Month: March 2022

A 3,600-hour Nintendo Switch OLED test gets to the bottom of burn-in

YouTuber’s test results provide potential good news for more than just the Switch.

Go on, leave your Switch OLED on nonstop for 3,000 hours and more. It may not be the <em>best</em> idea, but at least one tester in the wild has found it takes that many hours before the screen is negatively impacted.

Enlarge / Go on, leave your Switch OLED on nonstop for 3,000 hours and more. It may not be the best idea, but at least one tester in the wild has found it takes that many hours before the screen is negatively impacted. (credit: Aurich Lawson)

For many Nintendo fans, the launch of the Switch OLED in late 2021 was a welcome upgrade that provided a bigger screen and richer colors. But some people were concerned with the company putting an OLED panel on a portable system due to fears of image retention or outright image burn-in.

Thankfully, my prerelease testing of Switch OLED, which included hours-long tests of static Zelda images, didn't permanently burn any Zelda heart icons onto the screen, and anecdotal testing in the months since has looked positive. But what if that isn't comforting enough? What if you need an extreme test to know exactly how well the Samsung-manufactured panels in the Switch OLED consoles resist all forms of burn-in and image retention?

Seen by the eyes of a Wulff

  • Wulff's test, split halfway between a frozen image and what impact it has on an all-white screen. [credit: Bob Wulff ]

On the system's launch day, YouTube tech critic and Twitch host Bob "WulffDen" Wulff began an experiment to conclusively answer this question, and five months later, he has published the latest video in his series on the topic. The console he tested, as put through an extreme test case that average gamers would never approach, needed 3,600 hours of nearly nonstop projection of a single image to show any signs of OLED burn-in.

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Russia mulls legalizing software piracy as it’s cut off from Western tech

Proliferation of software-as-a-service may make it harder to pull off, though.

Russia mulls legalizing software piracy as it’s cut off from Western tech

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

With sanctions against Russia starting to bite, the Kremlin is mulling ways to keep businesses and the government running. The latest is a creative twist on state asset seizures, only instead of the government taking over an oil refinery, for example, Russia is considering legalizing software piracy.

Russian law already allows for the government to authorize—“without consent of the patent holder”—the use of any intellectual property “in case of emergency related to ensuring the defense and security of the state.” The government hasn’t taken that step yet, but it may soon, according to a report from Russian business newspaper Kommersant, spotted and translated by Kyle Mitchell, an attorney who specializes in technology law. It's yet another sign of a Cyber Curtain that's increasingly separating Russia from the West.

The plan would create “a compulsory licensing mechanism for software, databases, and technology for integrated microcircuits,” the Kommersant said. It would only apply to companies from countries that have imposed sanctions. While the article doesn’t name names, many large Western firms—some of which would be likely targets—have drastically scaled back business in Russia. So far, Microsoft has suspended sales of new products and services in Russia, Apple has stopped selling devices, and Samsung has stopped selling both devices and chips.

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Daily Deals (3-07-2022)

B&H is offering a few nice deals on Acer laptops – you can pick up a 14 inch Acer Swift 5 with an Intel Core i7 Tiger Lake processor, 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage for $800 or a 13.5 inch Swift 3 with the same processor, 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage […]

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B&H is offering a few nice deals on Acer laptops – you can pick up a 14 inch Acer Swift 5 with an Intel Core i7 Tiger Lake processor, 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage for $800 or a 13.5 inch Swift 3 with the same processor, 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for just $550.

Already have a PC, but need more storage space? B&H is also selling a 10TB WD Elements external hard drive for $170. Just note that you’ll need to add it to your shopping cart to see that price.

Acer Swift 5

Here are some of the day’s best deals.

Computers

Storage

Wireless audio

Media Streamers

Accessories

Downloads

Store sales

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If adapting to climate change sounds easy, it shouldn’t

While we need mitigation, adaptation (if done well) can reduce impacts.

Image of two large, semi-circular barriers.

Enlarge / Storm surge barriers, like these in the Netherlands, can play a role in adaptation. (credit: Mischa Keijser)

Last Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a new report that followed August’s initial portion of this massive, three-part effort. Much of the immediate news coverage has focused on the latest attempts to communicate the seriousness of the impacts of climate change. The report concludes, “The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health. Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.”

There is a great deal in this report on our understanding of climate change impacts, which are worsening as warming progresses. These topics should be familiar unless you’ve just stepped out of a time machine (and are not arriving from the future, or they'd be even more familiar). They include everything from sea level rise and weather extremes to food security and direct human health risks.

But the other focus of this portion of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report is adaptation to climate change. It’s easy to throw this term around as if it’s an alternative to halting global warming or some painless thing that will happen of its own accord. Both ideas would be mistaken.

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Hacked Nintendo Switch consoles could eventually run PS Vita games without emulation thanks to vita2hos

The Nintendo Switch is a current-gen handheld game console that was first released in 2017. The PlayStation Vita is an older, smaller, and discontinued handheld game console released in 2012. And they’re similar enough that a hacker has found a way that you might one day be able to run PS Vita games on a […]

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The Nintendo Switch is a current-gen handheld game console that was first released in 2017. The PlayStation Vita is an older, smaller, and discontinued handheld game console released in 2012. And they’re similar enough that a hacker has found a way that you might one day be able to run PS Vita games on a Nintendo Switch without even using an emulator.

Developer Sergi Granelli has released a (very) early build of a tool called vita2hos that allows some software written for the PS Vita to run natively on a Nintendo Switch.

Modern Vintage Gamer (YouTube)

At this point the software is very much a work in progress – Granelli says it’s at the “proof of concept” stage and is only able to “run some simple CPU-rendered homebrew” games with very limited support for 3D graphics. It’s unclear if or when you’ll be able to actually run commercial PS Vita games on a Nintendo Switch using vita2hos.

But the basic idea behind the software is that it allows software written for the PS Vita’s ARMv7 processor to run on a Nintendo Switch’s ARmv8 processor in 32-bit execution mode, translating modules created for the Vita to use similar routines on the Switch.

In other words, it’s not an emulator, but rather a compatibility layer much like WINE or CrossOver software which allows you to run some Windows software on Mac or Linux computers.

Modern Vintage Gamer (YouTube)

Unfortunately, Granelli says “the most difficult task is shader translation” from the PS Vita’s graphics processor to NVIDIA’s, which is why you can only run some homebrew games and applications through vita2hos so far.

You’ll also need a hacked Nintendo Switch capable of running custom software in order to make use of vita2hos in the first place… although the vita2hos GitHub page also includes instructions for using the software in Nintendo Switch emulators including Yuzu and Ryujinx. So theoretically you could run PS Vita games natively in… a Nintendo Switch emulator.

Or you could just use a PS Vita emulator like Vita3k, I suppose.

via exputer, HackADay, and Modern Vintage Gamer (YouTube)

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YouTube offers popular podcasts $50K in cash to pivot to video

Starting up video production is expensive, but YouTube is willing to help with that.

YouTube offers popular podcasts $50K in cash to pivot to video

Enlarge (credit: Future Publishing | Getty Images)

YouTube is still gearing up for a big podcast push. After hiring an executive in charge of podcasting last year, YouTube is now offering cash to popular podcasts that are willing to make the jump to video.

Bloomberg is reporting that YouTube's content push works out to "offers of $50,000 to individual shows and $200,000 and $300,000 to podcast networks." The report says these "grants" are meant to help with the high start-up costs of producing video, which requires cameras, lighting, a studio, and a lot of other equipment you don't need to just do audio.

We still don't know the extent of YouTube's podcasting plans. The project sounds like another instance of YouTube developing a specific content vertical with a specialized interface and custom branding. We've already seen this play out when YouTube's plethora of gaming content led to YouTube Gaming, when all the company's music deals created YouTube Music, and when kids' content got a "YouTube Kids" vertical. If podcasting follows a similar playbook, expect a "YouTube Podcasts" app and website, or at least a special section in the Music app.

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Now Samsung’s A-series budget phones are shipping without chargers too

Samsung has been shipping its flagship smartphones without a charger in the box since the Samsung Galaxy S21 launched last year. Now the company appears to be taking the same approach toward its budget phones. Last week the company began taking orders in the US for the $160 Galaxy A03s and $250 Galaxy A13 5G smartphones. […]

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Samsung has been shipping its flagship smartphones without a charger in the box since the Samsung Galaxy S21 launched last year. Now the company appears to be taking the same approach toward its budget phones.

Last week the company began taking orders in the US for the $160 Galaxy A03s and $250 Galaxy A13 5G smartphones. Both phones come with a USB in the box, but no power adapter.

Samsung Galaxy A13 5G

Some phone makers have been shipping devices without chargers for the past few years, with Apple kicking off the trend with the launch of the iPhone 12 in 2020. The idea is that most people these folks buying phones these days aren’t buying their first phone – and while you may be looking to replace your old phone with a newer model, odds are that the charger you used with your older device is still perfectly usable. So why send you a new one that you don’t need?

Of course, some folks do need a charger because they may be buying their first phone, their old charger may not be compatible with their new device, or perhaps they want to take advantage of fast-charging capabilities that their own phones lacked. Those folks will have to pay extra to buy a new power adapter when purchasing a phone that doesn’t come with one.

What’s a bit odd is that this trend started with flagship phones with high price tags before filtering down to cheap phones that likely have lower profit margins. Honestly it would have made more sense to start with cheap phones.

But this is hardly the first time we’ve seen the omission of a feature hit premium devices first. Want a phone with a headphone jack, microSD card reader, or maybe even a removable battery? There are budget and mid-range phones with all of those features, but good luck finding a phone in the $1000 price range that has any of those things.

What’s in the Galaxy A13 5G box

As for Samsung’s new phones, if you’re looking for a budget phone you could probably do worse than the Galaxy A13 5G. This $250 phone has a 6.5 inch 1600 x 7620 pixel display with a 90 Hz refresh rate, a MediaTek Dimensity 700 processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 support, a 5,000 mAh battery, a 50MP primary camera, Android 11 software, and a microSD card reader with support for cards up to 1TB.

It also supports 15-watt fast charging when used with a compatible charger. You’ll just need to supply your own.

Samsung Galaxy A03s

The Galaxy A03s is a little less impressive, with a 6.5 inch, 1600 x 720 pixel 60 Hz display, a MediaTek Helio P35 processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a 13MP primary camera. This phone tops out at WiFi 4, but it does support Bluetooth 5.0 and features the same 5,000 mAh battery and 15-watt fast charging support though, and support for microSD cards up to 1TB.

Both phones have headphone jacks.

What’s in the Galaxy A03s box

via Phone Arena

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