Month: July 2018

The Xbox power button lights up when turned on; otherwise, it's solid black, not shiny-silver.

Last month, we learned that Microsoft is developing a pair of new Xboxes for release in 2020 under the codename Scarlett. One system will be a full console; the other will be a cloud-connected system for streaming games. Today, Brad Sams at Thurrott.com has more to say about that streaming box.

We know Microsoft has been interested in developing a streaming service for many years. At this year's E3, the company reaffirmed that it's working on a streaming service that will allow games to be run in the Azure cloud and streamed to a relatively simple set-top box. This makes the end-user hardware much cheaper, but it has a consistent problem: latency. Every button press on the controller has to travel over the Internet to the server before it can be processed, and every frame of video similarly has to make the reverse trip before it can be seen. For games that don't rely on twitch reactions (RPGs or turn-based games, say) this is no big deal. But for games like first-person shooters, it's a huge problem.

According to Sams, Microsoft's solution is that the Scarlett Cloud box (as one person called it) will have some amount of processing power of its own. Not enough to run full games, but enough to do collision detection, input handling, and some amount of graphical processing locally without having to wait for the remote server. To do this, games are split into two parts (referred to as "slices" or "splices")—one part runs in the cloud; the other runs on the console.

Nicolo Bianchino / Ron Amadeo

This year, Google is pushing out a major revamp to its Material Design guidelines. The new design language is slowly creeping across Google's portfolio, and so far we've seen big changes for Gmail.com, early builds of Chrome, and for Android P. The Android side of things has so far only been the base operating system, but now a new Google design video has surfaced that shows off new designs for Gmail, Google Photos, Google Trips, and Google Drive.

The video is a design sizzle reel from Adam Grabowski and Nicolo Bianchino. They're not Googlers themselves; instead, they're collaborators who have worked on videos for major Google designs in the past. Bianchino's description of the video says the two "worked together with the Google Material Design team to create a piece showcasing their updated design system for their internal teams." Some Googlers have also shared the video on Twitter, so we can be sure it's legit.

Enlarge (credit: Elon Musk)

Tom Edwards, a Colorado-based potter who designed a "farting unicorn" mug that Tesla CEO Elon Musk became enamored with, announced last Friday that the two sides had reached an "agreement" over the use of the image. No terms were disclosed.

"It's clear there were some misunderstandings that led to this escalating, but I'm just glad that everything has been cleared up," Edwards wrote. "I've always been a Tesla fan, and I'm looking forward to getting back to making pots and selling them in my online store."

The image, which Edwards created in 2010, was first noticed by Musk in February 2017, when the entrepreneur called it "maybe my favorite mug ever."

Enlarge / Though LoveROMs acted quickly to remove all traces of Nintendo-related content at its site, its 404 page still redirects to this Chrono Trigger (SNES) homage. (credit: LoveROMs)

Nintendo's attitude toward ROM releases—either original games' files or fan-made edits—has often erred on the side of litigiousness. But in most cases, the game producer has settled on cease-and-desist orders or DMCA claims to protect its IP.

This week saw the company grow bolder with its legal action, as Nintendo of America filed a lawsuit on Thursday seeking millions in damages over classic games' files being served via websites.

The Arizona suit, as reported by TorrentFreak, alleges "brazen and mass-scale infringement of Nintendo’s intellectual property rights" by the sites LoveROMs and LoveRetro. These sites combine ROM downloads and in-browser emulators to deliver one-stop gaming access, and the lawsuit includes screenshots and interface explanations to demonstrate exactly how the sites' users can gain access to "thousands of [Nintendo] video games, related copyrighted works, and images."

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto )

Facebook has confirmed plans to launch a low-Earth orbit (LEO) broadband satellite early next year in what could be the first step toward a constellation of satellites, according to Wired.

A May 2018 report from IEEE Spectrum provided evidence that a satellite company called PointView Tech LLC is a subsidiary created by Facebook to pursue broadband plans under the code name "Athena."

"When contacted by Wired, Facebook confirmed that Athena is their project," Wired wrote on Friday.