Tech

Sony just published an interview on the PlayStation Blog with two of the game’s developers, and it’s packed with details about what you can expect and some ways the development team adapted the game to VR. This was one of my favorite tidbits:

This is also a small detail, but the camera for the first-person perspective is set a little lower than Leon’s actual eye level. If the camera is at the same eye level as Leon – who is quite tall himself – the Ganados (enemy villagers) will appear smaller. The Ganados approach and attack Leon from a low, forward posture, so if you get too close to them, you end up looking down at them which strips away the intensity.

Resident Evil 4’s VR mode launches for PSVR 2 on December 8th.

Bloomberg reports that Steve Hotelling is retiring from Apple. I had never heard of him, but this paragraph from Bloomberg underscores just how much he’s contributed to Apple’s products:

The executive is named on hundreds of patents, including ones related to the iPhone and iPad’s multitouch screen, and known for being one of the inventors of Touch ID — a key feature for authenticating users on Apple devices. “No one was more brilliant than Steve,” said a longtime peer at the company.

Some of chip chief Johny Srouji’s direct reports will be taking over Hotelling’s work.

The online forms creator is rolling out a beta that lets you share surveys and sign-up lists with specific people — just like Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. It’s a nice little update, as Forms previously only let you restrict responses to anyone with the link or those within your domain.

At BlackHat EU, Binarly showed how custom boot logo features could be exploited by crashing vulnerable image parsers, report SecurityWeek and ArsTechnica, allowing them to take over Windows and Linux systems. Binarly’s researchers write, “we detected parsers vulnerable to LogoFAIL in hundreds of devices sold by Lenovo, Supermicro, MSI, HP, Acer, Dell, Fujitsu, Samsung, and Intel.”

Not all of those systems are actually exploitable this way, but some vendors, like Lenovo, have issued BIOS updates or advisories in response.

Wikipedia has released its top articles of the year, and numero uno is one on ChatGPT. In a morbid twist, “Deaths in 2023” came in second.

Finally, India’s vast English-language speaking population just can’t log-off — articles on the 2023 Cricket World Cup and the Indian Premier League come next in the ranking. You can see the full list of popular Wikipedia articles below.

I expected nothing less, even though the actual trailer is only 90 seconds long. The trailer looks great, and good news: Digital Foundry is “inclined to believe” that the footage “is representative of the actual game,” Digital Foundry’s Richard Leadbetter writes in a written analysis.

IGN published a big piece today about the “soul-crushing” mood at Bungie following recent layoffs and the delay of the game’s next big expansion.

While the studio, which is owned by Sony, remains independent, IGN reports that if Bungie misses some financial goals “by too great an amount,” Sony can dissolve Bungie’s board and take over.

In the tvOS 17.2 release candidate, the two apps push users toward the TV app, according to 9to5Mac. The change, assuming it sticks around when tvOS 17.2 is released publicly, isn’t much of a surprise; Bloomberg reported in October that Apple was planning to discontinue the iTunes Movies and TV shows apps in favor of the TV app.

That 10 percent number translates to about 40 jobs, including part of the company’s playlist curation team, sources told Bloomberg.

Spotify announced layoffs affecting 17 percent of its staff earlier this week.

The genetic testing site, which recently admitted hackers accessed the data of 6.9 million users, has begun notifying users of a change to its terms of service that’s meant to “streamline arbitration proceedings where multiple similar claims are filed,” as spotted by Stack Diary.

The change forces users into binding arbitration for any disputes, meaning users will have to settle matters with the company outside of court. It also prevents them from filing class action lawsuits. 23andMe is only giving users 30 days from when they receive the email to opt out of the new policy, which you can do by contacting arbitrationoptout@23andme.com.

Google’s new December Pixel software update includes the “experimental” ability to force any app into fullscreen mode on the Pixel Fold or Pixel Tablet — even those that wouldn’t usually support it.

How about that, Instagram? Does this look completely silly? Well, sure. But it works. It’s a fullscreen Instagram app for a tablet. Victory is mine.

I’m certain there are better examples of where this might be useful.

Google launched its Gemini AI model earlier today to compete with OpenAI’s popular GPT-4. While Google has a number of videos demonstrating Gemini’s capabilities, the one below stood out to me.

This multimodal AI model is capable of reasoning across images, audio, video, code, and, of course, text. So you can start drawing, and Gemini will understand you’re drawing a duck, or you can set some cups down on a table with a paper ball and Gemini reasons you want to play a game. If Gemini can understand my poor attempts at doodling, then I’ll be the one shouting, “what the quack!”

And wow, I do not have them. So I flew to Berlin to learn from a “Promptographer,” and I came home with more generated pancakes than I know what to do with.

Shortly after Geoff Keighley announced Valve will give away 100 Steam Deck OLEDs during the event, Lenovo piped in with a giveaway for its competing handheld: the Legion Go. The company will hand out 100 free devices during The Game Awards, which you can enter to win starting tomorrow at 7:30PM ET.

You can see your personal recap by tapping or clicking the banana icon at the top of the app while logged in (though it doesn’t seem to show up on the Old Reddit desktop interface for me).

This year, Reddit has added “Community Recaps,” which “highlight the top posts, comments, and visitors unique to the subreddit,” according to a post from Reddit.

In Reddit’s all-up 2023 recap, there was no direct mention of this year’s user outcry. However, the company did reference John Oliver, who some subreddits featured in protest, as “surely the only man who can make an API update sexy.”

“You’ll get 9 characters, 15 weapons, 1 Stage, 20 in-game unlocks, the ability to see the future, and an Adventure,” developer Poncle wrote in an FAQ about the new Emergency Meeting DLC. “One of those answers is an Impostor.”

The DLC will cost $2.49, according to a press email, which is just a tad more expensive than the $1.99 price for the previous two expansions.

Emergency Meeting launches on PC and Xbox on December 18th and on mobile and Nintendo Switch “soon.” While you wait, you can check out the new story mode “Adventures” launching today.

The decentralized social network announced in November that it would finally be adding a public web view, but as TechCrunch reports, some users asked for a way to make their posts private.

Note that this upcoming change does not mean Bluesky will have private accounts; Bluesky is only giving users a way to keep posts private from users that aren’t logged in.

“Remember, your posts, profile, and likes are all public data,” Bluesky wrote. “But sometimes, added friction matters.”

There’s a new “cinematic trailer” for Epic Games’ forthcoming Lego Fortnite experience, and while the trailer doesn’t have actual footage from the game, seeing all the Lego-ified Fortnite characters running around is pretty delightful.

The experience launches on Thursday, so we won’t have to wait too long until we can play it ourselves.

The giveaway will include the most expensive 1TB model of Valve’s updated handheld, which costs $649. You can enter for a chance to win during The Game Awards on December 7th from 7:30PM ET to 11:00PM ET.