Month: March 2016

(credit: Nic Wise)

SAN FRANCISCO—Microsoft bought Xamarin, the popular C#-and-.NET-on-iOS-and-Android, last month. At its Build developer conference today, the company announced the first big step for its new acquisition: Xamarin is now included in every Visual Studio version.

This announcement means that every Visual Studio, from the free Community edition right up to the Enterprise edition, now has access to the Xamarin tooling so that developers can build applications for Android and iOS (though iOS development continues to need access to an OS X machine) using the .NET and C# tools they love.

There are no restrictions to this inclusion, either. As an independent company, Xamarin did have a free version to give developers a taste of what it offered, but the product was historically restricted to only support small executables, with anything larger requiring a paid license. That's not the case today; even Visual Studio 2015 Community has no size or other restrictions. Some enterprise-oriented Xamarin features are still restricted, and developers will need a Visual Studio Enterprise subscription to use these.

Magic: The Gathering kicks off 2016 with Shadows over Innistrad (SOI), another return trip to a much-loved world from Magic’s history. Moving on from the overt giant-tentacled-monster theme of Zendikar, SOI instead embraces gothic horror, emphasising a sense of mystery and creeping dread. (But don't worry, there are still some rather powerful werewolves.)

Although the expansion isn't released until April 8, Ars has managed to get its hands on some packs—and we’re already excited to get hold of more at the Shadows over Innistrad prerelease events, starting this weekend (April 2 and 3). Read on for our review of the set and how SOI will play out in both Limited and Constructed formats.

What's new in Shadows over Innistrad?

The original Innistrad set is often hailed as the turning point for modern Magic, with praise aimed at its flavour, its varied draft format, and its depth for deckbuilders. SOI has a lot to live up to, and also has a challenge in design space—when you’ve already made a bunch of vampires and werewolves in the first set, what does the second set change to keep things fresh?

A year after Amazon announced Dash, the small buttons intended to make reordering household supplies almost too easy, the company is expanding the program. Amazon announced a slew of new Dash Buttons today, adding brands such as Clorox, Doritos, Red Bull, Slim Jim, and Trojan to the list and tripling its offering of Dash Buttons to more than 100.

When Dash Buttons first came out (around April Fool's Day 2015, leading many to think the idea was a joke), the first ones let customers order mostly household supplies and some food items from brands including Cottonelle, Gillette, Hefty, Kraft, and Maxwell House. According to a statement from Amazon, customers have been asking for more. "We heard loud and clear from customers that they wanted more brands, more categories, and more products in the program," Daniel Rausch, director of Amazon Dash, wrote in the statement.

It seems those customers got their wish—now you can order condoms, chips, coffee, feminine napkins, skincare products, and much more with the additional Dash Buttons. In the past three months alone, Amazon's Dash Button sales have gone up 75 percent according to the retailer; there's no doubt that Amazon is hoping to see those sales spike even higher with these new options.

(credit: iFixit)

Now that the consumer version of the Oculus Rift has started shipping to the earliest adopters, the good folks at iFixit have torn the headset apart to see how its innards differ from those of the first and second Rift development kits.

While those dev kits used off-the-shelf smartphone displays and generic lenses, the teardown highlights a much more customized solution now that the Rift is a consumer product (with Facebook's billions behind it). The Rift's dual lens and display assembly houses two separate 1080×1200 OLED panels with adjustable spacing between them to allow for easy focus at different interpupillary distances. Those panels measure 90mm diagonally, giving the Rift a final pixel density of 461ppi. That's higher than the "retina display" on Apple's iPhone 6 Plus (401ppi), but downright blocky compared to 1440p display on the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S7 (576ppi), which already powers the Oculus-designed Gear VR headset.

That pixel density is put to a tough test on the Rift, too, since the panels are placed a couple of inches away from the user's eyes at all times (an average user would have to be eight inches from the Oculus display for the pixels to be indistinguishable). IFixit reveals an asymmetric, hybrid fresnel lens system that helps users zoom in and focus on screens that close.

Time to hang up the phone, evil androids. (credit: psd)

Proposed legislation in California would require Internet service providers to let customers cancel online, potentially ending the scourge of long, awkward cancellation phone calls.

"You've seen the ads from companies that advertise the ease of signing up for their cable or Internet service over the Web," said a press release from state Assemblyman Mike Gatto yesterday. "However, if individuals decide to cancel those same services, they're often forced to suffer through infuriating, time-consuming phone calls, often spending hours on hold."

Gatto's bill is simple, saying, "If a cable or Internet service provider enables an individual to subscribe to its services through an Internet Web site, it shall also enable all of its customers to cancel their subscriptions through the Internet Web site."

After nearly a decade of tumultuous development, Final Fantasy XV (née Final Fantasy Versus XIII) has a worldwide release date for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One: September 30, 2016.

Not only that, but publisher Square Enix is going all-out with promotion for the long-awaited game by also announcing: a strange Platinum Demo that's available to download on PS4 and Xbox One right now; a free five-part anime series called Brotherhood Final Fantasy XV that's going out on YouTube (you can watch the first episode here); a full-blown CG movie called Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV; and a FFXV-themed pinball game for Android and iOS called Justice Monsters Five. Plus, there are two collector's editions of the game, the priciest of which—the Ultimate Edition—will go for a cool £189.99 ($269.99) and will be limited to 30,000 units worldwide. UK artist Florence + the Machine is handling the title track with a cover of Ben E. King's "Stand By Me."

So, where to start? How about the Platinum Demo, which—unlike its pre-order only counterpart Episode Duscae—isn't taken from the main game at all, and is instead a standalone experience complete with its own odd story. FFXV protagonist Noctis stars, but as a young boy, where he encounters recurring guardian/summon Carbuncle, a fox-like creature that can only communicate using a smartphone. You shrink down and drive toy cars, collect gems, and turn into an adult to battle a boss. The crystals you collect unlock panels that offer up weapons and items, change the time of day, and alter weather effects to showcase the game's fancy engine.