Month: October 2017

Enlarge / New Switch firmware, new Super Mario Odyssey profile-icon options! And that means T-REX MARIO! RWAAAR! (credit: Nintendo)

As the Nintendo Switch loses some of its brand-new luster, fans have begun to question a few key missing features, from the long-running Virtual Console service to traditional apps like media players and Web browsers. Thus, any new major firmware for the Switch is likely to get fans' hopes up about new functionality, and sure enough Switch firmware 4.0, out on Wednesday, brings a few new features to the table.

Arguably the most notable addition is one that comes oh-so-close to fixing a major Switch problem: the inability to back up any save game data. Switch 4.0 officially adds profile and save transfers between Switch systems. This process will entirely wipe whatever selected data is moved from the source system. This is the first time Switch owners have been able to move save data in any official capacity, as opposed to having save data being completely trapped on a default system, but it's still a far cry from being able to take your console's save files and store them somewhere secure, like a spare SD card or a computer. (Purchases are linked to a universal profile, and these have already been transferable, so long as the source console's licenses are deactivated first.)

We can only hope this feature rollout is a hint of more functionality in the future. Otherwise, the race is still on for hackers and exploiters to beat Nintendo to the save-backup punch (and thereby drive legitimate users towards hacks in the process).

Enlarge (credit: St. Regis Mohawk Tribe / Aurich Lawson)

The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe has filed patent lawsuits against Amazon and Microsoft, using patents it acquired from a company called SRC Labs, according to reports in Reuters and CNBC.

Until recently, the patents were owned by a holding company called SRC Labs, which is a co-plaintiff in today's lawsuit. The lawsuits against Amazon and Microsoft are the second and third lawsuits filed by patent-holding companies working together with Native American tribes. Patent-holding companies, sometimes derided in the tech industry as "patent trolls," produce no goods or services and make their revenue from filing lawsuits.

At least two patent-holding companies have chosen to give their patents to Native American tribes, seeking to benefit from tribal "sovereign immunity" that could avoid certain types of patent reviews at the US Patent Office.

Enlarge / A wind turbine, May 17, 2016 in Melaune, Germany. (Photo by Florian Gaertner/Photothek via Getty Images) (credit: Getty Images)

GE and Apple announced a partnership today that will pave the way for putting utility analytics software Predix on iOS devices. The Predix software development kit will allow 77 utilities that work with GE to manage turbines, condensers, boiler feed pumps, and more from iPads and iPhones.

That, GE says, will ensure “that real-time data is captured and shared with field workers and remote operations using iOS devices.”

As part of the program, GE has agreed to standardize iPhones and iPads as the primary work devices for its 330,000 employees. The industrial machinery company will also make Macs available to employees who prefer them, according to Reuters.

Enlarge / Want to ave a cool sniper rifle like your Call of Duty partner? Authorize a charge of $4.99 RIGHT NOW!

In a US patent filed in 2015 and approved yesterday, Activision outlines an online matchmaking system designed to "drive microtransactions in multiplayer video games" and "influence game-related purchases."

Patent #9789406, for a "System and method for driving microtransactions in multiplayer video games," describes a number of matchmaking algorithms that a game could use to encourage players to purchase additional in-game items. "For instance, the system may match a more expert/marquee player with a junior player to encourage the junior player to make game-related purchases of items possessed/used by the marquee player," the patent reads. "A junior player may wish to emulate the marquee player by obtaining weapons or other items used by the marquee player."

An Activision representative told Glixel (which first unearthed the patent) that the filing was merely an "exploratory" effort from a disconnected R&D team and that such a system "has not been implemented in-game" yet. But the patent itself shows a decent amount of thought being put into various ways to maximize the chances of players purchasing in-game items based on their online gameplay partners.

Enlarge (credit: Ron Amadeo)

Samsung's annual developer conference at Moscone West in San Francisco doesn't always get a lot of public attention; in past years it has often focused on things like Tizen app development. But at this year's conference, the company focused on launching a new platform for connected devices in the home, the car, and elsewhere—or at least, a collection of previously existent platforms that are getting updated and combined into a new one.

That new platform is called SmartThings Cloud, and it unites existing Samsung IoT services like SmartThings, Samsung Connect, ARTIK, and Harman Ignite. Frankly, Samsung's offerings have been a confusing mess of different platforms and services with overlapping functionality and purposes. It's a rebranding, which could mean little, but developers may be hopeful that it also means an actual restructuring of resources and products to unify what Samsung is doing across all of these.

Within that umbrella, you have a couple new products that are more interesting than just a rebranding. Consumers and developers alike are already familiar with Bixby, Samsung's virtual assistant answer to Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa. It replaced S Voice, a lackluster offering on previous phones, when it launched this year. Unfortunately, Ars found Bixby to be frustrating and unfinished. It's telling, then, that Samsung has already moved on to announce Bixby 2.0 at the conference just a few months after the initial launch.

Enlarge / Worry-free cloud storage, Adobe claims. (credit: Adobe)

At its Adobe MAX conference, Adobe announced a big shake-up for its Lightroom photo processing application. The current Lightroom CC is being renamed to Lightroom Classic CC, and a new product with an old name, Lightroom CC, will take its place.

The new Lightroom CC offers most of the photo processing features of Lightroom Classic, but with some key differences. The interface is simpler, and significantly, shared between both the desktop versions (for Mac and PC), the mobile versions for Android and iOS, the Apple TV version, and Lightroom CC for the Web. It offers both a common look-and-feel, and common capabilities, across the range of platforms.

The same editing tools and interface across all your devices. (credit: Adobe)

That cross-platform consistency ties in strongly with its other, likely contentious feature: it uploads all your photos to cloud storage. A $9.99 a month Lightroom CC subscription—just as is already the case with Classic, the software is only offered on a subscription basis—comes with 1TB of cloud storage, with additional space available in 1, 5, and 10TB increments.

Enlarge / Fiber optic cables. (credit: Getty Images | gerenme)

Charter Communications last week sued a workers' union, alleging that its members have repeatedly sabotaged Charter's network in New York City during a strike that began in March.

"On over 125 occasions, Charter cables, including both coaxial and fiber optic cables in both secured and unsecured locations at sites throughout New York City, have been deliberately cut or damaged, thereby denying thousands of subscribers access to cable, Internet, and voice service and interfering with their ability to contact emergency services, and forcing Charter to devote hundreds of thousands of dollars and hundreds of man-hours to investigating and repairing its property," Charter alleged in its complaint filed in the New York State Supreme Court.

It's no coincidence that these incidents happened during the strike, Charter further claimed. Charter blamed members of IBEW Local Union No. 3: