Author: Sam Machkovech

Enlarge / Vertical! (credit: PlayStation)

In July 2015, a poster at the NeoGAF forums postulated something that sounded odd at the time: The PlayStation 4 has been 4K-compatible from the get-go. Even before 4K had arisen as a burgeoning standard, it was there, all along. User Jeff Rigby geeked out by analyzing things like motherboard schematics, exposed pins, and HDMI bandwidth ratings, and he concluded that everything on the hardware side was in place for a surprise 4K update. Sony just needed to push a necessary firmware update to comply with bandwidth and copy-protection standards.

That's a pretty beefy feature to leave dormant within our game consoles for so long. Crazy, right?

Apparently not: The PlayStation 4 is getting a firmware update "by next week," according to Sony Interactive Entertainment President Andrew House, to enable a brand-new visual standard on every single PlayStation 4 shipped since its 2013 launch. One that's been sleeping inside your PS4 all this time.

Enlarge / A livestream representation isn't a good way to show off HDR, but Sony's Mark Cerny attempts to show it off. (credit: PlayStation)

Sony's PlayStation 4 Pro event on Wednesday loudly trumpeted the benefits of HDR (high dynamic range) rendering as one reason to buy the new system, but in a surprise move, PlayStation's Andrew House announced that every PlayStation 4 owner can expect HDR compatibility—and as soon as next week.

"With the proper display, all 40 million PlayStation 4 owners can join the HDR revolution," House told the crowd after confirming that a firmware update will go out to all users next week (though an exact date wasn't specified). However, House didn't confirm whether that HDR spec will be locked to the Dolby Vision standard or to HDR-10.

This somewhat leaves Xbox One gamers in the HDR dust, as that system's HDR compatibility only works for owners of the brand-new Xbox One S hardware revision. That system works only with the HDR-10 spec, which is slightly more limited than Dolby Vision in terms of color and brightness spectrum.

Enlarge / Apple's new AirPods. (credit: Ars Technica)

SAN FRANCISCO—Apple Senior VP Phil Schiller took the stage at Wednesday's iPhone event to announce the news most tech geeks had been expecting: the iPhone will leave the 3.5mm headphone jack behind. It was Schiller's job to justify why Apple was doing so, and he defended the company's decision by citing three reasons to move on—and one word: "courage."

Schiller explained to the San Francisco event crowd that Apple would push the Lightning port standard for wired headphones and push a new proprietary wireless standard, driven by the new "W1 chip" in iOS devices, which Schiller called Apple's first wireless chip.

The 3.5mm port, on the other hand, has to go, Schiller said, because the company can't justify the continued use of an "ancient" single-use port. He described the amount of technology packed into the iPhone, saying each element in Apple's phones is fighting for space, and it's at a premium. And while every iPhone 7 and 7 Plus will include a Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter, Schiller was a lot more bullish about the company's wireless-audio standard.

SAN FRANCISCO—The Apple Watch may finally have gotten its killer app thanks to a special smartwatch build of Pokémon Go. Dubbed Pokémon Go Plus, the watch-specific version of the game will launch exclusively on Apple Watches "later this month." No pricing information was given for the game.

Niantic CEO John Hanke took the stage at Apple's Wednesday event to announce that Pokémon Go players had already collectively walked 4.6 billion km—and that's just when players had their phones out to track steps. Pokémon Go Plus will do players one better by tracking their steps when their phones are in their pockets, which will aid the game's "egg hatching" system (which requires walking no less than 5km per egg to hatch).

Pokémon Go Plus won't allow players to check a live map and throw Pokéballs; instead, it will alert walking players that certain Pokémon characters are nearby, at which point players can choose to turn their phones on and load the default app to try to catch the creature in question. The presentation didn't confirm whether or not players will be able to disable those alerts for lower-level creatures, so there's no telling whether players' wrists will buzz endlessly with alerts about piddly Pidgeys.

Miyamoto on stage at his first-ever Apple event to announce Super Mario Run. (credit: Ars Technica)

SAN FRANCISCO—Any question about Nintendo's bullishness about smartphone gaming evaporated on Wednesday with the announcement of Super Mario Run for iOS. The auto-running Super Mario game—and first Mario game for smartphones—will launch in time for "holiday 2016," and it was announced by none other than Super Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto at Apple's major September press event.

After demonstrating the game, Miyamoto told the crowd that the game will launch "at a set price so you won't have to worry about continuing to pay." Pricing was not announced just yet. Apple's Tim Cook confirmed that the game will launch first on iOS.

This story is developing.

Enlarge / Prepare to see less activity on Hanjin ships thanks to a bankruptcy filing this week. (credit: Josh Hallett)

TV manufacturers have moved on to another set of standards, hoping to convince us to pay up for new sets, but adoption of standards such as 4K resolution and "high dynamic range" (HDR) displays may very well live and die by finding the right price point in stores. That won't be easier for Korean monitor makers in the coming months, however, thanks to the Tuesday bankruptcy filing by major South Korean shipping company Hanjin.

South Korean electronics company LG made a Thursday announcement confirming that it would immediately cancel all overseas shipments with Hanjin—primarily because the company's ships, crates, and other major shipping assets have been seized at various ports across the world and are not being allowed entry at other ports out of fears that Hanjin will not be able to pay required fees. Other manufacturers of major mechanical and large-electronic products, including Samsung, have also confirmed feeling the Hanjin-related pinch. As a result, shipping rates are jumping drastically.

As Reuters reports, shipping rates have jumped "about 55 percent" on the routes normally trafficked by Hanjin ships—and companies like Hyundai, which operates its own shipping business, are enjoying the spoils. In the meantime, slowed and stranded shipments could have an immediate impact on product prices for big-ticket electronics, especially as retailers ramp up for the American holiday shopping season. Air freight is often relied upon more heavily for smaller-sized electronics like smartphones, so Hanjin's woes shouldn't impact prices on those products. But whether due to rarity or higher shipping prices, things probably won't get any cheaper for any larger products made by South Korean companies this fall and winter.

Nintendo hosted another of its YouTube-only press conferences on Thursday, but if you came expecting news about the forthcoming Nintendo NX console, too bad; that's coming later this year (possibly this month). This presentation instead focused on the Nintendo 3DS system, and its announcements of early-2017 software may mark the portable console's last hurrah before the launch of the NX, which is rumored to be a home/portable hybrid.

Leading off the news was a still-unnamed, side-scrolling version of Pikmin. The long-running "garden strategy" series has been reimagined as a puzzle-platformer with Lemming-like elements—meaning that your main character, Olimar, will throw different-colored Pikmin to solve small puzzles and progress through linear levels. The brief demo footage looked pretty rough, with simple puzzles, low-poly characters, and a rough frame rate, so we imagine there's a lot to be done on this game before its "spring 2017" launch. This may very well be the upcoming Pikmin game that series creator Shigeru Miyamoto has been teasing for some time—unless there's another Pikmin coming to NX, at any rate.

Also launching in that vague "spring" window is Mario Sports Superstars, which looks like a last-gasp mash-up of other Mario-branded "action sports" games. At least it won't be small, as the game appears set to feature full takes on the Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, and Mario Sluggers games—along with the first 11-on-11 Mario soccer mode and Mario's first-ever horse-racing game. Sadly, this release won't include a refresh of the three-on-three, arcade-minded Mario Strikers soccer game, but it will at least feature online multiplayer. Still, this looks mostly like a "greatest hits" bundle of older 3DS games to prolong the aging 3DS' lifespan a few more months.

Enlarge / Gosh, I love that planet pin. (credit: billnye.com)

Bill Nye's social capital has been on the rise in recent years, as he has transitioned from a kid-friendly science show host to a no-nonsense defender of hard science (and bow ties). His polite aggression has appeared on talk shows, lecture halls, and comedy series, but none of his enjoyable bluster has come in his own series in some time.

Netflix has announced plans to change that with the introduction of Bill Nye Saves the World, a new Netflix-exclusive talk show series launching in spring 2017. In a Wednesday press release, Netflix described the show's aspirations to "refute anti-scientific claims that may be espoused by politicians, religious leaders, or titans of industry"—so the show is clearly aiming to maintain the junk-science battle that Nye has loudly fought in recent years.

Like his '90s TV series, the new Netflix show looks like it will provide equal parts comedy and hard science, as head writers have been hired for those elements (with comedian Mike Drucker and astronomer Phil Plait filling those respective roles). Though the press release didn't indicate how vulgar or extreme the humor may go, Nye's hilarious, frustrated-cursing turn on a 2015 episode of Inside Amy Schumer makes us hopeful that he'll veer a little blue when taking on topics like "vaccinations, genetically modified foods, and climate change."

Today marks the launch of the first public test of Battlefield One, the latest entry in the massive-team online-shooting series, and if you own a Windows PC, Xbox One, or PlayStation 4, you can now freely download and test this game for a little over a week: until September 8, to be precise. Our hands-on time with the game has come mostly at expos, and while that was relatively brief, I knew mostly what to expect from this World War I-flavored take on the series.

Still, I was glad to get a day of early access to the beta, which allowed me to put the PS4 and Windows versions to the test. In good news, the action is competent, and the game's 1930s weaponry and machinery work to the action's benefit. In even better news, performance on this in-progress beta is quite good on PC—and surprisingly smooth and detailed on PS4.

Leagues beyond Superman 64

I tested the PC version of this World War I-era shooter on an i7-4770K rig, matched with a GeForce GTX 980Ti and 16GB of RAM, and I was able to play BF1 at maxed-out settings ("ultra") at a frame rate not quite sitting stably at 60 frames per second. Dropping down to "high" settings helped, but I still saw a few frame rate stutters—and I'm hopeful this technical hiccuping will be settled by further refinement, polishing, and bug-testing ahead of the game's October 21 launch.

Enlarge / What exactly will Madden NFL '17 have to say about Colin Kaepernick in its next "live commentary" patch update? We'll find out soon enough. (credit: bmward_2000 via Flickr)

For years, EA Sports' major-league games have included downloadable weekly updates to address real-life issues like injuries and player trades. This year, the company's biggest American series, Madden NFL, is going one step further by adding a human touch to these weekly add-ons—updated commentary tracks. Over the course of the 2016-17 NFL season, you'll hear the game's narrators, real-life sports analysts Charles Davis and Brandon Gaudin, remark on current football events. And if this week's any indication, they won't focus only on the biggest news in touchdowns, trades, and tackles.

On Monday, Gamespot confirmed the next commentary update for Madden NFL '17 will include discussion about San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's choice to sit down during the pre-game singing of the Star-Spangled Banner, something he has done during the NFL preseason. The mention will be "brief," according to a quoted EA Sports representative, and it will be included to reflect "our commitment to authenticity." The Gamespot report didn't confirm exactly when the next commentary patch would go live for players of the PS4 and Xbox One game.

What Davis and Gaudin decide to talk about will be very telling for EA Sports' first year of "live commentary" for a major league sport. Perhaps the duo will mention Kaepernick's own explanation for the sit-down, which he said was inspired by oppression of black people across the US. Kaepernick went on to promise he'd continue sitting through anthems until "this country is representing people in the way that it’s supposed to." The EA Sports duo could also mention that former 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh offered a mixed response to Kaepernick's actions, or they can draw upon a pile of quotes from other players that show both support and opposition to Kaepernick's stance. Who knows—the duo could even mention black American athletes protesting civil rights issues in past decades.