Tag Archives: author_name|Lawrence Bonk

Proton Drive for Android can back up your photos to a private cloud server (edited)

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Cloud storage app Proton Drive is rolling out a new tool that automatically sends photos to a private cloud server, bringing the feature set closer to something like Google Drive. Not only does the software automatically sync and upload photos to its servers, but there’s a management tool that categorizes images based on when the photos were taken, which Proton calls “snapshots of your life.” All of these features are reserved for Android users.

All you have to do is download the update and enable photo uploads in the settings. Like all aspects of Proton Drive, the transfer will be end-to-end encrypted so you don’t have to worry about prying digital eyes. The encryption applies to the photo itself and any associated metadata.

As for revisiting the photos, the app lays them all out in a grid view, with preview options in a variety of file types, including panoramas, portraits, and even timelapse videos. It’s worth noting that Proton Drive already offered cloud storage for photos, but there wasn’t an automatic sync. Now there is. Android users rejoice, though the company has yet to announce an iOS version.

The update begins showing up today, but it’ll be a few days before everyone gets it. You know the drill. A 200GB Proton Drive subscription costs $5 per month, while a 500GB plan costs $13 each month. There’s a free tier, but it's only 1GB.

Proton has been busy this year. The company released a native Windows file-syncing app back in July and its very own password manager in April. It's well-regarded in the worlds of online encryption and security. There’s a reason, after all, why Proton VPN is our top choice virtual private network.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/proton-drive-for-android-can-back-up-your-photos-to-a-private-cloud-server-edited-163116819.html?src=rss

Bitwig Studio update brings tons of new sound design options

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The digital audio workstation (DAW) Bitwig Studio just received a substantial update that brings plenty of new sounds and effects. Version 5.1 boasts a spate of enhancements, including new waveshapers, new filters, polyphonic voice stacking, a dual oscillator and more. This is especially good news for avid sound designers, as the filters and waveshapers should allow for plenty of tinkering to find that perfect tone.

The filters are all rather unique, going a step further than a simple lowpass or something. For instance, the Fizz filter offers two separate cutoffs with embedded feedback. The Rasp filter is bright and resonant with a host of adjustment options. Vowels is a morphing format filter with an array of models, pitch and frequency offsets that can be programmed to change over time. Finally, there’s Ripple, which is described as a “hyper-resonant circuit.”

There are six new waveshapers to choose from, including the Push soft clipper and Heat S-shaped clipper. Both of these could be great for adding a bit of sizzle to dry tracks. Soar is a soft wavefolder that “makes the quietest parts loud” and Howl does something similar, but with a focus on creating harsh, glitchy sounds. Shred helps get rid of unwanted artifacts and Diode is a classic circuit, which Bitwig calls “a warm, familiar option.”

All filters and waveshapers can be used within the DAW’s Filter+ and Sweep devices, though they are also available as standalone Grid modules. That’s the magic of Bitwig Studio and what sets it apart from other DAWs. Everything is modular, with mix-and-match options for every effect, filter, oscillator and waveshaper.

As for other tools, there’s a new Voice Stacking module that offers layered playback of up to 16 voices per note and a dual oscillator called Bite. Bitwig has also added experimental elements to the quantizing function, which should make for some wild remixes, and adjusted the UI so the mixer can be dragged and dropped anywhere. These changes follow Bitwig Studio 5.0, which offered many new audio playback tools.

Bitwig Studio 5.1 is out now, and it's a free upgrade for license holders with an active plan. The company constantly adds new features to the DAW, as recent-ish updates saw tools to mangle MIDI performances and the addition of a hybrid modular synth.

The DAW is also on sale at the moment. You can get Bitwig Studio for $299, down from its usual $399 price. The bare-bones Essential version of the software, meanwhile, is $79 at the moment instead of $99.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/bitwig-studio-update-brings-tons-of-new-sound-design-options-201512397.html?src=rss

Acer’s Nitro V16 gaming laptop is powered by new AMD Ryzen 8040 processors

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Acer just announced a new gaming laptop, the Nitro V 16. This computer has some serious bells and whistles, with the key takeaway being the inclusion of the just-announced AMD Ryzen 8040 Series processor. The processor has plenty of oomph for modern gaming applications, with the addition of AI technology to enable enhanced ray-traced visuals.

You can spec out the laptop how you see fit, with GPU options up to the respectable NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060. This GPU features DLSS 3.5 tech and its own AI-powered ray-tracing, called Ray Reconstruction. You have your pick of two display options, with availability of WQXGA or WUXGA screens. Both options boast 165 Hz refresh rates and 3ms response times. Acer promises that the displays offer “fluid visuals with minimal ghosting and screen tearing.”

As for other specs, you can beef up the laptop with up to 32GB of DRR55600 RAM and 2TB of PCIe Gen 4 SSD storage. Acer also touts a new cooling system that features a pair of high-powered fans that make it “well-equipped to take on heavy gameplay.” To that end, you can monitor performance and temperature via the company’s proprietary NitroSense utility app.

There are three microphones outfitted with AI-enhanced noise reduction tech, for online tomfoolery, and the speakers incorporate DTS:X Ultra sound optimization algorithms for immersive audio. Finally, you get a USB-4 Type C port, two USB 3 ports, an HDMI port, a microSD card reader and WiFi 6E compatibility.

If the name of the processor seems a bit confusing, that's because AMD recently changed up its naming conventions. Here's a simple breakdown. The "8" relates to 2024 and the second number refers to the product line or relevant market segment, so that doesn't mean much to consumers. The third number, however, is all about performance. The "4" indicates that the chip uses the advanced Zen 4 architecture. Finally, the fourth number illustrates what type of Zen 3 architecture the chip uses. The "0" denotes a lower-tier Zen 3 experience when compared to Zen 3+, which would be marked as "5". 

The Windows 11 gaming laptop will be available in March, with a starting price of $1,000 for the base model. It also comes with one month of Xbox Game Pass, so you can run it through its paces.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/acers-nitro-v16-gaming-laptop-is-powered-by-new-amd-ryzen-8040-processors-200031118.html?src=rss

Ubisoft’s Rocksmith+ guitar-learning app now teaches piano

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Ubisoft’s Rocksmith+ guitar-learning platform just got an update that’s sure to please ivory ticklers, as the app now teaches piano. A single subscription allows access to every instrument under Rocksmith’s umbrella, including acoustic guitar, electric guitar, electric bass and, now, piano.

The newly-updated Rocksmith+ already boasts 400 piano arrangements to practice, with at least 40 more arriving each month. These songs include pop hits like Elton John’s “Rocket Man”, Adele’s “Make You Feel My Love” and titles culled from a diverse array of genres, including classical to soundtracks and beyond. These piano-based compositions join over 7,000 pre-existing songs for guitar and bass players.

The app’s available for both mobile devices and PCs via the Ubisoft store, and the update lets you use a digital piano, keyboard or wired MIDI controller. It supports keybeds with 25 keys up to the full complement of 88 keys. You’ll have your choice of practice methods, as the app offers an interactive 3D interface or traditional sheet music. Also, you don’t need any extra gear to get going, like a dedicated microphone.

Reviews for the guitar and bass elements of Rocksmith+ have been mixed, with some publications praising the intuitive interface and others decrying the limited song selection. The app offers a free trial for a week, but subscriptions cost $15 per month, if you go with a monthly plan, or $100 per year. The free trial is only available for the yearly subscription, so exercise caution when signing up and be sure to set a reminder to cancel before the week is up if you aren’t jiving with the software.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ubisofts-rocksmith-guitar-learning-app-now-teaches-piano-184530282.html?src=rss

Netflix renews the Squid Game reality show for a second season of (mostly) fake torture

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Netflix just announced that it has renewed Squid Game: The Challenge for a second season. The reality show is a toned-down version of the dystopian drama of the same name, a program known for its harsh critique of capitalism. Production on the second season is already ramping up, as casting is currently underway.

The Challenge recreates many of the more popular scenarios from the original show, complete with fake deaths by gunshot when a player exits the game. Despite being a fictional version of the drama, the real-life players were put in dangerous situations while competing. Many players said they suffered injuries during the game, and others claimed that provisions were so scarce that people were forced to use condoms as lip balm, among other complaints.

Just like its fictional counterpart, the cash prize was so large that people were willing to put up with less-than-ideal and potentially hazardous circumstances. The winner of the first season will be announced tonight and will take home $4.65 million dollars, $10,000 for each of the 465 contestants. That’s the largest payout in reality show history. However, its winner takes all, so 464 players get nothing. As an aside, Netflix is valued at around $200 billion.

Despite the controversy surrounding the show, it's obviously a hit. Squid Game: The Challenge has consistently perched atop the streamer’s top ten, likely helped by the abundance of news regarding the precarious conditions on-set. Bread and circuses, baby!

The streamer has also revealed a bit more information regarding an upcoming video game set “in the Squid Game universe.” Netflix notes that players will “compete with friends in games they’ll recognize from the series,” so we know it has multiplayer at the very least. It also leaves us with one glaring question. The Squid Game… universe? The MCU better watch out.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/netflix-renews-the-squid-game-reality-show-for-a-second-season-of-mostly-fake-torture-180528484.html?src=rss

Twitch to cease operations in South Korea over ‘prohibitively expensive’ network fees

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Twitch is leaving South Korea, with plans to cease all operations on February 27. This is due to ‘prohibitively expensive’ networking fees, according to CEO Dan Clancy. The news is a major bummer, as the country is one of the largest esports markets in the world, with some of the most competitive League of Legends and Starcraft players around.

Clancy calls this a “unique situation," noting that operating in South Korea ends up being ten times more expensive than other countries. He went on to write that Twitch undertook a “significant effort” to continue operations, but the Amazon-owned company simply couldn’t afford it.

Some of these efforts included incorporating a lower-cost peer-to-peer model and downgrading the resolution of streams to 720p, according to TechCrunch. The company had been running at a significant loss and it decided to, well, stop doing that. 

“I want to reiterate that this was a very difficult decision and one we are very disappointed we had to make. Korea has always and will continue to play a special role in the international esports community and we are incredibly grateful for the communities they built on Twitch,” wrote Clancy.

Netflix has also been open about its struggles to continue operations in South Korea. The streaming giant and local internet service provider SK Broadband had been tossing lawsuits back and forth regarding networking fees before settling back in September. As usual, consumers got the shaft on this one, as Netflix ended up raising prices by around 13 percent.

So what’s the issue exactly? It all boils down to a particular type of internet traffic tax employed in South Korea called the “Sending Party Network Pays” (SPNP) model. This tax requires the tech company, Twitch in this case, to pay a fee to the ISP for traffic to be delivered to the end user. Foreign companies resisted these efforts for years but there have been recent crackdowns, and here we are.

South Korea is the first country to force the SPNP model, but other nations are looking to follow suit. India, for instance, has expressed interest in changing up its telecom rules in favor of ISPs and the EU has been debating the issue since March. As for Twitch, the company’s hosting a live stream today to address concerns from Korean users.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/twitch-to-cease-operations-in-south-korea-over-prohibitively-expensive-network-fees-163041382.html?src=rss

Multiple game developers announce layoffs, including EA-owned Codemasters

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A trio of game developers have just announced layoffs, adding to the chaos that is the tech industry in 2023. It starts with developer New World Interactive, who are behind the Insurgency series and Day of Infamy, among others. There’s no word as to how many employees were let go, but parent company Saber Interactive says work will continue on Insurgency: Sandstorm, according to The Verge.

Saber Interactive has its own parent company, Embracer Group, which has had a rough year. Embracer conducted mass layoffs back in June and canceled multiple projects. Things are so bad, as a matter of fact, that the company’s looking to sell Gearbox Software, the developer behind Borderlands.

Indie publishing stalwart Tinybuild also announced a round of layoffs, according to Game Developer. The company gives the usual reason for the layoffs, cost restructuring, though the number of impacted employees remains unknown. Some of the blame has been placed on subsidiary Versus Evil, which delayed a number of titles into 2024, thus impacting revenue. Tinybuild has published a number of notable games, like Graveyard Keeper, Party Hard, Potion Craft, Mr. Shifty and dozens more.

The EA-owned Codemasters, which is one of the world’s most renowned racing game developers, issued its own set of layoffs, as reported by IGN. Just like the aforementioned companies, EA and Codemasters are being cagey regarding the number of laid off workers. An EA spokesperson said that the layoffs are due to “small-scale organizational changes that align our teams and resources to meet evolving business needs and priorities.” Okay, cool. Thanks for that useful information. EA bought Codemasters, who are behind the racers Dirt and F1, in 2021 for a whopping $1.2 billion.

These firings are just the latest bit of bad news for the games industry. Last month, Ubisoft Montreal laid off nearly 100 people and Epic Games let go of 16 percent of its workforce in September, in addition to selling Bandcamp to a seemingly predatory music-licensing company. The first half of the year saw layoffs by CD Projekt Red, among others.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/multiple-game-developers-announce-layoffs-including-ea-owned-codemasters-183318247.html?src=rss

Beeper says it reverse-engineered iMessage into an Android app

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The universal chat app Beeper just got a lot more, well, universal. The company just unveiled the Beeper Mini app, which makes the bold claim to bring true iMessage support to Android devices. Even bolder? It seems to actually work, according to users who have tried it. This isn’t done in a strange hacky way that could compromise privacy and security, like Nothing’s beleaguered attempt to play nice with iOS devices.

Beeper co-founder Eric Migicovsky, formerly of Pebble fame, told Engadget that his latest project is about scaling up his service. You see, the original Beeper app relied on a farm of Mac mini servers to act as relays, which left a lot of potential users on a waitlist. Then comes Beeper Mini, which taps straight into the official iMessage protocol thanks to some cunning reverse engineering. The texts are even sent to Apple’s servers before moving on to their final destination, just like a real iMessage created by an iPhone. Even weirder? All of this high-tech wizardry was created by a 16-year-old high school student.

Once you open the app, it goes through all of your text message conversations and flags the ones from iMessage users. The system then switches them over to blue bubble conversations via Apple’s official platform. From then on, every time you talk to that person, the bubbles will be bluer than a clear spring day — no more social stigma linked to green bubbles. You also don’t need an Apple ID to login, alleviating many of the security concerns that plagued rival offerings.

It’s worth reiterating: This platform isn’t hacking the iMessage experience so it works on Android. It is the iMessage experience working on Android, as it's sending actual iMessages. The tech was created by jailbreaking iPhones to get a good look at how the operating system handles iMessages, before recreating the software. As a bonus, Beeper actually encrypts messages end-to-end between iMessage and Android users, supposedly making the communication even safer.

Beeper is being really transparent here, and the company knows it's potentially skating on thin ice with regard to how Apple will respond. Apple has never been especially friendly to those it deems to be infringing on company secrets, but it did just announce forthcoming support for the RCS messaging standard. This will allow for greater interoperability between Android and iOS devices, so maybe it’ll let Beeper Mini slide for now. Should Apple want to put the kibosh on Beeper Mini, it would likely take a lot of work to completely revamp the iMessage protocol, Migicovsky explained to Engadget. 

Beeper’s iMessage code will be open source to ensure there will be no security or privacy lapses. As for potential legal hurdles, the co-founder says his company is on the right side of the law, noting there’s no actual Apple code in Beeper Mini, just custom-made recreated code. Also, he cites legal precedence in copyright law that has sided with those who reverse engineer code. In any event, Beeper Mini is available, for now, and it's a $1.99-per-month subscription with one month free trial.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/beeper-says-it-reverse-engineered-imessage-into-an-android-app-172250419.html?src=rss

Microsoft upgrades Copilot with OpenAI’s GPT-4 Turbo and DALL-E 3

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The year’s coming to a close, but there’s still plenty of time for more AI news. Microsoft just announced its Copilot AI chatbot is integrating with OpenAI’s latest model, GPT-4 Turbo, and the image generator DALL-E 3, among other upgrades. This should drastically improve the overall functionality of the service, just in time for its one-year anniversary/birthday. Wait, do AI chatbots have birthdays?

First up, there’s OpenAI’s latest and greatest large language model. GPT-4 Turbo integration will allow Copilot users to tackle complex tasks that would cause previous iterations of the software to sputter into madness. The last generation allowed for just 50 pages of text as a data input, while GPT-4 Turbo accepts up to 300 pages. The end result? More meaningful responses to queries. The integration is currently being tested by select users, with wider availability in the next few weeks.

There’s also integration with the newest DALL-E 3 Model. This chatbot generates higher quality images than ever before and, more importantly, with a greater regard for accuracy. In other words, the image should match the prompt more often than not. This tool is already available for Copilot users, and you can check it out here.

There are more features coming to a Copilot near you. The Inline Compose tool now includes a rewrite menu that lets you select a block of text, whereupon the bot rewrites it for you. This should cause absolutely no problems at all in schools (that was sarcasm). This tool is coming to all Edge users in the near future.

Coders are also getting some love, with a new feature set called Code Interpreter. Microsoft is fairly mum on the details here, but say that it will enable users to perform complex tasks like “data analysis, visualization, math” and, of course, garden variety coding. Code Interpreter is currently in beta, with a wide release planned for the near future.

Finally, Bing search is getting an upgrade powered by GPT-4. This should allow for expanded search queries for complex topics, with optimized results. Microsoft wrote a blog post detailing how this upgrade works. In short, it searches for multiple variations of the query at once and automatically files away useless information.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-upgrades-copilot-with-openais-gpt-4-turbo-and-dall-e-3-162558170.html?src=rss

Audio giant Rode acquires rival Mackie to expand its focus on creators

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Audio device leader Rode just acquired rival company Mackie, creating something of a pro audio and streaming powerhouse. Rode used to exclusively deal with pro-level audio devices, like condenser microphones, but has since turned its eye to the growing streaming market. To that end, products like Rode’s PSA1+ boom arm have become fixtures with popular live streamers.

Mackie has taken a similar route. The company made a name for itself during the home recording boom of the 1990s and early 2000s by offering affordable, yet highly functional, mixers, PA systems and related devices. Nowadays, the company has leaned into the streamer/creator space with consumer-grade streaming mixers and monitor controllers, though it still manufactures pro audio gear.

It’s no secret that the streaming space is more lucrative than pro audio. It’s just simple math, as there are more content creators than serious audio engineers. The acquisition puts this new Rode/Mackie behemoth in a great place to compete with companies like Corsair’s Elgato. The Elgato Stream Deck controller has been a massive success, quickly becoming a ubiquitous fixture for podcasters and live streamers alike.

Rode has already made its own inroads in the space, thanks to products like the Rodecaster Pro series of mixing consoles and the Streamer X audio interface. Mackie has similar products, like the M-Caster line of podcast-adjacent mixers. The combined force of both companies could put a major dent in Elgato’s armor and offer more competition to burgeoning rivals like Razer.

As for pro audio, Rode/Mackie aren’t giving up that space anytime soon. If anything, the merger makes them a bigger threat to companies like Shure and Tascam. Rode’s parent company, Freedman Group, says that the merged entity will service “up-and-coming content creators to professionals working in live production and everyone in-between.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio-giant-rode-acquires-rival-mackie-to-expand-its-focus-on-creators-220023691.html?src=rss