Loupedeck, a company that makes control pads for creators, is back with a device it's positioning as more of a direct competitor to Elgato's Stream Deck than its previous products. It says the Loupedeck Live S is designed "specifically for streamers and gamers that are looking for a simple and affordable way to control their streams."
The Live S has a touch panel with 15 customizable buttons. You'll be able to create up to 14 screens that you can swipe between, meaning you can have swift access to dozens of buttons that can trigger complex actions with a single press.
Alternatively, you could set up screens for specific scenes, depending on the type of stream you're hosting. For instance, variety streamers might want access to different actions when they're running an ASMR stream or taking part in a group discussion versus playing a first-person shooter.
The device also has dials, which Loupedeck says helps the Live S stand out from competitors. Streamers can turn the dial to make fine adjustments to things like lighting or volume or use it as a physical button to change a setting (such as muting the microphone). You can use the device as an audio mixer too.
Loupedeck
The Loupedeck Live S has native integration with software and services such as Twitch, Streamlabs, OBS and Voicemod. Plugins for creative suites like Final Cut Pro and Adobe Lightroom can be installed too. Other plugins, custom profiles and additional ways to customize the Live S will be available from the Loupedeck Marketplace.
Loupedeck is running an Indiegogo campaign for the Live S. Those who get in at the super early bird level can snag one for around $106, though there will only be 99 units available at this tier. There are 199 available on the early bird tier (approximately $128) and 599 for those who hop in at the last chance level (roughly $138).
If you miss out on any of those, you'll still be able to secure a Live S for around $149, which Loupedeck says is 23 percent off the retail price. The pledge amounts may fluctuate as the figures are converted to USD from Euros.
The campaign features Indiegogo's Trust-Proven badge, which the platform uses to highlight creators that ran successful projects in the past, including delivery of perks to backers. Loupedeck ran a campaign in 2016 for an eponymous product designed for Lightroom. This time, the company says it's using Indiegogo more to announce it to an audience that will likely be interested in the Live S rather than to specifically raise money for the project.
The Stream Deck also has 15 customizable keys and typically costs $150. That means, at the regular retail price, Loupedeck will be more expensive than the Stream Deck, but it offers fine control with the dials and option to access more controls by swiping to other screens.
Those looking to upgrade their home WiFi can often do so by investing in a more capable router. Now, you can pick up Amazon's Eero 6 mesh WiFi system at some of the best prices we've seen. A single Eero 6 router costs $71 at the moment, which is 20 percent off and the cheapest we've seen it. A pack with one router and two extenders will set you back $159, while a bundle of three Eero 6 routers is down to $199.
As the name suggests, this system supports WiFi 6 and one Eero 6 router will cover up to 1,500 square feet. That's enough to cover a decently sized apartment, and you can spring for one of the multipacks if you live in a larger home. The dual-band system supports speeds up to 900Mbps and more than 75 connected devices. If you absolutely must have a Gigabit-capable router, you'll have to opt for the more expensive Eero Pro 6 system instead.
You'll also get a built-in Zigbee smart home hub with the Eero 6 system, which means you can skip buying a dedicated hub and connect IoT devices like smart lights, plus, locks and more directly to the router. You'll be able to more easily control the smart home devices you already have (especially the ones that support Alexa voice commands) and it'll be much easier for those who don't have a smart home ecosystem yet to build theirs from scratch thanks to the built-in home hub.
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If you've been keeping an eye out for discounts on the Apple AirPods Pro, now's your chance to grab a pair. The wireless earbuds are currently listed for $180 at Amazon — not quite an all-time low, but still $69 less than its usual retail price of $249. Unlike the basic AirPods, the AirPods Pro come with silicon tips that enable a more comfortable fit and give them the seal necessary for effective noise cancellation. We gave the earbuds a score of 87 in our review, praising them for having better audio than previous models due to their built-in amplifiers and the ability to automatically tune low- and mid-range frequencies to each user's ear. In addition, we praised the earbuds for giving users hands-free access to Siri voice assistant and having IPX4 water resistance.
That said, Apple's second-gen AirPods are also on sale for $100 right now. In case you're looking for something cheaper and don't mind that the model doesn't have silicon tips, you can still get a pair for $100 or $59 off its retail price of $159. They aren't quite that different from the first iteration of the earbuds, but they're better at seamlessly connecting with your devices, thanks to the H1 wireless chipset.
But if you're on the lookout for over-ear headsets, then head over to Amazon to see the website's deal on the Apple AirPods Max. You can get the AirPods Max in Space Gray or Silver for $450, or $99 off its retail price. In our review, we discussed how the headphones have an excellent balanced sound quality, solid active noice cancellation and a lengthy battery life.
Nearly four years after Blizzard announced Diablo Immortal to a mostly apathetic audience at Blizzcon 2018, the game is finally here. And if you’re like me, there’s a good chance you haven’t followed Immortal’s development since its first showing. Not knowing what to expect, I had a chance to play the game ahead of its official launch tomorrow and left the experience both excited and worried about what I saw.
Set five years after the end of Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction, Immortal opens with your character arriving by boat in the town of Wortham, a location from Diablo 3. You find the hamlet under attack by Skarn, the self-styled Lord of Damnation.
I haven’t played the game’s story through to its end, but what unfolds following the introduction is a far more interesting narrative than what Diablo 3 had to offer. Immortal inherits some of its predecessor’s more annoying tendencies. Characters, particularly villains, talk too much, and the game is missing the atmosphere that made past Diablo games so memorable. But on the whole, Immortal serves as a more fitting sequel to its predecessors than Diablo 3 ever did.
Blizzard / NetEase
One early zone in the game sees your character venture to the Dark Wood, an area from Act One of Diablo 2. There, you’re reunited with characters like Akara and Kashya. The voice actors aren’t as memorable as their Diablo 2 counterparts, but the way Immortal pulls on the narrative threads established in its predecessor to continue that game’s story is satisfying and memorable.
But what is even more impressive is that Blizzard tells the story in the context of an MMO. As you go about your adventure, you’ll see other players doing the same, and you can freely group up to tackle the campaign – in addition to dungeons, raids and Immortal’s many other activities – as a party.
Even on a small display, the game features classic Blizzard polish. Controlling your character is similar to titles like League of Legends: Wild Rift. On the bottom left of the screen, there’s a virtual thumbstick for moving your character, while on the right-hand side, you have dedicated buttons for your different skills. Immortal includes controller support, and if you own a Razer Kishi or Backbone One, they’re the best way to play the game on mobile.
Blizzard / NetEase
You can use up to five skills at any one point. At first, combat feels simplistic, but once you have a full complement of abilities, there’s a fun rhythm to your demon slaying. The best part is encountering stronger enemies like elites and bosses. The latter involve multi-stage fights that reward you for learning their move sets. With Immortal, I can safely say the moment-to-moment gameplay is the best it’s ever been in the Diablo franchise.
But with only two primary and 12 secondary skills per class, it feels like there’s less build diversity than in past games. Unlike his Diablo 2 counterpart, I can’t play my Immortal barbarian as an ax-throwing ranged character or a singer who shouts his enemies to death. He’s strictly a dual-wielding melee character.
Modifying your skills also feels more limited than the system Blizzard had in place with Diablo 3. Instead of earning skill runes as you level your character, you find legendary items that tweak their abilities. For example, I found a piece of armor that made it so my barbarian’s whirlwind attack would send out gusts of winds as he spun about. You can equip a legendary weapon or armor piece in every one of your primary item slots, meaning you can add six modifications to your skills.
Blizzard
Most items drop with slots you can modify with stat-enhancing gems. Currently, there are two types of gemstones in Immortal. First, there are the “normal” ones you obtain primarily by completing hidden lairs. These are dungeons you can find in the game’s various zones. Each time one opens in the area you’re exploring, Immortal will notify you and you’ll have a few minutes to find it. You can earn up to six normals gems per day by completing hidden lairs. It’s also possible to obtain them as part of bundles you can purchase with real money, from other players via Immortal’s in-game auction house and a merchant who will trade you them in return for an in-game currency called Hilts.
And then there are the game’s legendary gems. They are the most powerful way to enhance your character, with each one adding new abilities to their attacks. For instance, one I obtained with my barbarian empowered him with lightning that would chain to nearby enemies.
You probably already have a sense of where this is going. Not all legendary gems are equal. Many of the one- and two-star ones are relatively easy to obtain, but if you want to outfit your character with the best-in-slot gems for their class, the sense I get is that you will have to spend money.
Blizzard / NetEase
That’s due to how Blizzard and NetEase designed the system for obtaining those gems. They drop exclusively through dungeons called elder rifts. You can play through one whenever you want and they take at most three to four minutes to complete. The catch is that you can modify the rewards you get at the end of an elder rift with rare and legendary crests. The former you can obtain through the merchant I mentioned earlier, and as part of one-time bundles you can buy for completing certain milestones with your character. The game also gives you one free rare crest per day.
Rare crests increase your chance of earning one-star legendary gems by five percent. Legendary crests, meanwhile, give you a 100 percent chance for a legendary gem to drop at the end of an elder rift. The catch here is that what one you will get is up to chance. Adding a further wrinkle to things is that five-star gems can be anywhere between one and five stars in quality when they drop, and you may need to use other gems to unlock their full potential.
There are a few ways to earn the odd free legendary crest, but you’ll be primarily buying them. A pack of 10 costs 1,600 of the game’s premium currency, or about $25. Legendary crests represent Immortal’s primary form of monetization, but you can also spend money on cosmetics, an enhanced battle pass and a few other things.
The gem system has enough similarities to loot boxes that Activision Blizzard won’t release Immortalin countries with laws against that kind of monetization. It’s also a setup that rewards “whaling.” In other words, the players willing to spend nearly endless amounts of money on the game will be the most powerful.
Blizzard / NetEase
How you will feel about Immortal’s monetization will depend on what you want to get out of it. You can safely ignore all the systems I mentioned if all you want is to play through the game’s story and level your favorite classes. But just how much you’ll need to spend to participate in the game’s endgame is hard for me to say. Going into tomorrow’s release, the consensus among Immortal’s community is that the answer is a lot.
Again, all of that may not matter to you, but if there’s an issue with Immortal’s monetization, it’s how counter it is to the spirit of the franchise. When Blizzard removed Diablo 3’s controversial gold and real-money auction housesin 2013, the studio said it did so because they ultimately undermined the game’s core gameplay.
It must also be said how easily Immortal could become addictive for some people. In the week Blizzard granted me early access to the game, I spent nearly every spare moment I could find playing through it because I was having so much fun. And when the game becomes officially available on June 2nd, I plan to spend money on things like the enhanced battle pass, but I won’t pay to buy any legendary crests because I think that system is predatory. Some won’t have that restraint.
Outside of Diablo 2: Resurrected,there hasn’t been a new Diablo game in 10 years, and, as of this June, it will be 23 years since Blizzard released Diablo 2. And I think that’s what makes Immortal so easy to be conflicted about. It shows the studio can still create engaging experiences when it gives its talented staff the time they need to work on a project, but it’s also a game that’s impossible to separate from its economics. It’s easy to see a scenario where Immortal is hugely successful for the studio and ends up informing its approach to Diablo 4 and future projects.
Not satisfied with trying to replace “WiFi” with “l’access sans fil à internet” (which didn’t work),l'Académie française set its sights on gaming terms in 2017. It’s now gained traction with the government, and France’s Ministry of Culture has announced it’ll ban terms including "streamer" and "esports," according to AFP. Going forward, government communications must use terms like“joueur-animateur en direct” (for “streamer”) and “jeu video en nuage” (for “cloud gaming”).
The Ministry of Culture told the AFP it's concerned that English terms could become a "barrier to understanding" for non-gamers. Which is fair. But at least make the terms a little pithier.
NASA has shared video of Ingenuity's milestone 25th flight on April 8th, when it broke duration and speed records. The robotic helicopter flew at 12MPH for just over two minutes and 41 seconds, providing footage of the Red Planet's rippling sands as part of the 2,310-foot journey. Don’t worry: The footage has been sped up.
It gets the most important things right, including sound quality.
Sonos? Doing affordable soundbars? Are they any good? The Ray may be Sonos’ most affordable soundbar, but don’t consider it a budget device. For $279, you get the excellent sound quality Sonos is known for along with multi-room audio features in all Sonos speakers.
It’s not the loudest soundbar out there, and the compact design means its soundstage isn’t as wide as you’ll get from bigger speakers. But if you have a smaller living room, the Ray is a huge upgrade over built-in TV speakers. Read on for the full review.
They’re looking into the capability to destroy the satellites.
China must develop capabilities to disable and maybe even destroy Starlink internet satellites, the country's military researchers said in Chinese journal Modern Defense Technology. The authors highlighted the possibility of Starlink being used for military purposes that could aid other countries and threaten China's national security. According to South China Morning Post, the scientists are calling for the development of anti-satellite capabilities, including both hard (missiles, or even lasers) and soft kill methods that target satellite software.
It appears Microsoft will soon reveal its next-gen Surface Laptop Go. The successor to the would-be Chromebook competitor popped up in a Korean retailer listing that appears to have gone live a little too early. The Surface Laptop Go 2 will shift from a 10th-gen Intel Core CPU to an 11th-gen Intel processor, with support for up to 8GB of RAM and as much as 256GB of storage, according to the listing. The listing also suggests pre-orders will open on June 2nd.
The company would rather cut off access than change the game's business model.
Don't expect to play Diablo Immortal in Belgium or the Netherlands when it launches this week. GamesIndustry.biz and Tweakers have learned Blizzard won't release the free-to-play game in both countries due to their "gambling restrictions" — that is, their legislation banning loot boxes.
Retro console maker Evercade has just announced its latest device, a new handheld called the EXP. If you’re not familiar with Evercade, its products are a bit different from your standard retro fare. Instead of purchasing a device with a limited library of preloaded games, Evercade sells cartridges with a selection of games. The EXP also has a Tate mode, which makes the handheld a better fit for playing games designed around vertical scrolling, like classic shmups.
Shark Bay, an Australian World Heritage Area, serves as home to various animals that feed on its thriving sea grass. Turns out that sea grass called Poseidon's ribbon weed, or Posidonia australis, is a single ancient plant that's been cloning itself for the past 4,500 years. Researchers from The University of Western Australia and Flinders University studied samples of the organism taken from across the bay and generated a DNA fingerprint with 18,000 genetic markers. What they found was that the sea grass stretching across 180 kilometers (112 miles) — the size of Cincinnati, as The New York Times notes — of Shark Bay is just a single plant.
Senior author Dr. Elizabeth Sinclair said they're often asked how many plants grow in sea grass meadows. For Shark Bay, lead author and UWA student Jane Edgeloe said: "The answer blew us away — there was just one! That's it, just one plant has expanded over 180km in Shark Bay, making it the largest known plant on Earth."
The Posidonia apparently clones itself by producing new shoots growing out of its root system. It doesn't reproduce sexually, because it's most likely unable to: The organism has a condition called polyploidy, which means it inherited 100 percent of each parent's genome instead of just 50 percent from each. Since polyploidy often results in sterility, cloning might be the only way for the Shark Bay Posidonia to proliferate.
Sinclair said its polyploidy might have also made it more resilient than usual, though. It could have given the organism the "ability to cope with a broad range of conditions, which is a great thing in climate change." It remains to be seen whether the Shark Bay Posidonia will continue to thrive in the face of modern climate change, but the researchers may find out soon enough. They've set up a set of experiments to figure out how it survives in environments with variable conditions that include a wide range of temperatures and salinities, as well as extreme brightness and darkness.
Porsche is strengthening its relationship with EV supercar company Rimac, investing "eight figures" for a total ownership stake of 20 percent, TechCrunch reported. Rimac scored $500 million in total, with additional funds coming in from investment giants Softbank and Goldman Sachs. All of that is a huge vote of confidence in the company, which has become a key supplier and collaborator on EVs built by Hyundai, Porsche and other mainstream automakers.
Porsche, which invested $83.3 million in Rimac last year, said it's "delighted" that Rimac has gained some new, high-profile investors. "SoftBank is the biggest tech investor in the world, and Goldman is a very big financial investor," said Rimac founder and CEO, Mate Rimac. The money will be used to build a $200 million Rimac campus in Zagreb, Croatia and bolster the company's Rimac Technology subsidiary, which designs and builds EV parts for other automakers.
Despite the influx of cash from Porsche, Rimac said the overall investment will help it remain independent. "It’s very good for us to have Porsche and Hyundai onboard as shareholders, but we don’t want to be fully dependent on them," the CEO explained.
Last year, Rimac set up a joint venture with Porsche to run Bugatti after Volkswagen ceded ownership. The new entity, called Bugatti Rimac, recently unveiled the 1,914-horsepower Rimac Nevera EV hypercar that will go from 0-60 MPH in 1.85 seconds and have an estimated top speed around 250 MPH. Apart from Porsche and Hyundai, Rimac Technology develops and manufactures batteries and other components for Koenigsegg, Pininfarina and Aston Martin.
High Performance Analog and Digital XENSIV MEMS Microphones for Consumer Electronics
Infineon Technologies AG has launched next-generation XENSIV MEMS microphones IM69D127, IM73A135, and IM72D128 that are designed to capture audio signals with the highest precision and quality and are based on Infineon’s latest Sealed Dual Membrane (SDM) MEMS technology which delivers high ingress protection (IP57) at a microphone level.
Precision Narrow Bandwidth Signal Chain Platform with Customizable Solution Options
Analog Devices, Inc. has introduced a precision narrow bandwidth signal chain platform that optimizes system performance for signal bandwidths of DC to approximately 10 kHz in industrial and instrumentation applications. This new platform offers a host of complete signal chains with customizable solution options and a curated suite of development tools to simplify the design journey.
China must develop capabilities to disable and maybe even destroy Starlink internet satellites, the country's military researchers said in a paper published by the Chinese journal Modern Defense Technology. The authors highlighted the possibility of Starlink being used for military purposes that could aid other countries and threaten China's national security. According to South China Morning Post, the scientists are calling for the development of anti-satellite capabilities, including both hard and soft kill methods. The former is used to physically destroy satellites, such as the use of missiles, while a soft kill method targets a satellite's software and operating system.
In addition, the researchers are suggesting the development of a surveillance system with the ability to track each and every Starlink satellite. That would address one of their concerns, which is the possibility of launching military payloads along with a bunch of satellites for the constellation. David Cowhig's Translation Blog posted an English version of the paper, along with another article from state-sponsored website China Military Online that warned about the dangers of the satellite internet service.
"While Starlink claims to be a civilian program that provides high-speed internet services, it has a strong military background," it said. Its launch sites are built within military bases, it continued, and SpaceX previously received funds from the US Air Force to study how Starlink satellites can connect to military aircraft under encryption. The Chinese scientists warned Starlink could boost the communication speeds of fighter jets and drones by over 100 times.
The author warned:
"When completed, Starlink satellites can be mounted with reconnaissance, navigation and meteorological devices to further enhance the US military’s combat capability in such areas as reconnaissance remote sensing, communications relay, navigation and positioning, attack and collision, and space sheltering."
Between hard and soft kill, the researchers favor the latter, since physically destroying satellites would produce space debris that could interfere with China's activities. The country previously filed a complaint with the United Nations about the Tiangong space station's near-collision with Starlink satellites. Apparently, the station had to perform evasive maneuvers twice in 2021 to minimize the chances of collision. Destroying a few satellites also wouldn't completely take out the Starlink constellation, seeing as SpaceX has already launched over 2,500 satellites at this point in time.
