Elden Ring fans who have been itching for a reason to return to the Lands Between (y'know, other than it being one of the best-received games in recent memory) will soon have one. Publisher Bandai Namco and studio FromSoftware revealed in a gameplay trailer that the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion will arrive on PC, PlayStation and Xbox on June 21. The studio announced the DLC one year ago.
The three-minute trailer is suitably epic in scope. It features new locales and more devious bosses to take down. One looks like a giant burning Wicker Man, while another has a lion-esque head and lightning powers. We also got a look at a gross, worm-like enemy that can almost swallow the player character.
It seems there will be new hand-to-hand combat options as the protagonist is shown attacking an enemy with a combination of kicks. At the end of the clip, our hero sprouts wings for what appears to be an aerial attack.
According to Bandai Namco, players will be entering "the Land of Shadow to explore a new adventure full of mysteries and danger," where they'll "unravel the dark side of the Elden Ring story." Pre-orders for the $40 expansion are open and newcomers will be able to pick up a bundle that includes the base game. Various special editions include extras such as an artbook, soundtrack and a figure of Messmer the Impaler, who appears to be the expansion's big bad.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/elden-ring-expansion-shadow-of-the-erdtree-arrives-on-june-21-160953368.html?src=rss
During today's Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase, several Rare more titles were revealed for Switch Online. NES titles Snake Rattle 'n' Roll and R.C. Pro-Am are coming to the base tier today, along with SNES games Battletoads in Battlemaniacs and classic beat-'em-up Killer Instinct. Switch Online + Expansion Pack members will also get access to Nintendo 64 game Blast Corps.
However, there was a more interesting Switch Online announcement for those in Japan: Mother 3. The game debuted on the Game Boy Advance in 2006 at the end of that console's lifespan and as Nintendo was turning its attention to the DS. The company never released the sequel to Mother (aka EarthBound Beginnings) and Mother 2 (EarthBound) outside of Japan, despite Western fans of the series long yearning to play it.
Mother 3 is coming to Nintendo Switch Online in Japan.
Some have taken to translating the game themselves, and one even offered their files to Nintendo in the hopes that the company would release an officially localized version for English-speaking audiences. With that in mind, choosing to limit Mother 3 to Switch Online in Japan may feel like a kick in the teeth for many of those who've been waiting nearly 20 years for Nintendo to bring the game to North America (it added the previous games in the series to Switch Online in the US in 2022).
Non-Japanese speaking fans will need to stick to unofficial translations for now, but they'd be forgiven for holding onto a glimmer of hope for a proper English localization. It's evident that Nintendo has remembered the acclaimed RPG exists and, given that it took the company 26 years to bring EarthBound Beginnings to North America, all is perhaps not yet lost.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mother-3-is-coming-to-switch-online-in-japan-but-not-the-us-150822035.html?src=rss
Businesses will have two Gemini for Workspace plans to choose from: Gemini Business, a new option for $20 a month that's available to organizations of all sizes, and Gemini Enterprise, a $30 a month offering for larger companies and "heavy uses of generative AI." Just like before, consumers will also have access to the AI features in Workspace apps by subscribing to a Google One AI Premium plan, which starts at $20 a month.
Consumers and businesses subscribed to these plans will also be able to use the Gemini chat experience at gemini.google.com. The company says it has "enterprise-grade data protections" and copyright indemnification, so it won't use your conversations for ads, AI training or data sharing. "By leveraging Gemini 1.0 Ultra, one of our largest AI models, we are able to provide insighul and expert responses to help people at work," Aparna Pappu, General Manager and Vice President of Google Workspace, said in a blog post. "Now, diverse teams in SMBs to large enterprises can use Gemini in more sophisticated ways with confidence that their interactions can be kept private."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/googles-duet-ai-for-businesses-is-now-called-gemini-too-150030242.html?src=rss
Thanks to today's Nintendo Direct focused on third-party games, we now know the identity of two of the four Xbox titles that Microsoft pledged to release on "the other consoles." One of them is Pentiment, which is coming to Nintendo Switch on February 22 (i.e. tomorrow). The other is multiplayer title Grounded, which will arrive on Switch on April 16.
Pentiment debuted on Xbox, PC and Xbox Cloud Gaming in late 2022, and it was well received by critics. The RPG has an eye-catching historical art style that fits the story a small team at Obsidian wanted to tell. Still, it's a bit of a niche game and one that game director Josh Sawyer admits would never have been possible without Game Pass.
"The old mentality of publishers and developers is generally focused on larger investments with higher [return on investment], and that's not the point in this environment, in this ecosystem," Sawyer told Waypoint Radio, as noted by Eurogamer. "[Game Pass] is the only way in which I conceive of [Pentiment] being viable."
That makes it particularly intriguing that Xbox picked Pentiment as one of the four games it's bringing to other consoles (it's worth noting that the number of Game Pass subscribers hasn't actually grown much over the last couple of years). Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said earlier this month the titles in question had all been on Xbox and PC for at least a year and that they had reached their "full potential" on those platforms.
Two of the games are community-driven (i.e. multiplayer titles), and Grounded is clearly one of those. The Honey, I Shrunk The Kids-inspired survival game has been around for a few years. It debuted in early access in July 2020 before its full release in September 2022.
The other two games crossing the great divide are "smaller games that were never really meant to be built as kind of platform exclusives and all the fanfare that goes around that, but games that our teams really wanted to go build," Spencer said. Pentiment more or less falls into that category and had been rumored as one of the games to hit Switch and/or PlayStation. The other two Xbox games expected to come to other consoles are Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/former-xbox-exclusive-pentiment-is-coming-to-switch-on-february-22-143345195.html?src=rss
Apple has today announced Sports, a new iPhone app offering real-time stats for a number of major leagues. Once installed, users can set their favorite team and get a trove of data on their lock screen in the live activities box when the team is playing. Available free from today in the US, Canada and the UK, the app presently supports Basketball, Hockey and Soccer Football. The company added that other sports, including Baseball and American Football will debut for their upcoming seasons.
There are plenty of reasons you might not be able to watch your team of choice play live. You may have a prior engagement, the game may not be televised, or Todd Boehly has done so much damage to the club you can’t bear to look at it any more. In those situations, push alerts from major sports apps has been a lifeline, but it’s not always entirely reliable.
Now, it has been possible to get this working since iOS 16, if you fancied messing around in the depths of the Apple TV app. And some third-party platforms, like MLB’s homegrown app, would put this data in your lock screen or Dynamic Island. But Apple says that its own setup offers a “simple and fast way to stay up to speed on the teams and leagues they love.” The setup will also sync up with any sports preferences already stored in the Apple TV or Apple News apps.
Of more concern is that Sports will also offer up live betting odds for the games as they’re in play. It’s worth noting it will be possible to deactivate the live odds feature in settings, but it seems like it would have been smarter and less potentially harmful to make that opt-in, rather than opt-out.
Apple Sports is available to download right now, with support for English, while French and Spanish are supported where available.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-sports-puts-real-time-scores-on-your-iphone-lock-screen-140050382.html?src=rss
Nintendo's about to kick off its first event of the year with the Direct Partner Showcase focused on upcoming third-party games for Switch. We could see the first news about Xbox titles like Pentiment coming to other platforms and maybe, hopefully more about the much-delayed Hollow Knight sequel, Silksong. The 25-minute presentation kicks off at 9AM ET today (February 21) and you can watch it below.
As mentioned, today's Direct could be more significant than a typical showcase. Last week, Microsoft announced that it would begin bringing some of its exclusive titles to "other consoles," likely meaning the Switch and Sony's PlayStation 5.
Microsoft didn't elaborate much more than that, but rumors cite Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Sea of Thieves and Grounded as likely first titles moving to other platforms. The only thing we know for certain, though, is that Starfield and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will remain Xbox exclusives for now.
Apart from that, there are a few upcoming third-party games without release dates including Contra: Operation Galuga and Penny's Big Breakaway, so Nintendo might give us more info about those. We're also hoping to hear about Hollow Knight: Silksong which, last we heard in May 2023, was delayed and had no updated release window.
[video here]
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/watch-the-first-nintendo-direct-of-2024-here-at-9am-et-133026295.html?src=rss
An appeals court has blocked a $1 billion copyright verdict from 2019 against US internet service provider Cox Communications and ordered a retrial, Arts Technica has reported. A three-judge panel ruled unanimously that Cox didn't profit directly from its users' piracy, rebutting claims from Sony, Universal and Warner.
The judges did affirm the original jury's finding of willful contributory infringement from the trial, first announced back in 2018. To that effect, they ordered a new damages trial that may reduce the size of the award.
"We reverse the vicarious liability verdict and remand for a new trial on damages because Cox did not profit from its subscribers' acts of infringement, a legal prerequisite for vicarious liability," the panel wrote. It added that "no reasonable jury could find that Cox received a direct financial benefit from its subscribers' infringement of Plaintiffs' copyrights."
Cox allegedly refused to take "reasonable measures" to fight piracy, according to the original allegations. Internet providers are supposed to terminate the accounts of offending users, but the ISP only conducted temporary disconnections and warned some users more than 100 times. The labels claimed it even instituted a cap on accepted copyright complaints and cut back on anti-piracy staffers.
However, the judges said that Sony offered no causal connection between infringement and higher revenues for Cox. "No evidence suggest that customers chose Cox's Internet service, as opposed to a competitor's, because of any knowledge or expectation about Cox's lenient response to infringement."
Under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and EU rules, ISPs enjoy "safe harbor" protections that shield them from liability for user actions. However, that only holds if they comply with specific requirements and address copyright violations promptly — and in this case, Cox didn't do that, the judges said.
"The jury saw evidence that Cox knew of specific instances of repeat copyright infringement occurring on its network, that Cox traced those instances to specific users, and that Cox chose to continue providing monthly Internet access to those users... because it wanted to avoid losing revenue," the ruling states. The case is now headed back to a US District court.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/appeals-court-overturns-1-billion-copyright-lawsuit-against-cox-130810427.html?src=rss
Google has released an open AI model called Gemma, which it says is created using the same research and technology that was used to build its Gemini AI models. The company says Gemma is its contribution to the open community and is meant to help developers "in building AI responsibly." As such, it also introduced the Responsible Generative AI Toolkit alongside Gemma. It contains a debugging tool, as well as a guide with best practices for AI development based on Google's experience.
The company has made Gemma available in two different sizes — Gemma 2B and Gemma 7B — which both come with pre-trained and instruction-tuned variants and are both lightweight enough to run directly on a developer's laptop or desktop computer. Google says Gemma surpasses much larger models when it comes to key benchmarks and that both model sizes outperform other open models out there.
In addition to being powerful, the Gemma models were trained to be safe. Google used automated techniques to strip personal information from the data it used to train the models, and it used reinforcement learning based on human feedback to ensure Gemma's instruction-tuned variants show responsible behaviors. Companies and independent developers could use Gemma to create AI-powered applications, especially if none of the currently available open models are powerful enough for what they want to build.
Google has plans to introduce even more Gemma variants in the future for an even more diverse range of applications. That said, those who want to start working with the models right now can access them through data science platform Kaggle, the company's Colab notebooks or through Google Cloud.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-introduces-a-lightweight-open-ai-model-called-gemma-130053289.html?src=rss
Fujifilm’s X100V was, for some reason, a huge hit on TikTok. This made it hard to buy, despite its tiny form factor and retro Fuji appeal. Fortunately, the company is here to make money offer an improved update, the 40.2-megapixel X100 VI. While keeping the same retro form, it has much faster shooting speeds, in-body stabilization, 6.2K 30p video and more. Video-wise, it can also capture at 4K at 60 fps and 1080p at 240fps.
Fujifilm’s X100VI is now on pre-order for $1,600 in silver or black, with shipping slated for early March 2024. Money to burn? Desperate for the TikTok cachet? The company is also offering a special edition version “engraved with the corporate brand logo from Fujifilm’s founding in 1934” for $2,000.
A project in the UK has explored if a Garmin Venu 2 wearable (and dedicated companion app) could free up doctors and nurses, six minutes at a time. The six-minute walk test (6MWT) can diagnose and monitor a number of cardiovascular maladies. This includes conditions, like pulmonary hypertension, which, if untreated, are eventually fatal. This project, however, crunches the test down to a simpler one minute.
Because the research was funded by a charity, the British Heart Foundation, the watch had to offer good value for money, and Garmin, with its established health research division, gave the team “confidence in the accuracy of the sensors.” The study suggests cutting the test to one minute has no detrimental effect on its outcome or accuracy, and patients are far more likely to run the test regularly if they can do so at home.
The retailer plans to boost its ad business with Vizio’s TV systems.
Walmart is buying Smart TV manufacturer Vizio for $2.3 billion, the retail giant announced as part of its latest earnings report. While Walmart has long been one of the major sellers of Vizio TVs, the company says the acquisition “enables a profitable advertising business that is rapidly scaling” via the company’s SmartCast OS. The companies plan to combine their ad businesses, with Vizio increasing Walmart’s access to more consumer info, like viewing data. The deal is subject to regulatory approval.
Apple announced on Tuesday that its latest iPhones can retain 80 percent of their original charging capacity after 1,000 cycles — double the company’s previous estimate — without new hardware or software updates. And because timing is everything, the change will arrive in time for upcoming EU regulations that will assign an energy grade for phones’ battery longevity.
Some tiers will soon be more expensive in the UK, Canada, Australia and Turkey.
After laying off around 500 workers and reducing how much streamers make from Prime subscriptions, Twitch is increasing the price of its subscriptions for the first time. The service says it’s “updating prices in several countries to help streamer revenue keep pace with rising costs and reflect local currency fluctuations.” The first markets to feel the impact of those changes are the UK, Canada, Australia and Turkey. On the plus side, streamers will have the same revenue share, so they’ll earn more from subscriptions in those regions.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-fujifilm-updates-its-tiktok-famous-compact-camera-121509964.html?src=rss
Following its autonomous food delivery launch in Miami and Fairfax, Virginia, Uber Eats will soon be offering the same robotic service in Japan — its first outside the US. It is once again collaborating with Google alum startup Cartken, with local compliance help from Mitsubishi Electric, to bring a fleet of Model C sidewalk delivery robots to select areas in Tokyo in March. Uber Eats Japan CEO Shintaro Nakagawa says the autonomous delivery service will solve the local labor shortage issue, while complementing the existing human delivery methods "by bicycle, motorbike, light cargo, and on foot."
Cartken's six-wheeled Model C uses six cameras and advanced AI models for autonomous driving plus obstacle detection, and remote control mode is available when needed. With guidance from Mitsubishi, the robot has been modified to suit local needs in Japan. For one, its speed is capped at 5.4 km/h or about 3.36 mph as per local regulation, which is a lot slower than the 6 mph top speed it's actually capable of. The loading capacity has also been reduced from 1.5 cubic feet to about 0.95 cubic feet (27 liters), likely due to the extra thermal insulation in the compartment. Uber Eats adds that for the sake of privacy, people's faces are automatically masked in footage captured by the robots.
While this is Uber Eats' robotic delivery debut in Japan, Cartken already has a presence there thanks to Mitsubishi. Since early 2022, the duo has worked with Starbucks, local e-commerce giant Rakuten and supermarket chain Seiyu in some parts of Japan. In the US, Cartken also has a partnership with Grubhub to provide autonomous food delivery service on college campuses, including the Ohio State University and the University of Arizona.
Even though Uber Eats has yet to share which Tokyo restaurants will be tapping into its robotic delivery service, it should have no problem seeking partnership given Cartken's prior local experience. That said, I highly doubt that the pair would risk trialing their robots through a crowd of drunkards in Shibuya just yet.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/uber-eats-expands-its-autonomous-food-delivery-service-to-japan-092727592.html?src=rss
