TikTok is rolling out more screen time controls to help users manage how much time they are spending in the app. With the change, the company is adding a new in-app dashboard that will more closely track how long people are spending in the app.
The dashboard will show statistics like how much time you spend in the app, when you sue the app most and how often it’s opened. Additionally, TikTok users will now be able to set screen time limits for how long they can use the app in any one sitting.
Previously, the the app has offered screen time controls that time out after a designated daily limit. But with the new setting users can, for example, opt to have the app remind them to “take a break” if they have had it open for an extended period of time.
TikTok
The changes come as TikTok and its peers have faced questions about their apps’ impact on teens. Earlier this year, lawmakers in the Senate introduced a bill that would increase the study of social media addiction in an effort to put up more “guardrails” to protect younger users.
Notably, TikTok now says it’s introducing additional screen time restrictions for teens between the ages of 13 and 17. Teens will now see weekly “digital well-being prompts” and get additional screen time reminders when they have spent more than 100 minutes in the app on a single day.
Starting today, you can stream a free demo of Resident Evil Villagefrom Capcom's website, with no need for a fancy gaming PC, Xbox or PlayStation. The demo is similar to one that's available on other platforms, which allows players to explore parts of the village and castle. This appetizer for one of last year's biggest-selling games is powered by Immersive Stream for Games, a version of Stadia tech that Google is licensing to others.
The demo will work on just about any computer, as well as iOS and Android phones and tablets, as long as the device can handle high-definition video and you have a sturdy enough internet connection (with a download speed of at least 10Mbps). It runs on Chrome on Windows, macOS and Android. On iOS, you can try it on Safari. The resolution tops out at 1080p and there's no HDR mode.
PlayStation DualShock 4 and Xbox One controllers are officially supported, but other peripherals might work. Alternatively, you can use touch controls on mobile or a mouse and keyboard.
Capcom
As with Stadia's click-to-play trials, there's no need to register to play the demo. It's worth noting that you'll be disconnected after 10 minutes of inactivity. There's no save function, so you'll need to restart from the beginning if you disconnect. You can play as many times as you like and there's no time limit, unlike previous versions of the demo.
In February, Insiderreported that Google was looking to secure deals with Capcom, Peloton and others to build the licensing aspect of its game-streaming business. It was suggested that Capcom might use the tech to stream demos from its website, which turned out to be the case. This could even be a precursor to Capcom running its own game streaming storefront.
A 2018 change in Facebook’s algorithm resulted in significant boosts in engagement for local Republican groups even though their Democratic counterparts posted more often, according to newly published research. The findings, first reported byNBC News, line up with one of the major revelations of the Facebook Papers. Namely, that a change meant to emphasize content from family and friends wound up making News Feed more divisive by incentivizing negative posts.
The latest research, published in Research & Politics, used CrowdTangle data to measure engagement with posts from local Democratic and Republican groups on Facebook and Twitter between January 2016 and August 2021. The researchers found that by the fall of 2018, several months after Facebook announced its algorithm change, there was a significant uptick in engagement with Republican pages on Facebook that didn’t occur on Twitter.
Of course without the actual algorithm we cannot say what caused the change in 2018. We can say there was a change, specifically on Facebook, and that it impacted a large number of local Republican parties. We can also say the timing lines up with what others saw for FB's changes
“We conclude that it seems possible that changes in how Facebook rated content led to a doubling of the total shares of local Republican party posts compared to local Democratic party posts in the first half of 2019 even though Democratic parties posted more often during this period,” the paper’s authors write.
The researchers say it’s “difficult” to know for sure what caused the shift toward the end of 2018. But they note that their findings broadly align with what we know about Facebook’s algorithm change, and the reaction to it, thanks to the Facebook Papers. The company had announced a major change to News Feed’s ranking systems in January 2018, in order to emphasize “meaningful social interactions” or MSI. But documents disclosed by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen indicate that by early 2019 publishers and political parties were raising questions about whether MSI was incentivizing negativity.
“Of course without the actual algorithm we cannot say what caused the change in 2018,” Kevin Reuning, one of the paper’s authors wrote on Twitter. “We can say there was a change, specifically on Facebook, and that it impacted a large number of local Republican parties. We can also say the timing lines up with what others saw for FB's changes”
In a statement to NBC News, Meta called the researchers’ findings “implausible,” saying differences in engagement could be attributed to other factors. “It doesn’t add up with what MSI actually did, which was reduce the amount of public content — like that of political parties — on the platform,” a company spokesperson said. “The trends here instead seem to coincide with a divisive election cycle, and since the differences between political parties in the U.S. have been growing for decades, the idea that a change to Facebook ranking would fundamentally shift how people choose to engage with political parties is implausible.”
When its Pay Later service launches alongside iOS 16 later this year, Apple plans to handle lending decisions on its own. According toBloomberg, the tech giant has established a subsidiary called Apple Financing to conduct credit checks and customer approvals. The new firm will operate separately from Apple, but it has obtained the necessary state licenses to offer the feature.
While Apple has dabbled in financial services before, it did so with the help of institutions like Goldman Sachs. The investment bank is still involved in Apple Pay Later. According to Bloomberg, the firm will issue the Mastercard payment credentials customers will use to complete purchases, but it won’t handle lending and credit assessments like it currently does with Apple Card.
The move sees Apple attempting to replicate a strategy that has worked for it in the past. The company has invested significant time and money to develop in-house versions for many of the components that power its computers and mobile devices. Outside of helping make its products more compelling to consumers, the strategy has allowed Apple to lessen its dependence on external suppliers like Intel and potentially increase its revenue. And it appears Apple hopes to achieve a similar outcome on the financial services front.
According to Bloomberg, the company is working on its own payment processing engine as part of an initiative dubbed — not so subtly — “Breakout.” It’s also developing tools for fraud analysis and interest calculations, among other customer-facing features. As with Apple’s push into subscriptions with services like TV+ and Fitness+, the company likely sees those efforts as a way to keep current iPhone, iPad and Mac customers tied to its ecosystem.
Researchers have 3D-printed hearts using silicone and even a patient's own cells, but they haven't matched the full functionality of the real thing and aren't much good for repairing hearts. There's some progress on that front, however, as a team at Harvard's Wyss Institute has developed a technique for 3D-printing long cardiac macrofilaments that develop into muscle-like filaments which contract. The new method mimics the complex alignment of a heart's contracting elements (a difficult feat so far) while producing tissue thick enough to use in regenerative heart treatments.
The system is a refinement of Wyss' existing SWIFT (Sacrificial Writing in Functional Tissue) bioprinting technology. Their approach created a platform with 1,050 wells, each with two microscopic pillars. Scientists filled the wells with human-induced pluripotent stem cells (that is, young cells capable of developing into multiple forms) as well as a protein collagen and the cells used to form connective tissue. The combination forms a dense tissue that aligns along the axis linking the micropillars. The team then lifts the resulting organ building blocks off the pillars, uses that to create a bioprinting ink and uses the motion of the 3D printer head to further help with alignment.
This is just a small piece of the heart. While the technology produces a relatively high output, there's much more work to be done before a fully functional, 3D-printed organic heart is available.
The research group believes their work could still be useful long before reaching the whole-heart milestone. The 3D-printed filaments could be used to replace scars following heart attacks, or to create improved disease models. They might even patch holes in newborns with congenital heart defects, and would grow with those child patients. Simply put, a damaged heart might not be the permanent problem it tends to be today.
Shields Health Care Group, a Massachusetts-based company involved with imaging and health management services, has announced a major hack that could have exposed sensitive information for up to two million people. The company learned of the attack on March 28th, and after an investigation it found that a malicious actor had access to some of its systems between March 7th and 20th.
Crucially, the hack included sensitive information like social security numbers, medical record information, patient IDs and insurance details. The company claims there isn't any evidence of identity theft from the incident, but there's still a chance customers could be compromised down the line.
"Upon discovery, we took steps to secure our systems, including rebuilding certain systems, and conducted a thorough investigation to confirm the nature and scope of the activity and to determine who may be affected," the company said in a statement. "Additionally, while we have safeguards in place to protect data in our care, we continue to review and further enhance these protections as part of our ongoing commitment to data security."
Shields says it has contacted the FBI, as well as local and state regulators, about the incident. According to the AP, the FBI isn't commenting on the attack yet. Moving forward, Shields says it will contact customers once it learns who's affected.
Twitter could comply with Elon Musk’s demand for more data about its users as soon as this week. According to The Washington Post, the company plans to give the billionaire full access to its full “firehose,” an internal database that includes details on the more than 500 million tweets posted to the service every day. In addition to representing a real-time record of what’s happening on Twitter at any moment, the trove includes device data and information about the accounts that access the platform.
After Twitter accepted Musk’s $44 billion buyout offer in April, the billionaire announced in May the deal was “temporarily on hold” over concerns he had about fake accounts. Twitter has consistently claimed that bots represent less than five percent of its daily users, a number Musk says he wants to confirm before moving forward with the acquisition. On Monday, Musk accused the company of committing a “material breach” of the merger agreement by allegedly refusing to disclose enough information about fake accounts.
At the time, Twitter said it would “continue to cooperatively share information” with Musk as it worked toward completing the transaction. “We believe this agreement is in the best interest of all shareholders,” the company told The Post, reiterating its statement from Monday. “We intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement at the agreed price and terms.”
How many bots and fake accounts there are on Twitter is important to Musk because that number would have a significant impact on his ability to monetize the platform through ads. Musk has committed about $33 billion of his personal wealth to buy the company, and he’s required to go through with the deal unless he can show Twitter misled him or that its value has changed.
Google Cloud developer advocate Emma Haruka Iwao and her colleagues once again claim to have calculated Pi to a new record number of digits. Iwao says that the team has calculated the mathematical constant to 100 trillion digital decimal places.
Iwao and her team previously set the record in 2019 when they carried out a calculation to an accuracy of 31.4 trillion digits. The benchmark has been broken a few times since then, including when researchers from a Swiss university calculated Pi to 82.8 trillion digits last year — twice as many as the Google team attained a few years back. Iwao and her team are working with Guinness World Records for official validation of their achievement as a world record.
In a blog post, Iwao wrote that finding as many digits of Pi as possible is a way to measure the progress of compute power. Her job involves showing off what Google Cloud is capable of, so it's not too surprising that Iwao tapped into the power of the platform to perform the calculation.
In 2019, the calculation (which figured out a third as many digits as the most recent attempt) took 121 days. This time around, the calculation ran for 157 days, 23 hours, 31 minutes and 7.651 seconds, meaning the computers were running more than twice as quickly despite Iwao using "the same tools and techniques." Around 82,000 terabytes of data were processed overall.
Iwao also notes that reading all 100 trillion digits out loud at a rate of one per second would take more than 3.1 million years. And in case you're wondering, the 100-trillionth decimal place of Pi is 0.
It’s June, and video game fans across the globe know what that means – it’s not E3. Again. The old, in-person gaming show has been canceled for the third year in a row, but this summer will still be filled with news and virtual events, thanks in large part to Canada’s sweetheart Geoff Keighley.
It all takes place in early June, which is like right now, so let’s take a look at the schedule for Summer Game Fest and break down what to expect from the studios involved.
Summer Game Fest is less a singular event and more a state of mind. It comprises a handful of virtual shows spread over 10 days, starting on June 2nd with the PlayStation State of Play stream. This one already happened, and it was short and sweet, focusing on content for PlayStation VR 2. Capcom kicked things off with a reveal of the Resident Evil 4 remake, the announcement of a VR version of Resident Evil: Village, and a release window of 2023 for Street Fighter 6. Square Enix also showed off the first gameplay trailer for Final Fantasy XVI, complete with a 2023 timeframe for launch. Oddly enough, there’s still no word on when the PSVR2 will actually come out.
Resident Evil 4
Capcom
After that, Activision is hosting its own little party for the reveal of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II on June 8th at 1pm ET. The game is a sequel to 2019's Modern Warfare and a reboot of the series. This show literally just wrapped up, and Activision shared its plans to bring Modern Warfare II's technology to the new Warzone, which will land after October this year. No Russian, the controversial airport mission from the original Modern Warfare II, will not be included in the reboot.
Summer Game Fest officially kicks off with a big live-streamed event on June 9th at 2pm ET. Hosted by Keighley, the show is expected to be two hours long and will feature announcements from the usual suspects, including 2K, Atlus, Bloober Team, Capcom, EA, Epic Games, Warner Bros. and Square Enix. The Day of the Devs stream directly after the main show will spotlight indie games specifically, backed by iam8bit and Double Fine.
Not much has been publicly confirmed for the kickoff show, but we’ll definitely get a fresh look at Gotham Knights, an appearance by The Rock, and lots of raw gameplay footage, according to Keighley. Even with State of Play last week, there’s still room for Capcom to drop some details about DLC for Resident Evil: Village, and for Square Enix to showcase Forspoken, which comes out in October. Atlus may show off something in the Persona universe, and rumor has it Bloober Team is working on a Silent Hill game — but it could also be building a new Layers of Fear.
Next on the calendar is indie publisher Devolver Digital, with a Twitch stream on June 9th at 6pm ET, the same night as the main Summer Game Fest event. It’s Devolver, so this show’s gonna be weird. It’s gonna have a lot of f-bombs. It’s gonna leave you with the feeling that Devolver is scrappy and relatable, but also way too cool for you. It’s gonna try really hard to disguise the fact that yes, even Devolver’s show is simply another long ad from a company entrenched in the video game industry’s multibillion dollar corporate system – but most of all, I bet it’ll be funny as hell. Devolver always puts on a good show, and they always have a rich roster of indie developers to choose from. This year should be no different, with Suda51 hosting the stream and recent hits like Death’s Door, Inscryption, Trek to Yomi and Weird West on the publisher’s roster.
Immortality
Half Mermaid
On June 10th, there’s a Netflix Geeked Week stream followed by a Tribeca Games Spotlight focusing on a curated selection of upcoming indie titles, including Immortality, Thirsty Suitors, As Dusk Falls and Oxenfree II. And then, on June 12th, it’s time for the most E3 event of the summer – the Xbox and Bethesda showcase.
The Xbox and Bethesda stream kicks off at 1pm ET on Sunday, June 12th. There are no confirmed announcements so far, but the show’s cosmic marketing scheme suggests we’ll see something from Starfield, Bethesda’s huge new sci-fi RPG. This will be bittersweet for anyone who’s been following the game’s development – just last month, Bethesda delayed Starfieldinto the first half of 2023, pushing it back from an initial release date of November 11th, 2022. Aside from a few teaser videos and dev diaries, we haven’t seen much of Starfield, and the Xbox show is the ideal time to break out some actual gameplay and maybe even convince fans that the delay will be worthwhile.
It’s very possible we’ll get a good look at another delayed Bethesda property – Redfall, the open-world, co-op vampire shooterdeveloped by Dishonored studio Arkane. Redfall was originally supposed to come out this summer, but Bethesda pushed it into the first half of 2023 alongside Starfield. It’d be great to see some gameplay from this title, since so far the marketing has consisted of stylized, cinematic videos. And to round out the Bethesda properties, there’s always a chance that Elder Scrolls 6 will make an appearance, considering we haven’t seen anything about it since 2018 – you know, back when E3 was still a thing.
But that’s enough about Bethesda – Xbox owns 23 game studios and it has Game Pass, the company’s subscription game-streaming service that’s sure to be mentioned every other minute during the show. Other potential hits for the Xbox stream include Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, the next Forza Motorsport, and maybe even something about the new Fable that was announced in 2020. And of course there’s always room for Halo: Infinite updates.
Senua's Saga: Hellblade II
Ninja Theory
With Sony and Microsoft chugging along in the latest console generation, the focus right now is on software, and both studios have plenty to prove in this space. Sony barely participated in the summer’s events and the company doesn’t seem interested in talking about major in-house projects like God of War: Ragnarok or Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2. Meanwhile, two significant delays from Xbox this year were a big blow to the company’s reputation, especially considering how important first-party exclusives are in a subscription-based ecosystem. Xbox promises to include its blockbuster games in Game Pass subscriptions on day one, at no extra charge, while that isn’t the case with Sony’s new subscription service, PlayStation Plus Premium. This poses a significant consumer-facing advantage for Xbox and I expect to hear a lot about first-party exclusives in Game Pass during the company’s big show.
And with that, it looks like Summer Game Fest is done – but there’s still plenty more gaming news to come this year. Nintendo loves to host digital showcases whenever it damn well pleases and we’re just about due for another one; EA usually has a show of its own at some point; Sony still has plenty of PSVR2 and PS Plus Premium details to share, and Microsoft will never stop talking about Game Pass. In fact, Xbox is hosting a second showcase on June 14th. And when all else fails, there are so many indie games, you guys. Let’s all have some fun.
Let’s get this out of the way: No Russian will not be included in the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II. In fact, the game will penalize friendly fire and fail players who shoot civilians while in combat.
This is in stark contrast to the No Russian mission from the original Modern Warfare II, which came out in 2009 – in this level, players were instructed to shoot their way through a busy airport, killing civilians en masse alongside a Russian terrorist organization. The protagonist was undercover, trying to infiltrate the cell for the CIA, and even though it was possible to skip this section or play it without firing a single shot, the fictional peer pressure to kill as many people as possible was strong.
No Russian sparked heavy controversy with the release of Modern Warfare II. Though Call of Duty has made billions gamifying the horrors of war, many players balked at the idea of role-playing as a mass shooter targeting unarmed civilians. The mission came with a content warning in the US and it was censored internationally. Infinity Ward and Activision were forced to publicly justify its inclusion, arguing against the idea that it was tone-deaf, ham-fisted and needlessly disturbing.
With the 2022 version of Modern Warfare II, Infinity Ward is avoiding the conversation altogether. In response to the question, “Can you confirm whether the No Russian mission will be included in the new game, in any form?” an Activision spokesperson responded as follows:
“No. There are NPC civilians in the game, but you will be penalized for friendly fires. If civilians are caught in the crossfire, players will automatically get a mission fail.”
Activision
This fits with the overall vibe of the new Modern Warfare II. At a media briefing ahead of its reveal, Infinity Ward developers emphasized the game’s entertainment value over serious wartime themes, at one point using the phrase, "fun for everyone." They said they wanted this Modern Warfare II to be realistic, but still "cool." Without mentioning No Russian specifically, developers said the goal of the original game was to be provocative, while this year’s version was aiming to be heroic.
With Modern Warfare II, Infinity Ward is sticking to the fun bits of war. The game still deals in real-world themes of organized violence, large-scale military action and shadowy terrorist groups – but no joke, I’ve never heard Call of Duty developers use the word “fun” so freely in a pre-release briefing.
This may be because Modern Warfare II marks the beginning of a fresh approach to Call of Duty for Activision, with pivotal implications for the future of Warzone specifically. When the next version of Warzone comes out after October of this year, it will include the AI improvements, new vehicle behaviors and upgraded physics of Modern Warfare II, and both games will run on the same engine.
Activision
“A wholly new Warzone will launch as an extension of the Modern Warfare II universe,” an Activision spokesperson said. “With it comes new technology, new features, and new gameplay that work seamlessly together…. In order to fully deliver this state-of-the-art experience, Warzone 2.0 will feature new Modern Warfare II content and systems with brand new progression and inventories. Today’s Warzone will continue on as a separate experience that will include a continuation of player progression and inventories within that Warzone experience.”
Modern Warfare II is scheduled to come out on October 28th. Warzone 2.0 should land soon after, according to Activision.
Modern Warfare II is a sequel to 2019’s Modern Warfare, which rebooted the series but kept familiar themes and characters like Captain John Price. The new game follows Price’s Task Force 141 and Mexican Special Forces as they attempt to thwart terrorist plans across the globe.
“We love telling stories,” Infinity Ward head writer Brian Bloom said. “Story is character and character is story, and that's writery stuff that writers sometimes say internally, but it boils down to a simple thing. If you have a plot, who’s in it, what’s happening?”
With Modern Warfare II, developers focused on refining water physics and figuring out how combat works above and below the surface. One level they showed off, Wet Work, had the player sneak into a marina by swimming around docked boats, taking out security forces by throwing knives and shooting a pistol upward through the water. In the new game, shooting underwater reduces the impact of each bullet, whether it breaks the surface or not, but the pistol otherwise operates normally.
These new water physics will apply to multiplayer portions of the game, as well as Warzone 2.0. In terms of multiplayer for Modern Warfare II, developers have taken observational data from past Call of Duty games to identify three main player behaviors: aggressive, defensive and reactionary, each of them with assault and stealth variants. The game’s default loadouts fall into the resulting six categories. As for vehicles, it’s possible to shoot their doors and tires off, complete on-the-fly repairs, and get a 360 degree view when leaning out of a window. Amphibious vehicles and a helicopter troop carrier also make an appearance in multiplayer.
New multiplayer maps come in large-scale and traditional sizes, and there’s a new 6v6 mode called Knockout that infuses Gunfight with a multiplayer component. Players have one life (with revive) and one minute on the timer, and a bag randomly spawns in one of three locations. The winner is the last person left alive or the person holding the bag when time runs out.
Activision
The AI systems in Modern Warfare II have been tweaked to better facilitate emergent gameplay and mimic real-world scenarios, while Infinity Ward is running internal tests on maps with 300 AI characters and 100 live players. Call of Duty’s Ricochet Anti-Cheat system will be live in Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2.0 on day one.
Infinity Ward creative director and co-head Patrick Kelly teased what this could all mean for Warzone 2.0 and the future of Call of Duty in his introductory speech, saying, “What if there was tons and tons of AI in the world and things like that, and there was tons of players and stuff like that? That could be potentially really cool, right? We want a scenario where everyone is playing together, having fun and playing how they want to play and what they want to play.”
