Month: November 2016

Enlarge / Dear boys, we're going to have some fun, aren't we? (credit: HBO)

Robot uprising on Westworld isn't anything like what you'd expect. That's because it's actually more disturbing than you'd think to discover your brain can be controlled with an app. Episode 6, "The Adversary," makes things even more complicated when we meet Ford's family, and Elsie solves the mystery of the stray. On this week's Decrypted podcast, we sit down with Rose Eveleth, host of futurist podcast Flash Forward, to focus on Maeve's transformation, robot sex, and fembots.

Specific topics discussed include the unregistered robots (Ford's robot family is seriously creepy), the true meaning of the maze (and why Teddy has gotten so boring), Maeve's attribute matrix (and the greatest scene in the entire show), what it means to be trapped in a narrative (male and female roles for robots are both terrible), when will a guy have sex with a male robot (it can't happen soon enough), why the park seems to offer no romance stories or female-centric adventures (what? ladies don't want sex?), and how Dolores and Maeve are trapped in the middle of an argument between Ford and Arnold (plus they are the ultimate victims of gaslighting).

I'll be analyzing, debating, and dissecting Westworld every week with a different guest, and we post the podcast on Tuesdays. The episodes air on Sunday, so you have plenty of time to watch before we get into major spoilers. Yes, there are spoilers. Listen when you're ready!

Enlarge (credit: Flickr user double : zanzo)

Music is popular in almost all human societies, but there are some people who just don't seem to be into it, no matter how stirring. Studying those who don’t like music can provide insight into why the rest of us do, and more general insights into human behavior.

Earlier neuroimaging studies demonstrated that music-induced pleasure may arise from the interaction between auditory neural networks and the brain’s reward networks. A recent study published in PNAS shows that people who don’t like music have lower brain activity in both these systems when they're listening to tunes.

The study in question used functional MRI scans to track brain activity in three groups of 15 participants. One group was indifferent to music, one group had normal reactions to it, and the last group derived intense pleasure from music. Musicians were excluded from the sample, to reduce bias that might be introduced by including participants trained in producing music.

Enlarge

Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest ones. Case in point: Lethal VR, a shooter for HTC Vive (and soon PlayStation VR) from ex-Burnout developers Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry.

Lethal VR is essentially a shooting gallery, which takes inspiration from sources as far and wide as gun clubs, action movies, and arcade games like Point Blank and Time Crisis. The twist is that it's presented using an ever-changing VR environment. The instantly recognisable action, coupled with the motion-tracking brilliance of the HTC Vive, has resulted in a game that feels both inventive and accessible.

"Part of the reason we chose the target range idea is because it requires so little upfront explanation," explains game designer Chris Roberts (no, not that Chris Roberts) after an hour-long demo. "Anyone can play it because people understand the concept of a target range, but we have been careful to give the idea enough legs so that you are encouraged to want to do your best and improve every time you play."

Apple bragged about the speed of iOS 10's rollout at the company's Mac event in October. (credit: Apple)

Finally, a whopping two-and-a-half months after the release of Android 7.0 Nougat, the Android 7.0 Compatibility Definition Document (CDD) is finally out. The CDD is Google's list of rules for Android OEMs that want to ship devices with the Google Play Store and other Google apps. While Android is open source, most of Google's apps are not, and licensing Google's apps means agreeing to a contract called the Mobile Application Distribution Agreement (MADA) and passing Google's "compatibility" tests, which ensure the device can properly run Android apps.

The updates to the 85-page Compatibility Definition Document are mostly about codifying the new 7.0 features so OEMs don't break anything, but there are a few interesting tidbits. The one we're going to focus on now is the mysterious mention of "Android Extensions." There's a whole new section, which reads:

3.1.1. Android Extensions

Android includes the support of extending the managed APIs while keeping the same API level version. Android device implementations MUST preload the AOSP implementation of both the shared library ExtShared and services ExtServices with versions higher than or equal to the minimum versions allowed per each API level. For example, Android 7.0 device implementations, running API level 24 MUST include at least version 1.

"Extending the managed APIs while keeping the same API level version" sounds a whole lot like what Google Play Services does today. You have the base Android operating system, and Google Play Services is a layer that sits on top of the OS. Play Services provides a bunch of Google APIs, giving developers access to various Google Services. Because Play Services is just an APK (an Android app file), it can be easily updated via the Play Store. This means that regardless of how indifferent your OEM is to updates, Play Services can always be updated directly by Google.