ChatGPT “and will never do so in the future without absolute verification of its authenticity.” Whether he has another chance to write a legal brief is up in the air. The judge overseeing the case has ordered a June 8th hearing to discuss potential sanctions for the “unprecedented circumstance” created by Schwartz’s actions.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/IvPQho3Meta’s Quest 3 VR headset won’t arrive until later this year. However, now we have a better idea of what to expect from the device courtesy of Bloomberg’sMark Gurman, who says he went hands-on with a prototype to better understand how Quest 3 will stack up against Apple’s forthcoming mixed-reality headset. Gurman reports the prototype, codenamed Eureka, “feels far lighter and thinner” than its predecessor. He says the head strap “seems a bit stronger,” too, and uses fabric on the sides instead of plastic like the Quest 2.
More consequentially, the front of the device reportedly features a new design incorporating an enhanced sensor suite. Three “vertical pill-shaped sensor areas” house two color video pass-through cameras, two standard cameras and a depth sensor. As Gurman notes, that’s a significant upgrade from the Quest 2, which doesn’t come with color pass-through or a depth sensor. The presence of the former means you won’t need to designate the walls in your play space.
The front lower sides of the headset feature tracking cameras, while the bottom has a volume rocker and a wheel to adjust interpupillary distance. That means you can tweak the Quest 3’s IPD without taking the headset off, something you can’t do with the Quest 2.
“The actual clarity and VR displays within the Quest 3 feel similar to those in the Quest 2 — despite the resolution being rumored to be slightly higher,” Gurman writes, while noting pass-through for mixed reality applications and overall performance is significantly improved over the Quest 2. Speaking to the former, he says there’s a “night-and-day improvement” thanks to the added dual RGB cameras. “I was even able to use my phone while wearing the headset, something that often feels impossible on a Quest 2,” he adds. As for performance, Quest 3 reportedly features Qualcomm’s next-generation Snapdragon XR2 chipset, leading to shorter app launch times and more consistent frame rates in games.
Notably, Gurman says the Quest 3 doesn’t include face and eye tracking, which means the headset won’t support foveated rendering. That’s a feature you can find on the Quest Pro. It allows the system to prioritize its limited computing resources on areas where you’re looking. Another feature the Quest 3 won’t carry over from the Quest Pro is controller-mounted cameras, though Gurman says Meta is trying to improve peripheral tracking in other ways.
“Meta hasn’t yet settled on pricing for the device, but people involved in its development believe it may come in higher than the Quest 2’s $400,” Gurman notes, adding the company could keep the Quest 2 around “at a lower price.” He adds Meta doesn’t plan to release a new Quest Pro “anytime soon since the first version bombed.” The company reportedly plans to announce the Quest 3 sometime in October, which aligns with what company executives have said in the past when asked when consumers can expect a new Quest headset.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/ko645tYA US federal court this week gave final approval to the $50 million class-action settlement Apple came to last July resolving claims the company knew about and concealed the unreliable nature of keyboards on MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro computers released between 2015 and 2019. Per Reuters (via 9to5Mac), Judge Edward Davila on Thursday called the settlement involving Apple’s infamous “butterfly” keyboards “fair, adequate and reasonable.” Under the agreement, MacBook users impacted by the saga will receive settlements between $50 and $395. More than 86,000 claims for class member payments were made before the application deadline last March, Judge Davila wrote in his ruling.
Apple debuted the butterfly keyboard in 2015 with the 12-inch MacBook. At the time, former design chief Jony Ive boasted that the mechanism would allow the company to build ever-slimmer laptops without compromising on stability or typing feel. As Apple re-engineered more of its computers to incorporate the butterfly keyboard, Mac users found the design was susceptible to dust and other debris. The company introduced multiple revisions to make the mechanism more resilient before eventually returning to a more conventional keyboard design with the 16-inch MacBook Pro in late 2019.
Apple won’t have to admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement agreement. Before this week, some members of the class action lawsuit attempted to challenge the deal on the grounds that a proposed $125 payout for one group in the class was not enough, an appeal Judge Davila rejected. “The possibility that a better settlement may have been reached — or that the benefits provided under the settlement will not make class members 'whole' — are insufficient grounds to deny approval,” Davila wrote in his ruling. The judge also rejected a request for compensation from MacBook owners who experienced keyboard failures but did not get their computers serviced by Apple. There’s no word when claimants can expect their payment to be sent out, but the lawyers involved in the case said they “look forward to getting the money out to our clients.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/mWgdUX5Apple plans to shut down its My Photo Stream service on July 26th, 2023, the company announced on Friday. The free service has been available since the release of iCloud in 2011. You can use My Photo Stream to upload the last 30 days of images and videos – up to a limit of 1,000 – from your Apple devices to iCloud. My Photo Stream predates iCloud Photos and gave Apple users a way to access their images and video clips on more than one device. Notably, content uploaded to iCloud through My Photo Stream do not count against your iCloud storage cap, though they’re not saved at full resolution.
In a support document spotted by MacRumors, Apple says My Photo Stream will stop automatically uploading photos to the company’s servers on June 26th, 2023. At that point, your photos and videos will remain on iCloud for 30 days until the official shutdown on July 26th. Since every image and video uploaded to iCloud through My Photo Stream is stored in its original format and resolution on at least one of your Apple devices, you won’t lose any cherished memories as part of the shutdown process. That said, if you want to have access to a specific image on a particular device, Apple recommends you save it to that device’s Photo Library before July 26th.
On iPhone and iPad, you can save an image from your My Photo Stream by opening the Photos app, navigating to the My Photo Stream album, selecting the photo you want to save and then tapping the Share button to save it to your Library. Apple ends the support document by noting, “iCloud Photos is the best way to keep the photos and videos you take up to date across all your devices and safely stored in iCloud.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/hkNiLyRTwitter has withdrawn from a voluntary European Union agreement to combat online disinformation. In a tweet spotted by TechCrunch, Thierry Breton, the bloc’s internal market commissioner, said Twitter had pulled out of the EU’s “Code of Practice” against disinformation. “You can run but you can’t hide. Our teams are ready for enforcement,” Breton said, referring to the EU’s Digital Services Act. As of August 25th, the DSA will require “very large online platforms” like Twitter to be more proactive with content moderation.
Twitter leaves EU voluntary Code of Practice against disinformation.
— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) May 26, 2023
But obligations remain. You can run but you can’t hide.
Beyond voluntary commitments, fighting disinformation will be legal obligation under #DSA as of August 25.
Our teams will be ready for enforcement.
Twitter does not operate a communications department Engadget could contact for comment. Before Elon Musk's takeover last October, Twitter signed onto the EU’s Code of Practice against disinformation in 2018, alongside companies like Facebook parent Meta, Google and TikTok. While the Code is voluntary, the EU announced in June 2022 that sticking to the agreement would count towards DSA compliance. As TechCrunch notes, Twitter’s decision to withdraw from the deal just three months before the EU starts enforcing the DSA would appear to suggest the company plans to skirt the bloc’s rules on content moderation.
However, ignoring the DSA could turn into an expensive fight for Twitter and Elon Musk. The legislation allows EU officials to hand out penalties of up to 10 percent of global annual turnover for infractions, with the potential for fines of up to 20 percent of worldwide turnover for repeat instances of non-compliance. The European Commission has also said that repeat non-compliance could lead to the EU blocking access to offending services.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/g9JPHQsWo Long: Fallen Dynasty was one of the bigger launches in March, but it wasn’t going to stop there, as Team Ninja had a slew of expansions planned. The studio has now revealed the Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty DLC release date for that first post-launch drop, noting that Battle of Zhongyuan will come out on June 29.
Koei Tecmo tweeted out the news along with the first key art, which is in the above image. Battle of Zhongyuan will have new stages and enemies along with another difficulty and weapon type. Team Ninja was not more specific, but this seems in line with the DLC both Nioh games received.
Wo Long’s season pass includes two other expansions, but little is known about them. Conqueror of Jiangdong is the second DLC and is scheduled for September, while Upheaval in Jingxiang, the third and final expansion, is currently slated for December. The season pass is $24.99 and offers a discount on the DLC, much like the other two Nioh games that had three expansions each with a season pass that was slightly cheaper than buying the trio piecemeal.
The post Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty DLC Release Date Set for First Expansion appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.
ispace is done analyzing data from its failed Hakuto-R lunar landing, and it sounds like tricky terrain and a late change in the landing site are to blame. Apparently, Hakuto-R was able to complete the whole deceleration process in preparation of touching down on lunar soil. The spacecraft activated its descent sequence when it reached an altitude of around 100 kilometers (62 miles) and was able to slow down until it was only moving at a speed of less than 1 m/s.
However, its software had mistakenly estimated its altitude to be zero when it was still hovering around 5 kilometers (3 miles) above the ground. In other words, it thought it had already landed when it hasn't yet, and it continued descending at a very slow speed near the surface until its propulsion system ran out of fuel. ispace wasn't able to establish contact with the spacecraft again, but it believes it went on a free fall and ultimately crashed on the moon.
That's the how, but what about the why? Well, the company thinks the most likely reason why Hakuto-R's software suffered from an altitude estimation issue was because it got confused. While it was flying to its landing site, it passed over a large cliff that was determined to be the rim of a crater. The spacecraft's onboard sensor got an altitude reading of 3 kilometers when it passed by the elevated terrain, and that was apparently larger than the estimated altitude value the Hakuto-R team set in advance.
The spacecraft's software erroneously thought that the sensor reported an abnormal value, and it kept filtering out its altitude measurements afterward. ispace built the ability to reject abnormal altitude measurements into the lander as a safety measure in the event of a hardware issue with the sensor. However, it backfired for Mission 1 because simulations of the landing sequence failed to incorporate the lunar environment on the spacecraft's route. ispace made the decision to change Hakuto-R's landing site after its critical design review was already completed in 2021.
The Hakuto-R Mission 1 was poised to become the first successful moon landing by a private company and the first Japanese lunar landing overall. While it didn't get to land on the moon, ispace will use the data from the mission to design preparatory landing sequences for Mission 2 and 3, which are scheduled for launch in 2024 and 2025, respectively.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/XLjM1m3Korean companies LG and Hyundai are teaming up to build a new EV battery cell manufacturing plant in the US and have signed a memorandum of understanding to invest $4.3 billion in the project. The companies will each hold a stake of 50 percent in the joint venture, which will start construction on the new plant in the second half of 2023. Their new manufacturing facility will be located in Savannah, Georgia, where Hyundai is also building its first all-EV factory in the US. The battery plant is expected to be operational by 2025 at the earliest. After it starts production at full capacity, it will be able to produce 30GHWh of battery every year, which is enough to support the production of 300,000 electric vehicles.
LG and Hyundai are just the latest companies to invest in US-based battery manufacturing facilities over the past couple of years. Toyota announced in 2021 that it will build a battery plant in the country as part of a $3.4 billion investment, while Ultium Cells (GM's and LG's joint venture) secured a $2.5 billion loan from the Energy Department for the construction of EV battery facilities. More recently, Ford announced that it's spending $3.5 billion to build a lithium iron phosphate battery plant in Michigan. Lithium iron phosphate, which can tolerate more frequent and faster charging, costs less than other battery technologies and could bring down the cost of EVs.
Other companies could follow suit, seeing as the Biden administration is pushing to bring more EV and battery manufacturing to the US. Last year, it launched the American Battery Materials Initiative, which will give 20 companies $2.8 billion in grants in hopes of encouraging manufacturers to start battery production stateside and making sure that the US won't be heavily dependent on "unreliable foreign supply chains."
Hyundai and LG believe that the new facility can help create "a stable supply of batteries in the region" and allow them "to respond fast to the soaring EV demand in the US market." Hyundai Mobis, the automaker's parts and service division, will be assembling battery packs using cells manufactured in the plant. The automaker will then use those packs for Hyundai, Kia and Genesis electric vehicles.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/pkI1KSeFord has become the first major automaker to leap into bed with Tesla after the US government pushed to make EV charging more widely accessible. The carmaker has signed a deal, starting spring 2024, so selected Ford EVs can slurp down power at some Tesla Supercharger stations. As part of the pact, Ford said, from the 2025 model year, it’ll switch to Tesla’s open-source North American Charging Standard (NACS) on its vehicles. Meanwhile, existing models that still use the (more or less) global standard Combined Charging System (CCS) will be able to pick up a Tesla-designed adapter to bridge the gap.
The deal is surprising, especially given the relative power, size and prestige of the two companies involved. Ford, one of the world’s biggest car makers, is ceding control of its charger future to a relative minnow, albeit one that built a sizable own-brand charging network. Not to mention it runs the risk of creating a NACS–CCS EV-charging format war, which may erode consumer faith in EVs. After all, if you pull up at a gas station anywhere in the US, there should be a one-size-fits-all way to get fuel in your tank without worrying about the size of the pipe.
– Dan Cooper
The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.
TikTok is testing an AI chatbot for content discovery
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At I/O, Google showed off SGE, its experimental system to incorporate generative AI inside its search results. Now, the company’s answer to Bing AI is open for testing, at least to users who signed up to the Search Labs waitlist. Once they’ve received the email saying they have access, they can type into the Google search bar – there’s no separate chat window like Bing – to get AI-generated search results, which they can either expand or choose to ask follow-up questions.
Neuralink, Elon Musk’s controversial brain-to-computer interface startup, claims the FDA has approved it to begin human trials. The regulator hasn’t yet confirmed the claim, and while the company has said it’s not yet recruiting for a human trial, this approval makes one possible. In a tweet, Neuralink wanted to celebrate the “incredible work” taken by its team to secure the FDA’s blessing, not mentioning it was rejected back in March after it was revealed that more than 1,500 animals implanted with the technology had died.
After months of testing, MoviePass’ all-you-can-eat cinema subscription has relaunched itself across the US. This new version will offer you a tiered subscription plan, with the lowest offering charging you $10 a month for three screenings. It might not be the crazy bargain the previous version offered, but it’s still a damn sight cheaper than most single tickets. And if you’re a real cinephile, you can pay up to $40 a month for 30 screenings, which is staggering on a per-movie basis.
Homeworld 3, the long-awaited second sequel to the groundbreaking space-based RTS, has been further delayed until February 2024. It’s the second time the title has been pushed back, with developers Blackbird Interactive asking for more time to polish and refine the title. Given that Homeworld 2 debuted in 2003, the two-decade wait for a true follow-up (yes, I’m ignoring Deserts of Kharak) is going to test the idiom “good things come to those who wait” to its very limits.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/suYPIZxMicrosoft has called for the US federal government to create a new agency specifically focused on regulating AI, Bloomberg reports. In a Washington, DC-based speech attended by some members of Congress and non-governmental organizations, Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith remarked that "the rule of law and a commitment to democracy has kept technology in its proper place" and should do so again with AI. Another part of Microsoft's "blueprint" for regulating AI involves mandating redundant AI circuit breakers, a fail-safe that would allow algorithms to be shut down quickly.
Smith also strongly suggested that President Biden create and sign an executive order necessitating that the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) risk management framework be followed by any federal agencies engaging with AI tools. He added that Microsoft would also adhere to the NIST's guidelines and publish a yearly AI report for transparency.
Microsoft's calls for regulation follow similar remarks from OpenAI and Google. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified before Congress that a "new entity" is needed to regulate AI and recommended "independent audits" of models. Yet, Altman previously suggested pulling OpenAI from the European Union if the company doesn't agree with new policies.
Kent Walker, CEO president of global affairs for Google and Alphabet, recently released a statement calling for "broad-based efforts — across government, companies, universities, and more — to help translate technological breakthroughs into widespread benefits, while mitigating risks." Concerns about AI have also led to people walking away from its development. Former Google VP and engineering fellow Geoffrey Hinton, commonly referred to as "The Godfather of AI," notably resigned in April to openly warn about AI's risks.
Alongside voicing his concerns, Smith's hour-long speech also served as an opportunity for him to laud recent AI advancements. He compared its significance to that of the printing press or electricity. In an accompanying blog post that echoed his speech, Smith went so far as to say, "AI offers perhaps even more potential for the good of humanity than any invention that has preceded it."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/pnRghHeThe German-language newspaper Handelsblatt said it received 100GB of data from "several informants" within Tesla, showing how the company received thousands of complaints about its Autopilot features over the past years. According to Jalopnik, the collection contained 23,000 internal files, with complaints from as far back as 2015 and as recent as March 2022. Within that time period, the automaker reportedly received 2,400 reports about self-acceleration issues and 1,500 cases about braking function problems. The latter included 139 complaints about unintentional emergency braking and 383 about phantom stops from false collision warnings.
Further, the files reportedly included more than 1,000 crash reports and a table of 3,000 incidents wherein drivers expressed safety concerns about Tesla's driver assistance system. While most of the reported incidents happened in the US, some of the complaints came from owners in Europe and Asia. Handelsblatt said it contacted dozens of customers from the files to confirm their reports, and some were even able to share videos with the publication.
Aside from containing details on thousands of safety complaints, the files reportedly included instructions for employees on how to communicate with customers. Apparently, they're told not to copy and paste incident reports on email or text messages and not to leave the information as voicemail recording. They can only verbally pass on the information to customers.
In a letter explaining why the publication decided to publish information from the Tesla files, Handelsblatt editor-in-chief Sebastian Matthes said a 12-person team sifted through and evaluated the files over six months. "The data paints the picture of an electric car pioneer who seems to have far greater technological problems than previously known. With its Autopilot, for example. The Tesla files contain thousands of reports about complications with the driver assistance systems. Complaints of Tesla vehicles suddenly braking at full speed. Or accelerate suddenly," he wrote.
He said his team sent Tesla a comprehensive list of questions, but the automaker chose not to answer them. Instead, Joseph Alm, Tesla's Managing Counsel for Litigation, told the publication that the data was stolen and that media reporting of illegally obtained information is not allowed absent exceptional circumstances. Alm also said in his response (via Electrek) to the publication that the company believes a "disgruntled ex-employee" used his access as a service technician to "exfiltrate information in violation of his signed non-disclosure agreement" before he left the company. Tesla intends to sue that ex-employee for his "theft of Tesla confidential information and employees' personal data."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/Gd8jB6FSpider-Man 2‘s gameplay was revealed at the PlayStation Showcase, and PS5 owners are ready to pre-order it. If you’re eager to get your hands on the upcoming game, here’s where to buy Spider-Man 2 PS5.
Spider-Man 2 is not available for pre-order at the time of writing. However, you can buy it through the PlayStation website and other retailers such as Amazon when it is available.
We will update this article when pre-orders go live.
The price for Spider-Man 2 has not been announced, but if it follows a similar pricing model to other recent PS5 releases, we can expect it to retail for $69.99. Any special editions will likely retail for more.
Spider-Man 2’s release date is expected to land in the fall, but an exact date has not been announced. If they exist, any special editions for Spider-Man 2 should be announced around the same time.
If you’re not keen on pre-orders, you can buy a digital edition of Spider-Man 2 on release day. This means you won’t have to wait for shipping and can play it as soon as you finish the download. But to tide you over, make sure you’ve checked out the Spider-Man 2 trailers showcasing gameplay and an introduction to Kraven.
The post Spider-Man 2 PS5 Pre-order: Where to Buy It appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.
Fujifilm is trying to beat Sony at its own game with the launch of the 26-megapixel X-S20, a content creation-oriented camera. Though it has a similar body and the same sensor as its predecessor, the X-S10, it offers some major improvements in terms of video quality and more. At the same time, it's considerably more expensive than the X-S10 was at launch.
"X-S20 is truly a dream camera for any content creator looking to take their photos and videos creation to the next level, but especially for the ones that are documenting their lives, traveling the world, or streaming their stories online,” said Fujifilm's Lisa Baxt, essentially describing the camera's market and purpose.
Though it has the same last-generation 26-megapixel X-Trans sensor as the X-S10, it uses the company's new X-Processor 5. That allowed Fujifilm to install its latest deep learning AI autofocus technology that boosts speeds and allows the camera to detect animals, birds, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, trains, insects and drones, much like the higher-end X-H2 and X-T5. Plus, it can detect all of those automatically, so the user doesn't need to pick a subject before shooting.
That also boosted the camera's video powers considerably. Where the X-S10 was limited to 4K 30p 10-bit video, the X-S20 can shoot 6.2K 4:2:2 10-bit open gate video that can be cropped into any horizontal or vertical format you want. It can also handle DCI 4K at 60 fps and super slow-mo 1080/240p video. In addition, it supports F-Log2 with up to 13-plus stops of dynamic range (DR), where the X-S10 was limited to F-Log with a stop less DR.
It offers a much higher 360Mbps bit-rate thanks to support for faster UHS-II cards, though there's still only a single card slot. You can also record 12-bit Apple ProRes and Blackmagic RAW video at 6.2K 30p and 5.2K/30p externally, either to Atomos or Blackmagic recorders. Finally, Fujifilm is offering an optional external cooling fan that allows for 6.2K video recording for up to 80 minutes, compared to 40 minutes without the fan.
Fujifilm flattered Sony by imitation with its dedicated "Vlog" function on the mode dial. This new setting gives you direct access to a vlogging touch menu that offers functions like product priority focus mode, background defocus, high-speed recording, face/eye detection and more. Much like Sony's V-series models, product priority mode disables face/eye detection so the camera will focus on a product placed in front of it, while background defocus opens the lens aperture as wide as possible for more background blur.
Also new is UVC/UAC support that lets the camera work directly as a webcam by just plugging it into your PC. You can also stream 4K/60p video live online using OBS studio.
For photography, the X-S20 can fire bursts at up to 8 frame per second in mechanical shutter mode, or 20 fps in electronic mode. The buffer supports over 1,000 JPEG or compressed RAW images in mechanical mode — considerably more than before. However, it's limited to 35 frames for uncompressed RAW images, about double the X-S10. In electronic mode, the buffer can handle 79 compressed RAW images before filling, or 28 uncompressed RAW shots.
As before, it comes with five-axis in-body stabilization, though Fujifilm has boosted the power from six stops to seven with supported lenses. It also has a fully articulating 3-inch display, with resolution boosted to 1.84 million dots, up from 1.04 million. The OLED electronic viewfinder has 2.36 million dots of resolution and a 100 fps refresh.
It retains much the same body design with a slightly larger grip, and 491 gram weight that's a touch heavier — but it's still pretty light for such a powerful camera. Other features include microphone/headphone and HDMI micro ports, and yes, the pop-up flash is back.
The X-S20 is priced at $1,300 (body) only, which is considerably more than the $1,000 launch price of the X-S10. You can also grab it in a kit with XC15-45mm f/3.5-5.6 lens for $1,400, or with the XF18-55mm f/2.8-4 lens for $1,700. Shipping starts on June 29th.
Along with the camera, Fujifilm unveiled the XApp designed to control X- and GFX-series camera for remote shooting, file transfers and more. The company said it "listened carefully to user feedback" when developing the app, so here's hoping it's a large step up from the previous (dreadful) app. Fujifilm also unveiled the ultra-wide-angle XF8mmF3.5 lens ($800) shipping on or around June 29th, 2023.
