Month: January 2016

Ryan drowns in the game, surrounded by the black, cancerous bulbs that frequently appear throughout That Dragon, Cancer.

7 more images in gallery

Death happens a lot in video games, but how often do games stop to reflect upon it, or upon grief? Most games cloak death in hit points, energy bars, and infinite respawns—death is reduced to a gameplay mechanic, a thing that can, with skill, be avoided or defeated. Even when games permanently remove warriors from a quest's adventuring party or force troubled virtual soldiers to question their motivations and press "X" to pay respects, death is not an end. So long as we hold a controller, the bodies are buried, the emotions are overcome, and the battle rages on.

That Dragon, Cancer is the form's rare exception: a game that follows a family's suffering through cancer therapy for their year-old son. The game dares to attach grief and tragedy to its core interactivity, and as such, it has grabbed a lot of pre-release attention. While it's not new for indie and experimental games take on ambitious, emotional concepts and existential crises, never has one come along that has been so frank, so nakedly autobiographical, and so imbued with its creators' spiritual identities.

The game is difficult, but not because of hard-to-solve puzzles or combat. Its most touching moments made me pause to reflect, to collect myself, and, quite frankly, to sob uncontrollably. But this is a video game, not a book or film or TV series, and that means That Dragon, Cancer is difficult for reasons beyond empathy and triggered memories. Video games have the unique power to put players in control of a narrative and then steal that control away, and That Dragon, Cancer employs that power to incredible emotional effect—after all, what can render a parent as powerless as facing an unkillable cancer in your infant child?

Harman's Yoram Berholtz explains how Harman is helping the car industry stay current with over-the-air software updates. Video shot/edited by Nathan Fitch. (video link)

LAS VEGAS—A constant bugbear in automotive tech is how inconvenient it is to have to take one's car to the dealership to get a software update—something Tesla owners often gloat about since their cars don't suffer that problem. Well, have faith, non-Tesla owners, because it looks like the auto industry is moving in the right direction. To find out more, we spoke to Harman's Yoram Berholtz at CES.

(credit: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation)

From hurricanes to heat waves, it seems that no corner of the world has been shielded from the force of extreme weather. While we tend to focus on damage to communities, agriculture has also been hit hard by these events.

The agricultural sector of developing countries accounts for almost 25 percent of all damage and losses from weather-related events. This damage can threaten everything from local food infrastructure to global food security. However, not all extreme weather events result in an agricultural disaster. These depend on several factors: the severity of the event, the susceptibility of the environmental systems, and the exposure of the human and natural systems.

Droughts and floods

Though the influence of weather-related events on agriculture has been explored, previous studies have been limited. Recently, a team of scientists have taken an empirical approach to estimate the influence of extreme weather disasters using data in three areas: cropped area, yields, and production at the global scale.

(credit: AT&T)

AT&T is once again selling unlimited smartphone data, but you'll have to subscribe to either DirecTV or U-verse TV to get it. The wireless plan with unlimited data, voice calling, and text messaging costs $100 a month for one person, and another $40 for each additional smartphone or tablet. The fourth line is free, so a family of four can get the unlimited plan for $180 a month (though they'd have to pay the full $220 for the first two months before the credit kicks in).

One bit of bad news: the unlimited plan doesn't include tethering, so you can't share the phone's Internet connection with another device.

The new deal that was just announced will be available beginning tomorrow for new and existing wireless customers who already have or add TV service. Customers who buy this bundle will also get a $10-per-month discount on their combined TV-and-wireless bill.

Enlarge (credit: HTC)

HTC CEO Cher Wang has revealed that the HTC Vive VR head-mounted display will be available for preorder starting February 29. Speaking with The Telegraph, Wang said that the company is de-emphasizing smartphone handsets and increasing its focus on virtual reality and that the release of the Vive is a major step in that direction.

This will make the Vive the second "AAA" head-mounted display to come to market, since a significant number of people who pre-ordered the Oculus Rift last week should be receiving their devices at the end of March. HTC has not yet announced final specifications for the shipping version of the Vive, but we’re expecting them to be similar to the shipping version of the Rift, including dual OLED displays at or around a combined resolution of 2160x1200 with a 90Hz refresh rate. It’s also expected that HTC will put more of an emphasis on "room-scale" virtual reality, encouraging wearers to get up out of their seats and interact with an environment. Unlike the Rift, the Vive will include a pair of infrared tracking cameras and virtual reality hand controllers in the box (or at least, so says the current information from HTC).

But HTC remains mum on the specifics. The final price for the Vive has yet to be announced, though HTC has long maintained that the Vive will probably be more expensive than the Oculus Rift. With the Rift coming in at $599—higher than many potential customers anticipated—it’s a virtual certainty that the Vive will cost as much or more, especially considering that it’s expected to include the extra camera and VR controllers. The actual ship date for the device is also unknown, though according to The Telegraph, the Vive’s current April release is still solid.

As 2016 begins, Xiaomi continues to make budget devices with features and materials that no one would usually think of as "budget." The company announced its newest low-cost smartphone, the Redmi 3, which looks even more like an iPhone than other Xiaomi phones thanks to an all-metal body and an impressive battery bump.

While the Redmi Note 2 has colorful, plastic back sides, the Redmi 3 models appear to come in gold, silver, and gray metal. It's not a shock that the latest Redmi phone is getting the metal treatment since Xiaomi's Redmi Note 3 phablet was upgraded in the same way at the end of last year. In comparison to the Redmi 2, the 13-megapixel rear camera on the Redmi 3 has been moved to the top left corner of the device, reinforcing its "cheaper iPhone" identity—other than that, the phones have similarly simple designs.

Xiaomi upped nearly all of the specs in the Redmi 3, with the jaw-dropper being its new 4100mAh battery. The Redmi 2 only had a 2200mAh cell, meaning the new handset will reportedly have 80 percent more juice that its predecessor. It's also quick-charging, but Xiaomi hasn't stated how long it will take for the Redmi 3 to power up completely. The new model also comes with an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 616 processor (vs. the Redmi 2's Snapdragon 410 CPU), a 5-inch HD display, a 5MP front-facing camera in addition to the 13MP on the back, 16GB of onboard storage (expandable via microSD up to 128GB), and 2GB of RAM. It's dual-SIM capable as well, but one of the SIM card slots doubles as the microSD card slot, so you'll only be able to have two SIM cards installed if you forego the extra storage.