Stardew Valley’s creator announces pixel-art followup Haunted Chocolatier

Brief video lacks any semblance of release date—but that won’t stop our drool.

On Thursday, Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone dropped a two-minute teaser video for an entirely new game pretty much out of nowhere. The new game, titled Haunted Chocolatier, looks a lot like Stardew Valley, which means it's a refreshingly lovely homage to all things SNES and Squaresoft.

As Barone's first new video game since SV's 2016 launch, Haunted Chocolatier currently doesn't have a release date estimate of any kind. To avoid being "tied down to any particular concept of what the game is" before its eventual launch, Barone has not yet finalized Haunted Chocolatier's gameplay systems, either. HC's reveal came alongside a lengthy FAQ, whose site has been pounded by fans' immediate interest in the new game, and it clarifies that the game revolves around "a chocolatier living in a haunted castle" who must "gather rare ingredients, make delicious chocolates, and sell them in a chocolate shop."

If that sounds pedestrian to you, you clearly haven't gotten sucked into the addictive Harvest Moon homage that is Stardew Valley, which has sold millions of copies in its six years on PC and most console families. (There's also a board game version.) Like that game, Barone suggests that HC will be an entirely self-made project (programming, art, music, and more), with outside help only coming once the game is finalized and needs help with language translations and ports to other platforms. (As of press time, Barone is only committing to a launch on PC, with other platform announcements to come later.)

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Now you can set Windows Terminal as the default terminal

Microsoft’s Windows Terminal app is a utility that brings all of the different command line tools available for Windows into one space, while also providing plenty of extra features for power users. But up until now you’ve had to launch Windows Terminal first and then use it to open Command Prompt, PowerShell, or Windows Subsystem […]

The post Now you can set Windows Terminal as the default terminal appeared first on Liliputing.

Microsoft’s Windows Terminal app is a utility that brings all of the different command line tools available for Windows into one space, while also providing plenty of extra features for power users. But up until now you’ve had to launch Windows Terminal first and then use it to open Command Prompt, PowerShell, or Windows Subsystem for Linux.

Starting with Windows Terminal Preview 1.12, you can set Windows Terminal as the default terminal emulator for Windows 11 or Windows Insider Preview Dev Channel builds. In other words, launch any command line tool and it’ll open inside Windows Terminal.

Other changes in version 1.12 include:

  • An option to restore tabs and panes from a previous session when relaunching Windows Terminal
  • Full transparency on Windows 11, enabling more background effects
  • Text that’s been printed in the buffer can now be selected with your keyboard
  • Elevated terminal windows now display a shield icon to the left of tabs
  • Open the system menu with Alt+Space

Keep in mind that Windows Terminal version 1.12 is launching first as a preview build, which means there may still be some bugs to squash. But if you’re cool with that, you can download the Windows Terminal Preview from the Microsoft Store or from GitHub. If you prefer a more stable experience, you can grab the primary Windows Terminal app from the Microsoft Store and wait for version 1.12 to graduate from preview to full release.

You can find more information about Windows Terminal Preview 1.12 in Microsoft’s release announcement.

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RIAA Criticizes ICANN for ‘Hindering’ Its Anti-Piracy Efforts

The RIAA is helping U.S. music companies to fight piracy, which isn’t always an easy task. One of the major frustrations is that, due to hidden or shielded Whois information, it’s often hard to identify the people who run sites and services. According to the RIAA, the governing domain name body ICANN needs to step up its game. Perhaps the EU can help as well?

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

cassette tape pirate musicTackling online piracy is a complicated endeavor that often starts by identifying the operators of infringing sites and services. This is also where the first hurdles come into play.

Most pirate operations shroud themselves in secrecy and do all they can to remain anonymous. This starts with the domain name registration.

The owner of every domain name on the Internet is required to supply personal information when they buy a domain. This “Whois” information has to be accurate. However, it’s not necessarily available to the public at large.

Whois Privacy

There are several commercial Whois proxy or shielding services that hide registrant information. These have legitimate uses, to avoid abuse and harassment for example, but they also come in handy when a site’s business model is not entirely legal.

Copyright holders have complained about these privacy services for years. Domain registrar oversight body ICANN is aware of this and is considering whether to make ‘proxy’ registration data available for enforcement purposes. The plan has yet to be finalized.

To make matters worse for copyright holders, the EU’s GDPR privacy law only made it harder to identify domain owners. In response to the GDPR, ICANN implemented a temporary specification that led to further restrictions, shielding the personal data of site owners that would previously have been available through the Whois system.

RIAA Calls Out ICANN

These developments are a source of frustration for the RIAA. The music industry group submitted its notorious markets comments to the USTR last week. In addition to providing an updated list of piracy threats, these domain name troubles were highlighted.

“[I]t has become exceedingly difficult to track, enforce against, and accurately associate various notorious websites,” the RIAA writes. According to the group, ICANN’s policy that requires privacy and proxy services to disclose registrant data has been fully approved. However, the implementation is delayed.

“With estimates of over one third of all domain name registrations behind a privacy/proxy service, this failure of ICANN to implement disclosure policies for privacy/proxy services only serves to embolden online infringers and others that engage in malicious activity online with only minimal risks of identification and reprisal.

“In addition, ICANN has failed to adopt meaningful solutions to improve the accuracy of registrant information, despite discussions on this topic for the last several years,” the RIAA adds.

GDPR Byspass?

The RIAA isn’t happy about ICANN’s GDPR restrictions either. The domain name body added these to reduce liability under the EU’s privacy regulation. However, ICANN hasn’t come up with a solution for rightsholders who need this information.

“Despite promises to establish and implement a policy to provide uniform and consistent rules on how users can access such registration data, including for intellectual property protection and enforcement purposes, ICANN has yet to fully develop or implement such rules,” the RIAA notes.

“As previously noted, this continues to frustrate our ability to contact the registrant directly to address infringement issues, investigate relationships between infringing sites, and analyze our other enforcement options.”

By calling out these issues, the RIAA hopes to put them on the political agenda. And indeed, it appears that there is already some movement on this front.

EU to the Rescue?

Interestingly, it’s the EU that may come to the rescue of rightsholders. Europe’s privacy regulation previously resulted in Whois restrictions but the EU is now planning to turn things around.

In the draft of the ‘cybersecurity’ directive NIS 2, the registration of domain names will require complete and detailed data, including names, addresses, and phone numbers. This proposal is largely supported by ICANN, which stated that the information should be available to “legitimate access seekers.”

The legislation is still work-in-progress and the text may change along the way. In the most recent draft, the registration data is not meant to be posted publicly. Instead, it will be made available to public and competent authorities for enforcement purposes, among other things.

Based on the above, we can expect more clashes between privacy advocates and copyright enforcers in the near future. Whether with or without the involvement of the USTR.

A copy of RIAA’s submission to the US Trade Representative is available here (pdf). An overview of the nominations for the notorious markets report, which show a lot of overlap with previous years, is listed below.

Stream-ripping Sites

– Ytmp3
– Mp3juices
– Snappea
– Flvto & 2Conv
– Y2mate
– Savefrom
– MP3-YouTube

Mp3 Search-and-Download Sites

– Newalbumreleases
– Intmusic
– AK47Full

BitTorrent Indexing Sites

– ThePirateBay
– 1337x
– Rarbg

Cyberlockers

– Zippyshare
– Rapidgator
– Turbobit
– Filecrypt (link protector)
– Ddownload.com
– Anonfiles.com

Piracy within Mobile Apps

– Telegram

Bulletproof ISPs

– Ecatel/Quasi Networks
– FlokiNET

Nigerian-Operated Infringing Sites

– No sites mentioned

Reverse Proxy Services to Obfuscate Hosting ISP

– Njal.la Registrar.
– .to ccTLD Registry.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Poaching drove the evolution of tusk-free elephants

Researchers have identified genetic factors that stop tusk development.

Image of three elephants

Enlarge (credit: Bisakha Datta / Getty Images)

In the wake of severe poaching problems, some wildlife authorities have resorted to removing the horns of rhinos in order to eliminate the reason they're poached in the first place. It turns out that, in the wake of a severe poaching event, evolution came up with a similar solution.

A 15-year-long civil war in Mozambique set off a burst of poaching that ultimately killed 90 percent of a national park's elephant population. In the wake of that, tuskless elephants were seen in the park. That's surprising, since tusks play an important role in elephants' foraging and defenses against predators. Now, researchers have revealed that the lack of tusks was the result of genetic changes and have even identified the genes that were likely behind it.

A change of face

Over the course of the Mozambican Civil War, the population of elephants in Gorongosa National Park dropped from 2,542 to just 242. But the remaining population contained a significant number of elephants that lacked tusks. Models of the population and rates of tusklessness suggest that animals without them were roughly five times more likely to survive than their fellows with tusks.

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Watch this wooden knife cut effortlessly through juicy, medium-well-done steak

Also: A hardened wood nail performed as well as its stainless steel counterpart.

Researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have figured out a simple, affordable method for creating natural wood materials that are 23 times harder than typical woods, according to a new paper published in the journal Matter. They tested their hardened wood samples by fashioning a wooden knife and several wooden nails and found that the performance of both matched or exceeded that of their steel counterparts. The researchers even managed to cut a medium-well-done steak with their wooden knife as a mouth-watering proof of concept. Bonus: the knife is dishwasher safe for easy cleanup.

Why bother making wooden knives when we have perfectly good stainless steel cutlery, not to mention disposable plastic utensils? The latter, obviously, are an environmental hazard, since the nearly 40 billion plastic utensils used annually are rarely recycled because they're so small and light. And it takes a good 450 years for plastics to decompose, per the authors. As for steel and other nonrenewable hard materials—nickel-based and titanium-based alloys, for example, as well as nitrides and diamonds that are commonly used in a variety of engineering applications—they are costly to manufacture because they require creating extreme, energy-intensive conditions (ultra-high heat and pressure).

There is a lot of interest in the materials science community to come up with cheaper, more environmentally sustainable alternatives. “When you look around at the hard materials you use in your daily life, you see many of them are man-made materials because natural materials won’t necessarily satisfy what we need,” said co-author Teng Li, a materials scientist at UMD. He and his colleagues thought that wood could be a potential replacement for plastics, concrete, and steels.

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Microsoft prepares another major Windows update… for Windows 10

The Windows 10 November Update, or 21H2, is now available to download.

Microsoft prepares another major Windows update... for Windows 10

Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)

Windows 11 is out, but Microsoft isn't leaving Windows 10 behind just yet. The November Update for Windows 10 (also known as version 21H2) has rolled out to Windows Insiders in the Release Preview channel and is also available to download as an ISO file. Microsoft expects the current build, version 19044.1288, to be the same one that is released to the general public next month.

Windows 10 21H2 is a minor update with few user-visible improvements. One noteworthy addition is support for the WPA3 Hash-to-Element (H2E) standard, a more "computationally efficient" addition to WPA3 that provides protection against side-channel attacks (see the Wi-Fi Alliance PDF here). Another is support for GPU compute support for the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

Microsoft hasn't said whether the 21H2 update will be the last major servicing update for Windows 10 now that Windows 11 is here. We do know that Microsoft will be bringing Windows 11's new Microsoft Store to Windows 10 eventually, and the older OS will continue to receive updates for Microsoft Edge and (presumably) other built-in apps that get their updates through the Microsoft Store.

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How to sideload Android apps on Windows 11

Windows 11 is the first version of Microsoft’s desktop operating system to offer native support for running Android applications. The official way to do that is to install the Amazon Appstore from the Microsoft Store and use it to find Android apps and games that you want to run on your PC. But while there […]

The post How to sideload Android apps on Windows 11 appeared first on Liliputing.

Windows 11 is the first version of Microsoft’s desktop operating system to offer native support for running Android applications. The official way to do that is to install the Amazon Appstore from the Microsoft Store and use it to find Android apps and games that you want to run on your PC.

But while there are millions of Android apps, only about a thousand or so are available from the Amazon Appstore for Windows 11 PCs. Fortunately it’s pretty easy to sideload apps downloaded from other locations. Here’s how to do that.

Introduction

In order to allow Android apps to run on Windows 11, Microsoft developed what it calls a Windows Subsystem for Android. Much like the Windows Subsystem for Linux that debuted with Windows 10, this is basically a complete operating system that runs in a virtual machine. But it’s set up in a way that allows Android apps to interact with Windows as if they were native apps.

That means Android apps will show up in the Start Menu and add/remove programs dialog. You pin Android apps to your Taskbar. Notifications from Android apps will show up in the Action Center. And you can resize and move Android apps across your display in split-screen or multi-window modes just like native apps.

The Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) wasn’t quite ready to go when Microsoft released Windows 11 to the public on October 4th, 2021, but the company began rolling out support to members of the Windows Insider program on October 20th, 2021 for folks that want to beta test the feature. Only about 50 Android apps were available through the Amazon Appstore for Windows at the time.

On February 15, 2022 the Windows Subsystem for Android graduated from a Windows Insider-only feature to one that anyone running Windows 11 could use. It’s still considered a “preview” and there’s a chance that you might encounter some bugs, but Microsoft says that more than 1,000 apps are now available from the Amazon Appstore.

Not included though? Millions of apps that are available from the Google Play Store, F-Droid, or other locations. But since WSA is basically a complete Android operating system running inside Windows, it’s possible to sideload apps from other sources.

Note that some apps, like the Google Chrome web browser or Gmail app won’t function properly if you try to sideload them on their own, since they rely on other Google services that are not available. If you want to run those apps or other apps and games that rely on Google-specific features, is possible to install Google Play Store on the Windows Subsystem for Android, but doing so involves downloading and modifying the Windows Subsystem for Android installer with a pre-rooted image that has Google Apps pre-installed.

If you’re not comfortable doing those things, then you can always just sideload individual apps downloaded from the internet or other third-party app stores, following the steps below, none of which involve modifying Microsoft’s WSA software.

There are at least two ways to do this. The first option is probably going to be easier for most users, since it simply involves installing and running a single app from the Microsoft Store or GitHub. But power users who want to do things the hard way (and maybe have a bit more control over the process) can scroll down to Option 2 to find out how to sideload apps using a command line window.

Option 1: Sideload Android apps with WSATools (or a similar app)

The easiest way to sideload Android apps on a supported Windows 11 PC that has the Windows Subsystem for Android installed is to use one of several free third-party utilities. WSA-pacman is a versatile free and open source option hosted on GitHub, for example. So is APK-Installer.

But for the purposes of this article, I’m going to focus on a free app called WSATools, which is the first Android app sideloader available from the Microsoft Store.

Developed by Simone Franco, WSATools is available as a free download from the Microsoft Store, and it basically handles all of the things described in the second option for you… no need to open a command prompt.

WSATools version 1.5.0 was released to the Microsoft Store on November 5, 2021 and it’s a little buggy – some users have reported crashes and/or files failing to install. But Franco is still working out the kinks, so the app may get more reliable over time. And if it does work for you, it’s probably the simplest method for sideloading Android apps.

Here’s what you need to do in order to use WSATools:

  1. Install the Windows Subsystem for Android or Amazon Appstore from the Microsoft Store (installing either one will automatically install the other).
  2. Open the WSA Settings app and flip the Developer Mode toggle to the on position.
  3. Click the Manage developer settings link and make sure that USB debugging is enabled.
  4. Install WSATools from the Microsoft Store.
  5. Either open WSATools and use it to select the APK file you want to install, or just double-click any APK file from the Windows File Explorer to start the installation process.

That’s pretty much it. Note that it’s up to you to find and download Android APK installer packages from sources you trust. And apps that you’ve sideloaded most likely will not receive automatic feature or security updates if they’re not available from the Amazon Appstore.

But using a tool like WSATools to sideload Android apps opens the door to installing many Android apps that aren’t otherwise available from Amazon or Microsoft.

If WSATools doesn’t work on your computer or you want to know how to do things manually, you can try the second option – sideloading Android apps manually using command line tools.

Option 2: Sideload Android apps via the command line

Step 1: Install Windows Subsystem for Android

The first thing you need to do is install WSA. There are two simple ways to do that:

That’s pretty much it. Once you install the Amazon Appstore (or an Android app), Microsoft will also bring up a pop-up that asks you to download the components required to “get your PC ready for the Amazon Appstore,” which installs WSA. Just follow the on-screen prompts to continue.

Toward the end of the process you’ll be asked to launch the Amazon Appstore, and the first time you do this, the Windows Subsystem for Android will be installed and run.

At this point you can sign into the Amazon Appstore with your Amazon account (or create a new one) to start browsing for available apps and games. But you do not need to to this to sideload Android apps.

Step 2: Download Android Platform Tools and set them up to work with WSA

In this section we’re going to walk through the trickiest parts of sideloading apps. In a nutshell, we’ll be setting up Google’s Android SDK Platform Tools so we can sideload apps using a command line utility.

First, download Google’s Android Platform Tools and unzip it to a folder on your Windows 11 PC. Among other things, this gives you the adb (Android Debug Bridge) utility that allows you to send commands to install and uninstall Android apps.

Next (and this step is optional, but makes life a little easier), we’re going to add that folder to the PATH Variable. This allows you to run adb commands from any folder without the need to make sure that the app you want to install is in the same folder as the adb utility itself.

  1. Open the Start menu and search for “advanced system settings,” then open that app.
  2. Click the “Environmental Variables…” box at the bottom of the System Properties box that you just opened.
  3. Highlight the section labeled “Path” and then press “Edit.”
  4. Click the box that says “New.”
  5. Copy and paste the location of the folder you’ve unzipped the Android Platform Tools to. For example, my platform tools are in the C:\adb\platform-tools directory, so that’s what I put in this box.
  6. Click “Ok.”

Finally we need to let adb know how to find the Windows Subsystem for Android.

  1. Open the Start Menu and find Windows Subsystem for Android.
  2. Launch the app to open up the WSA settings utility.
  3. Find the section marked “Developer mode” and slide the toggle from the off to on position.
  4. Click the “Copy” button next to the IP address.
  5. Open a command prompt (or PowerShell, or Windows Terminal).
  6. Type “adb connect <IP Address>” where <IP Address> is the number you copied in step 4. For example, on my computer it was 172.26.41.111, so I typed “adb connect 172.26.41.111” without the quotation marks and hit enter.
  7. Type “adb devices” and hit enter to confirm that adb is connected to WSA (you should see a list of devices attached with the IP address you copied in step 4 shown).

Note that this IP Address you find will likely change every time you launch Windows Subsystem for Android, which is one of the reasons I recommend installing a third party app store (see below for more details).

Step 3: Installing Android apps via adb

For this next step, you just need to find an app that you want to install, download it, and then open a command prompt and run a simple command to install it.

There are a number of places to find Android apps without using the Amazon Appstore or Google Play Store, but perhaps one of the most trusted is APKMirror.

For example, say you want to install the Firefox web browser for Android for some reason. Here’s how to grab it from APK Mirror:

  1. Search APK Mirror for “Firefox,” find the version you want to install and click the link.
  2. Scroll down on the following page until you see the “See available downloads” option and click it.
  3. Find a version that should be compatible with your device. If you’re using a computer with an Intel or AMD processor, choose an option that says x86_64 if available. If you have a Windows 11 PC with an ARM processor, choose an option that says arm64-v8a.
  4. Click the download icon.
  5. Click the Download APK icon (the one that shows a file size, typically listed in MB).

A few things to note. First, some apps will also offer universal options, and the Windows Subsystem for Android actually includes ARM to x86 emulation, so if you grab the wrong link it’s not the end of the world, but performance will be best if you get the version appropriate for your computer’s processor.

Second, APKMirror is a pretty reliable source of Android apps, but it’s also a pretty ad-ridden website, so make sure you’re clicking the appropriate download link in step 5 above and not an ad.

Now it’s time to actually install the application.

  1. Open a command prompt (or PowerShell or Windows Terminal) if it’s not already open.
  2. Navigate to the directory where you saved the APK file you just downloaded.
  3. Type “adb install <name of APK file>” and hit enter (where <name of APK file> is, you know, the name of the APK file.

For example, if I want to install the Firefox Beta 94 APK I downloaded using the steps above, I would type:

adb install org.mozilla.firefox_beta_94.0.0-beta.4-2015840415_minAPI21(x86_64)(nodpi)_apkmirror.com

Those file names can get pretty long, so this is where the Tab key comes in handy. I was able to install Firefox by typing “adb install org.moz” and just hitting Tab to have the Windows 11 Command Prompt fill in the rest for me. Then I hit enter, and the app was installed.

If everything goes according to plan, Firefox Beta 94 for Android should now show up in the Windows 11 Start Menu.

You can now run the app by clicking on it. Like any Windows app, it can be maximized, minimized, resized, or positioned on the screen using Windows 11 Snap Layouts.

Optional Step: Uninstalling sideloaded apps

Any sideloaded app that shows up in the Start Menu can be uninstalled just like an ordinary Windows app. That means you have two easy options:

  • Right-click the Start Menu entry and choose the Uninstall option.
  • Open the Windows 11 Apps & features menu, search for the app in the App list, click the 3 dots on the right side of the entry, and choose the Uninstall option.

But some Android applications you install may not show up in the Start Menu. If that’s the case, you have two options for uninstalling them. One is nuclear, and the other surgical.

The nuclear option involves simply uninstalling the Windows Subsystem for Android and/or the Amazon Appstore, which will also remove the Windows Subsystem for Android and all Android apps along with it.

The surgical strike involves our old friend adb.

If you know the full name of the package you want to remove, you can open a command prompt, make sure adb is connected to your device (see step 2), and type:

adb shell pm uninstall --user -0 <package name>

Fore example, if you want to uninstall Firefox Beta, you would type:

adb shell pm uninstall --user -0 org.mozilla.firefox_beta

This will remove Firefox (which is an app you could have removed the easy way, but this is an example, OK)?

Don’t know the name of the package you want to uninstall? You can try this:

  • Type adb shell into a command prompt and hit return.
  • Type pm list packages -s

This will bring up a list of all installed Android packages. Scroll through the list and you’ll likely find what you’re looking for. In the example above, “mozilla” and “firefox” were keywords to look for.

Once you find the app you want to uninstall, you can either

  • Type uninstall –user 0 <package name> and hit enter to remove it while you’re still in the adb shell.
  • Type exit and hit enter to return to the main Command Prompt and then run the command listed above (adb shell pm uninstall –user 0 <package name>).

Optional Step: Installing third-party app stores

Don’t want to jump through all the hoops above every time you want to install an app that’s not available in the Amazon Appstore? Then just install a third-party app store that lets you do things the easy way from here on out.

Here are a few app stores I’ve tested which all work properly with Windows Subsystem for Android:

  • F-Droid – Repository of free and open source Android applications
  • Aurora Store – Open source, third-party frontend for the Google Play Store
  • Aptoide – Third party app store

For example, in order to install F-Droid, just download the latest APK installer file from the F-Droid homepage, install it with adb using the instructions from Step 2, and from now on you can largely ignore adb and instead use F-Droid to search for, download, and install apps.

You can even use it to install the Aurora Store for a more complete list of available Android applications, since the Aurora Store grants you access to most of the apps available from Google’s Play Store.

Here’s how to use F-Droid to install an app like the Aurora Store:

  1. Launch F-Droid from the Windows 11 Start Menu.
  2. Wait a moment for the app to download the latest repository (list of available apps).
  3. Click the search icon.
  4. Type the name of the app you want to install.
  5. Click the app.
  6. F-Droid will download and begin to install the app.
  7. If this is your first time installing an app using F-Droid, a menu will ask you to open the Android Settings utility to allow installation of “unknown apps” from F-Droid.”
  8. Click Settings, then slide the toggle to the “allow” position.
  9. Click back.
  10. Now you’ll see a “Do you want to install the application?” screen. Select “Install.”

Now you can either launch the app from within F-Droid or from the Windows 11 Start Menu. You can also uninstall the app from F-Droid or the Start Menu.

If you do choose to use the Aurora Store as a Google Play alternative, here are a few things to keep in mind:

First, You’ll need to grant permission for Aurora to access and manage external storage and to install apps. There’s a series of buttons to press during first run that walk you through this.

Second, the final step of setting up Aurora involves logging in. You can either use a Google account or go “Anonymous.” The advantage of using a Google account is that you can access any free or paid apps, games, and media associated with your Google account. The down side is that not only are you using a third-party app to login to Google, but Google reserves the right to terminate accounts of folks who are doing things that are technically against the rules… like using a third-party app to access Google Play.

So I’d recommend either using an anonymous account or creating a new Google ID that you wouldn’t be too upset about losing.

Also keep in mind that some apps may not run properly if you don’t have the Google Services Framework installed. You may be able to get around that by installing microG, a free and open source implementation of Google’s services.

This article was originally published October 21, 2022 and most recently updated February 16, 2022.

 

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Razer’s new Kraken gaming headsets bring controller-like vibrations to your head

Razer is combining adjustable haptic feedback with its best proprietary audio drivers.

Razer Kraken V3 Pro on headset stand

Enlarge / Wireless Razer Kraken V3 Pro. (credit: Razer)

There are many different ways to evoke a feeling of immersion with your video game setup. Your choice in monitor shape and size can make virtual worlds seem more real, and responsive peripherals that eliminate lag make your movements more fluid. Audio also has a dramatic effect. Gaming hardware company Razer claims it has upped the ante by applying haptic feedback to gaming headsets, just like you would find in a controller. But do vibrations on your head make your experience more fun?

Razer announced three new headsets today: the Razer Kraken V3, the Razer Kraken V3 HyperSense, and the wireless Razer Kraken V3 Pro. As you might guess by the “V3” nomenclature, these are updates to the Razer Kraken line, which currently also includes the vibration-free Razer Kraken V3 X, among other sets.

The Kraken V3 HyperSense and Kraken V3 Pro both use haptic feedback. Razer calls the feature HyperSense, and it employs haptic drivers in each earcup. The drivers take “the shape and frequencies of game audio,” as Razer puts it, processes them in under 5 ms, and turns them into vibrations. Digital signal processing covers a frequency range of 20–200 Hz.

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Razer’s Zephyr smart face mask is now available for $100 (Chrome RGB lighting included)

Gaming hardware maker Razer is now selling a high-tech face mask. The Razer Zephyr face mask is now available for $100. Razer says the mask is designed to solve some of the problems associated with cloth and disposable masks. Razer says it’s designed to be comfortable to wear. Over time it produces less waste than […]

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Gaming hardware maker Razer is now selling a high-tech face mask. The Razer Zephyr face mask is now available for $100.

Razer says the mask is designed to solve some of the problems associated with cloth and disposable masks. Razer says it’s designed to be comfortable to wear. Over time it produces less waste than disposable masks. And it’s got a clear panel that lets you see facial expressions or even lip-read when someone is masked up.

Because this is a Razer device, there’s also a set of RGB LED lights that serve multiple purposes. The internal lights can illuminate your face at night. And external lights around the filters allow you to customize the look of the device thanks to Razer’s Chroma lighting effects. You can pair the face mask with a mobile app to control lighting zones independently of one another.

First unveiled as a concept during the Consumer Electronics Show in January, when the mask was known by the code-name Project Hazel, Razer later announced it would actually bring the mask to market as a consumer product, eventually promising a Q4, 2021 release.

Now that it’s here, Razer says its Zephyr face face mask is also designed with comfort and sustainability in mind.

It has a soft silicone face seal and dual straps that go behind your head, no ear-straps required. There are also dual air intake fans that can spin at 4200 RPM and 6200RPM speeds, allowing you to increase air flow when you’re running or doing other activities that may increase your respiration.

Zephyr has a one-size-fits-all design, so the head straps are adjustable.

The mask uses replaceable N95-grade filters, and Razer says a set of filters should be good for 3 days of usage. You can buy a 30-day supply (10 filters) for $30 or save some money by picking up a Zephyr & 33-pack of filters for $150 for a 99-day supply.

Razer notes that you can probably extend the lifespan of those filters if you’re not using them every day. It’s not like they’ll instantly go bad if you use them for one day and then don’t touch them for two, although the company notes that you may want to replace them sooner if exposed to “high-risk environments” such as “enclosed locations with possible harmful particles.”

And the company says since those filters are smaller and last longer than a disposable mask, using a Razer Zephyr cuts down on waste over time (although the up-front environment costs of face mask that involves electronic components, a battery, spinning fans, and LED lights is obviously a bit higher than for a typical face mask).

Despite all that gear, the mask weighs less than half a pound and the battery can last for up to 8 hours on a charge (with the fan set to low and the LED lights disabled). You can also disable the fans if you’d like. You should still be able to breath, but Razer says the Zephyr mask is more comfortable with them on, thanks to improved air circulation and cooling.

Razer says in addition to disposing of used filters every three days or so, you can maintain the mask by detaching the silicone face guard and straps and washing them gently with soap and water. The company recommends wiping exterior surfaces with a damp cloth, while avoiding wiping the inner plastic which has an anti-fog layer designed to prevent condensation build-up.

The mask is also splash-proof, but not fully waterproof, so you might want to think twice about wearing it in the rain.

One feature that Razer had initially teased hasn’t made the final cut: the Zephyr face mask does not include a voice amplifier. Razer says skipping the voice amp allowed the company to give the face mask longer battery life and make it more comfortable to wear.

Razer also notes that while the mask has a 99% bacterial filtration rating, meaning it “offers the same functionality and adequate protection” as an N95 mask, it’s not a medical device, hasn’t been “tested specifically against the COVID-19 virus,” and “is not meant to be used in medical or clinical settings.”

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