Новости за 28.04.2022

Square Enix

In a candid Twitter thread, celebrated video game developer Yuji Naka revealed details about a lawsuit he filed against Square Enix and his struggle to make the ambitious but ultimately atrocious Balan Wonderworld a better game.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Even as it deals with continued supply constraints and consumers wary of inflation, Apple today reported the best March quarter in its history. The company tallied $97.3 billion in revenue in Q2, up 9 percent over the year-ago quarter. That amounted to a profit of $25 billion, with earnings per share of $1.52.

A report finds evidence that Amazon and third parties use voice data from Alexa-enabled devices to serve targeted ads. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

A report released last week contends that Amazon uses voice data from its Echo devices to serve targeted ads on its own platforms and the web. The report, produced by researchers affiliated with the University of Washington, UC Davis, UC Irvine, and Northeastern University, said the ways Amazon does this is inconsistent with its privacy policies. Читать дальше...

The Bethesda game launcher is no more. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Bethesda.net game launcher is giving up the ghost as of May 11th, so Bethesda is allowing anyone who has purchased games on their exclusive platform to migrate their purchases to Steam. The launcher and your library will remain accessible after May 11th, but Bethesda has recommended that users begin the process as soon as possible.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon Prime Day, the company’s annual shopping holiday that targets subscribers to its premium shipping / entertainment package, will take place in July this year. The manufactured holiday for discount shopping has moved around a bit after Amazon delayed it to October for 2020 and then moved it back up to June for 2021.

Despite supply problems, it seems the Spark EV shall endure. | Photo by Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

General Motors has denied reports that it’s no longer providing battery replacements for the all-electric version of the Chevy Spark, according to Kevin Kelly, a spokesperson for the company. Kelly told The Verge in an email that the company is “currently experiencing a temporary disruption in the supply of new Spark EV packs,” but that it “remains committed to providing replacement... Читать дальше...

This is Igloo! His birthday was yesterday, and he is very patient and kind. | Alex Cranz

Elinor Karlsson has never owned a dog. But ever since she was a graduate student, she’s been studying dog genetics. (They’re good models for studying genetic diseases in humans.) Part of that work involved collecting genetic and behavioral data on thousands of dogs. And all that data meant the research team could ask a question Karlsson had been wondering for years: does a dog’s breed really say anything about how that dog acts? Читать дальше...

Image: Pop TV

Schitt’s Creek, the extremely GIF-ed comedy series, will be moving homes from Netflix to Hulu on October 3rd. Hulu announced its acquisition of the show’s US streaming rights on Thursday, saying that it will become the only place you can stream all six seasons of the show later this year.

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge

Last year, Apple added App Tracking Transparency to iOS, and the shift in the flow of data from mobile users was enough to unsettle even Facebook. Now, Google, which relies on targeted advertising for its business model, is preparing its own multi-year adjustment to mobile ad tracking and privacy.

Gameloft / Disney

Make way for Disney Dreamlight Valley, a new Disney-inspired life-sim that feels as if Disney adults got their hands on the Animal Crossing source code. In combination with yesterday’s formal announcement, I had the opportunity to participate in a hands-off demo to see a bit of the vision the developers at Gameloft have for the game. It’ll be difficult to resist the allure of talking about a brand new Disney game entirely in Disney song lyrics, but I’ll do my best to rein in that impulse. Читать дальше...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A huge reason behind Sonos’ success is the company’s adaptability. Whenever a new audio streaming service comes along — and as the industry evolves and pushes new formats like lossless and Dolby Atmos spatial audio — Sonos is always right there trying to support what’s new. For voice assistants, Sonos offers both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant on its smart speakers. And the company also widely supports Apple’s AirPlay 2 across its current product lineup. Читать дальше...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

As cryptocurrency thrives, Bitcoiners seethe

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Snap takes another stab at hardware with a selfie drone called Pixy

Image: Snap

It’s becoming a fundamental law of the internet: where people socialize, they must also shop. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and practically every other social network and messaging app on the planet has spent the last couple of years trying to make every pixel of your chats and pictures into a one-click purchasing possibility.

The Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 and their inverted Orero-style wireless charging case. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

One of the best bang-for-the-buck values in the true wireless earbuds space is now even cheaper and available in the color that goes with everything. The black Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 are currently just $99.99 at Best Buy. The $50 discount on these noise-canceling earbuds makes them a no-brainer purchase if you’re an Android user looking for a great pair of earbuds on a budget. Читать дальше...

Optic Gaming winning the Valorant Masters Finals in Reykjavik, Iceland. | Image: Riot Games

Riot Games is making some big changes to the Valorant esports scene. The shift is due to kick off in 2023 and will include the introduction of three regional leagues representing the Americas, Europe, and Asia; previously, professional Valorant operated on a tournament structure. The changes will bring Valorant more in line with Riot’s other popular competitive game, League of Legends.

Image via FCC

Update April 28th, 1:09PM ET: Snap has officially revealed the Pixy, and we went hands-on with it. You can read our full article — with video! — right here.

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

If you’ve just bought a new laptop, one of the first things you’re probably going to want to do is personalize how it looks. Windows has plenty of options for customizing what you see when you open up your device. You can not only select a color, photo, or slideshow for your wallpaper, but you can choose a lock screen and pick a theme.

Applied VR

Virtual reality company AppliedVR is taking an innovative approach to a new trial for its chronic pain treatment. Rather than try to find a group of people with chronic back pain to sign up for the trial and not get the treatment, they’ll pull data from an existing database of chronic pain patients to use as a comparison group — a strategy that has the potential to make clinical trials more efficient.

More choices about the ads you see. | Image: Google

Google is expanding its sensitive ad categories options, letting users limit how many ads they see about dating, pregnancy, parenting, and weight loss, and making those settings apply to more places. The feature was introduced as a way to let people see fewer ads on YouTube about potentially addictive gambling or alcoholic products, but now it seems that Google is expanding it to cover other potentially uncomfortable or traumatic subjects. Читать дальше...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter has reportedly contacted advertising agencies to reassure them that Elon Musk’s plans for the platform won’t make it an inhospitable place for brands.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

In a new blog post, the developers behind Call of Duty’s Ricochet anti-cheat system have outlined a new “cloaking” measure which makes legitimate players invisible to cheaters. It effectively makes it impossible for cheaters to be competitive during a match, regardless of any illicit software they might be using.

Straw-coloured fruit bats at their daytime roosts in ‘Mushitu’ or ever-green swamp forest in April, 2014, Kasanka National Park, Zambia. | Photo credit should read Nick Garbutt/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Climate change is pushing mammals into new territory, increasing the number of opportunities for viruses to jump from species to species — including humans. By 2070, if global temperatures continue to rise as predicted, there could be a total of 15,000 new cross-species “viral... Читать дальше...

Image: Sony

New details have emerged about the time-limited game trials that Sony previously announced would be part of its new PlayStation Plus Premium subscription tier. According to sources speaking to Game Developer these free trials will be required for any game with a wholesale cost of $34 (€33) or above, and must be at least two hours long. They won’t be required for previously released games, or PlayStation VR titles.

The XPS 13 Plus is available in silver or graphite.

Dell announced that the bold XPS 13 Plus it debuted back at CES 2022 is now available for purchase. It starts at $1,299, and while Dell didn’t detail the exact specifications for this configuration, it’ll likely get the lowest specs listed in a spec sheet shared by the company. Those include a 13.4-inch 1920 x 1200 16:10 aspect ratio display with 500 nits of peak brightness, Intel’s 12th Gen Core i5-1240P processor (28W, 12-core, 4.4GHz boost clock)... Читать дальше...