Month: January 2018

Enlarge / You're gonna need a more precise clock to measure those 90 fps frames... (credit: Back to the Future)

Of all the things we expected to come out of the rise of Oculus and the still-burgeoning era of consumer virtual reality, a new fundamental unit of time was not one of them. But that's just what Oculus and Facebook have rolled out this week in the form of the flick, a new definition that subdivides a single second into precisely 705,600,000 parts.

If you use common time units like the millisecond or nanosecond to measure how long a single frame of video appears on screen, you're often left with a fractional remainder rather than a clean, whole integer. This can be a problem in programming and visual effects, where rounding and/or floating point representations can lead to slight imprecision or desynchronization over time. Delivering video frames with perfect timing is also pretty important to delivering a comfortable VR experience.

Thus, the idea of a new time unit was hatched in an October 2016 Facebook post by Oculus Story Studio Architect Christopher Horvath, and fleshed out with partners in the following months. The flick (short for frame-tick) was constructed so that everything from 24 fps films to 90 fps VR games to 16,000 fps ultra-slow-motion video and more could measure a single frame in a whole number of flicks (a 90 fps frame takes up 7,840,000 flicks, for instance). The flick also lines up with the most common audio sampling rates in the same way, allowing for precise demarcations in timing.

Enlarge (credit: Valentina Palladino)

The fate of the once-beloved Pebble smartwatch ecosystem has been uncertain since Fitbit bought the company in 2016 for around $40 million. Today, Fitbit announced a more definitive timeline for support of Pebble devices and software: Fitbit will extend its support of the Pebble ecosystem, including devices, software, and forums, until June 30, 2018.

"During this time, we invite the Pebble community to explore how familiar highlights from the Pebble ecosystem are evolving on the Fitbit platform, from apps and clock faces to features and experiences," the company's blog post states.

Fitbit's invitation is a hopeful one for the company itself. After the buyout, members of the Pebble team helped Fitbit develop its own smartwatch OS that debuted on the $300 Fitbit Ionic last year. Fitbit is likely hoping that diehard members of the Pebble community, many of which developed apps and programs for the smartwatch platform, will try making similar programs for Fitbit's new wearable operating system.

Enlarge / Rally organizers carry away props following a protest outside the Federal Communication Commission building against the end of net neutrality rules on December 14, 2017 in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty Images | Chip Somodevilla )

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) will investigate the use of impersonation in public comments on the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality repeal.

Congressional Democrats requested the investigation last month, and the GAO has granted the request.

While the investigation request was spurred by widespread fraud in the FCC's net neutrality repeal docket, Democrats asked the GAO to also "examine whether this shady practice extends to other agency rulemaking processes." The GAO will do just that, having told Democrats in a letter that it will "review the extent and pervasiveness of fraud and the misuse of American identities during federal rulemaking processes."

Jim Resnick

It began as a meager, nondescript little appliance and grew into nothing less than a rolling business card that explained a corporate philosophy. The Toyota Prius hybrid explains what Toyota thinks of itself, the car business, and society far better than most carmakers' products over the past decade. And the Prius has been an enormous hit, legitimately becoming that overused term in marketing: a brand.

Realistically, plug-in hybrids are yet another transitional moment on the path to full electrics, just as hybrids have been. Most Americans drive no more than 30 miles (48.2km) per day, so a plug-in hybrid that exceeds that figure with a reliable buffer will work better for the vast majority of buying intenders. The gas engine becomes an on-board, real-time insurance policy against range anxiety.

Jim Resnick

It began as a meager, nondescript little appliance and grew into nothing less than a rolling business card that explained a corporate philosophy. The Toyota Prius hybrid explains what Toyota thinks of itself, the car business, and society far better than most carmakers' products over the past decade. And the Prius has been an enormous hit, legitimately becoming that overused term in marketing: a brand.

Realistically, plug-in hybrids are yet another transitional moment on the path to full electrics, just as hybrids have been. Most Americans drive no more than 30 miles (48.2km) per day, so a plug-in hybrid that exceeds that figure with a reliable buffer will work better for the vast majority of buying intenders. The gas engine becomes an on-board, real-time insurance policy against range anxiety.

Enlarge / Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), center, at a November hearing on Russia's use of social media in the 2016 election. Feinstein and California congressman Adam Schiff have called on Facebook and Twitter to account for Russian troll's use of the #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag to influence opinion on the Mueller investigation into the Trump presidential campaign. (credit: Alex Wong / Getty Images)

Senator Dianne Feinstein and Congressman Adam Schiff, the ranking Democratic Party members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, sent a joint letter to the executives of Facebook and Twitter yesterday urging them to further delve into ongoing Russian influence campaigns on their platforms around the "ReleaseTheMemo" hashtag. The hashtag references a memo written by House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes detailing alleged abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the FBI. WikiLeaks' Julian Assange offered on Twitter to pay anyone who leaked the memo to him.

According to a social media tracking project by the German Marshall Fund's Alliance for Securing Democracy, a significant part of the support on social media for declassification of Nunes' memo has come from accounts controlled by Russia-backed "troll" accounts—some of them automated "bots" that promote other posts for propaganda purposes.

The Alliance for Securing Democracy, the organization behind the social media tracking site Hamilton 68, reported last Friday that real-time data showed that #ReleaseTheMemo was largely being used by accounts identified as controlled by Russian influence campaigns.

Enlarge / The boss fights stand out as easily the best sequences.

It’s an inarguably great time for 2D platformer fans, particularly those who prefer the Metroid and Symphony of the Night-inspired variety. Steamworld Dig 2, Dead Cells, Sundered, and many more all bring something different to the loose genre’s table. So too does the recently released Iconoclasts, even though I’m not sure I’m picking up absolutely every idiosyncrasy it’s putting down.

None of that uncertainty applies to the game’s look and feel, though. Iconoclasts is set in a lovely, colorful dystopia, with expressive sprites and bombastic effects to match. Traversing the splashy jungles, caves, seascapes, and sci-fi fortresses feels just right, too—no pixel feels wasted; no jump or attack too unwieldy. There’s a sense of meticulous technical perfection to Iconoclasts that likely reflects its 10-year production by solo developer Joakim "konjak" Sandberg.

As Robin, the unlicensed mechanic player-character, you begin with just a wrench and a rapid-fire stun gun, but slowly, inevitably, gather new tools like bombs and an electric overcharge for melee attacks. These unlock new areas and upgrades in the finest Metroid/Castlevania style, though the find-items-to-progress concept is stretched a bit thinner here than in, say, last year’s Metroid: Samus Returns. New equipment is few and far between, and entire multi-hour zones center more or less on a single item.