Month: January 2018

Enlarge / WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 31: US President Donald Trump meets with representatives from PhRMA, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, in the White House. (credit: Getty | Pool)

Update: The House has passed legislation sponsored by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) to extend NSA surveillance authority for six years without significant new privacy safeguards. The vote was 256 to 164. Most Republicans supported the legislation, but it wouldn't have passed without the support of 65 Democrats.

As recently as last night, the Trump administration was strongly in favor of legislation to renew one of the federal government's most controversial spying powers. Known to insiders as Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, the law grants the government surveillance powers that are only supposed to be used on targets outside the United States.

Civil liberties groups say that the law can too easily be used to sweep up the private communications of Americans. And they're backing legislation called the USA Rights Act to place new restrictions on the use of 702 spying powers—the House of Representatives was voting on that amendment as we published this story. Last night, the White House put out a statement condemning USA Rights.

After gently teasing fans all week, Nintendo suddenly threw up a bevy of Nintendo Switch announcements via a "Nintendo Direct Mini" video presentation this morning. Nintendo and Japanese third-party partners seem eager to provide the millions of Switch owners out there with quickly available, prepackaged content in the form of ports of games from older consoles (the kind we've been wondering about for months).

The 14-minute trailer-packed video is filled with new footage and information, but we've condensed the important news down below if you can't watch right now:

Ports

• Dark Souls Remastered: No gameplay details were provided for this one, but given the title, it'll surely be a graphically touched-up version of From Software's hard-as-nails, 2011 dungeon crawler. Release date is set for May 25, and PS4, XB1 and PC versions will also be available.
• The World Ends with You Final Remix: Square Enix's Nintendo DS cult classic Japanese action RPG gets an HD remaster that includes a new scenario "that gets to the heart of the story." Arriving sometime this year.
• Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition: This Zelda-themed version of the Dynasty Warriors design combines all the maps and missions from the Wii U and 3DS versions of the game, and adds new Breath of the Wild costumes for Link and Zelda. Coming sometime this Spring.
• Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze: The tough-but-fun Wii U platform game comes to Switch with Funky Kong as a new playable character, capable of a double hover jump and "infinite rolls." Coming May 4.
• Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA: A port of the game that recently revived the dormant, long-running Japanese RPG series comes to the Nintendo Switch this summer.

New game announcements

• Mario Tennis Aces brings back the fast-paced, over-the-top, super-ability-infused sporting franchise with a new Story Mode that includes specific missions and bosses to face. Coming this spring.
• SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy looks like a female-fighter-focused version of the popular King of Fighters franchise, with new Dream Finish moves to round things out a bit. Coming this summer.

DLC

• Super Mario Odyssey gets a new "Luigi's Balloon World" online hide-and-seek mode as part of a free update in February. One player has 30 seconds to hide a balloon somewhere in the level, and another player has to track it down with the help of guiding arrow. New costumes and photo filters will also be available.
• Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle will get Donkey Kong as a playable character alongside themed content in a paid update this spring.
• Pokken Tournament DX will see new characters and moves as part of a paid DLC Battle Pack.

Other

• Air-dashing 2D platformer Celeste is coming January 25.
• 3D platformer Fe is coming February 16.
• 4-player co-op platformer Kirby Star Allies is coming March 16
• Payday 2 is (still) coming to Switch February 27.
• A demo for Dragon Quest Builders hits the eShop today.

Enlarge (credit: Martin Larsen)

According to a press release from NextRadio app owner TagStation LLC, Samsung will be the next major phone manufacturer to enable the dormant FM chips in their devices. The FM chips will be switched on in Samsung's "upcoming smartphone models," which will allow users to listen to local radio stations.

Most smartphones ship with FM chips, but they are usually not enabled for various reasons. FM Radio isn't just for music, it's useful in an emergency situation, since it is more resilient and has a longer range than a cellular signal. FM stations can give people critical information even if a storm wipes out the local Internet infrastructure.

In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai issued a public statement calling on the wireless industry to activate these dormant FM chips to assist in emergency situations. So far, along with Samsung, LG, Motorola, and Alcatel have announced they will start enabling FM chips in their devices.

Enlarge (credit: Samuel Axon)

Apple began notifying Chinese iCloud customers of the forthcoming hand-off of its cloud service to the Chinese company Guizhou on the Cloud Big Data (GCBD), which will take over local operations starting February 28. However, TechCrunch reported that some non-Chinese iCloud accounts have been notified of this change. Some users with US-based billing addresses and connections to the US App Store received the notification email stating the physical location of their iCloud data will change come February.

According to Apple's help page on the issue, your iCloud's country or region setting dictates whether or not your account will be part of the migration.

The operation of iCloud services associated with Apple IDs that have China in their country or region setting will be subject to this transition. You will be notified of this transition via email and notifications on your devices. You don't need to take any further action and can keep using iCloud in China.

After February 28, 2018, you will need to agree to the terms and conditions of iCloud operated by GCBD to keep using iCloud in China.

Users should update their iCloud location settings if they don't reside in China anymore, to avoid being swept up in the data migration. TechCrunch's report also claims some accounts registered overseas (not in China) are part of the migration, but it's unclear if that means these accounts were simply notified of the migration, or if they will certainly be part of the impending migration. Ars has reached out to Apple for clarification.