Category: Technology

Dead by Daylight has a new Killer in town, and it’s one all horror fans know (and likely fear): the Xenomorph. Behaviour Interactive has released all of the details of its new Alien collaboration following a teaser that provided a glimpse into the new Nostromo Wreckage Map. The announcement confirmed not only the Xenomorph’s role as Dead by Daylight‘s latest Killer but also the introduction of Ellen Ripley as a Survivor. 

This edition introduces seven Control Stations, a new Map feature that allows Survivors to get a Remote Flame Turret (another addition), which they can use to stagger the Xenomorph — though the Killer can destroy the tool. It can also stop the Xenomorph’s unique Power known as Runner Mode, which lets it walk on four legs and shrinks its Terror Radius. 

The control stations sit on top of tunnels that the Xenomorph can enter and exit through. “Creating the Xenomorph’s Tunnel system was very challenging as we had never created a sublevel that could only be accessible to the Killer. This new mechanic grants it Map-wide mobility and definitely amps up the scare factor – which feels very connected to the original character,” said Janick Neveu, Game Designer on Dead by Daylight.

You don’t have to wait long to wander through the Nostromo Wreckage in total fear (a perfect nighttime game, right?) as Dead by Daylight: Alien will be available across platforms starting August 29th. Impatient? You can already download the game’s Public Test Build and try it out early. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/alien-is-coming-to-dead-by-daylight-105502420.html?src=rss 

Sony has published its earnings report for the first quarter of the year (PDF) ending on June 30th and an adjusted forecast for the fiscal year, and they paint a picture of mixed results for the company. Its overall operating profit for the period was down 31 percent year-over-year, from 364.9 billion yen ($2.54 billion) to 253 billion ($1.76 billion). The company’s revenue was up 33 percent, however, thanks to significant increase in sales by its game and network services, music, imaging and financial services businesses.

Sony believes its game and music segments will continue to do well and has raised (PDF) its sales and revenue forecast for the fiscal year ending on March 31st, 2024 by 6.1 percent due to higher-than-expected sales for those businesses. It also expects its net income to be 2.4 percent higher than its previous forecast, from 840 billion yen ($5.86 billion) to 860 billion ($6 billion).

For its game division, in particular, Sony has tweaked its forecast, because it’s anticipating an increase in sales for non-first-party PlayStation titles, including add-on content. Several much-awaited games are coming out for PlayStation gamers this year, such as Spider-Man 2, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Expansion, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and EA Sports FC. 

This expected increase in sales for non-first-party titles will be aided by a decrease in costs and expenses. That said, they will also offset by a “deterioration in profitability of PlayStation 5 hardware.” Sony has dropped the PS5’s pricing in several regions around the world recently. While that translates to lower overall earnings from the console, it could also get people on the fence to finally purchase the PS5, which in turn could lead to more game purchases. 

To note, Sony has shipped 3.3 million PS5 units in the first quarter of the year. That’s almost half of the previous quarter’s sales of 6.3 million units, though that figure was for the holiday season, when businesses typically do better than usual. This is Sony’s best-performing first quarter for PS5 sales so far, bringing the total number of units sold to 41.7 million. 

Despite adjusting its outlook with better numbers for the year overall, Sony has lowered its expectations for the sales of mobile sensors due to the continuing downward trend in smartphone sales. Sony Pictures’ earnings was also down year-on-year despite the success of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. The company doesn’t foresee a recovery for the business, as well, and believes it will perform worse than what was predicted last April due to the impact of strikes by the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sony-raises-its-annual-forecast-on-the-strength-of-its-playstation-sales-113514305.html?src=rss 

There’s good news if you felt thrown by the $50 price tag for 13-year-old Red Dead Redemption‘s Nintendo Switch and PS4 release: Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says the cost is right. Seriously, IGN reports that Zelnick had his reasons, which he clearly laid out after the company’s Q2 earnings report, “That’s just what we believe is the commercially accurate price for it.” Satisfied now? 

Points of frustration around Red Dead Redemption‘s sticker price are extensive, including the lack of a multiplayer option and a complete lack of a quality update since its 2010 release (no 4K visuals in sight). There’s also the small matter that the game is already available on Xbox Series X in 4K for $40. 

Take-Two is leaning on the inclusion of Undead Nightmare, a Red Dead Redemption expansion, in the port as a rationale for the higher price. Zelnick called Undead Nightmare “a great standalone game in its own right when it was originally released, so we feel like it’s a great bundle for the first time, and certainly a great value for consumers.” 

If the words of a CEO have convinced you to pay $50 for Red Dead Redemption, you can buy the digital version for the Nintendo Switch or PS4 starting August 17th, with a physical release to follow on October 13th. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/take-two-ceo-says-50-for-red-dead-redemption-port-is-great-value-093553782.html?src=rss 

On August 4th, Northrop Grumman’s 19th resupply mission for the ISS arrived on the orbiting lab, carrying not just necessities for its inhabitants, but also an experiment that could greatly benefit future human colonies outside our planet. Specifically, the mission was carrying a module with hardware that could help us understand how heating and air conditioning systems can operate in reduced gravity and in the extreme temperatures observed on the moon and Mars. Daytime temperatures near the lunar equator, for instance, reach 250 degrees Fahrenheit, which is higher than the boiling point of water. At night, temperatures reach -208 degrees Fahrenheit. The lowest recorded temperature on Earth was -128.6 degrees Fahrenheit back in 1983.

The hardware was designed and built by scientists and engineers from Purdue University and NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. It will allow Purdue scientists to conduct the second part of their Flow Boiling and Condensation Experiment (FBCE), which has been collecting data aboard the ISS since 2021. They’ve already finished gathering data for the first part of their study that focuses on measuring the effects of reduced gravity on boiling. This part will now focus on investigating how condensation works in a reduced-gravity environment.

Issam Mudawar, the Purdue professor in charge of experiment, explained: “We have developed over a hundred years’ worth of understanding of how heat and cooling systems work in Earth’s gravity, but we haven’t known how they work in weightlessness.”

His team has published over 60 research papers on reduced gravity and fluid flow from the data they’ve collected so far, and they’re in the midst of preparing more. They believe that in addition to providing the information needed to enable human colonies to live on the moon and on the red planet, their experiment could also provide the scientific understanding to enable spacecraft to travel longer distances and to refuel in orbit.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/iss-experiment-will-help-scientists-work-out-how-to-keep-astronauts-cool-in-space-081822506.html?src=rss 

The Apple TV+ film Tetris was copied from a book written years ago, according to a lawsuit filed against the tech giant and the Tetris Company. Dan Ackerman, the editor-in-chief of Gizmodo, has accused the plaintiffs of ripping off his book The Tetris Effect, which tells the history of the game in the form of a Cold War-era thriller. In his lawsuit (PDF, via Reuters), Ackerman said he sent the Tetris Company and its CEO Maya Rogers a pre-publication copy of his book back in 2016. Later that year, his agent received a “strongly worded Cease and Desist letter” to stop him from pursuing film and TV opportunities. 

Ackerman accused Rogers of working with screenwriter Noah Pink to develop a screenplay using content taken from his book without his knowledge or consent. Apparently, numerous producers showed interest in adapting his book, but the Tetris Company refused to license its IP for the project. “This was done at the direction and behest of Ms. Rogers so that she and the Tetris Company could pursue their own project and opportunities based on Mr. Ackerman’s book without compensating him,” the lawsuit reads. 

In his complaint, Ackerman explained that for writers, the option to license their work for film and TV is typically a major source of revenue. That’s why he takes the Tetris Company’s actions not as a means to prevent the unauthorized use of its IP, but as an “economic attack” on his business. To drive the point home, Ackerman included quite a lengthy list of “glaring similarities” between his book and the film in his lawsuit. Several items in the list explain how scenes in the movie mirrored his versions of events. That said, those events were based on scenarios that happened in real life, so it remains to be seen if the court will agree with him. Ackerman is asking for actual, compensatory and punitive damages equivalent to 6 percent of the film’s $80 million production budget. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/author-says-the-apple-tv-tetris-movie-ripped-off-his-book-061744399.html?src=rss 

YouTube announced today that it’s changing how its home page works if you have your watch history disabled. Starting today, the video service’s home feed will stop appearing for those with their viewing history turned off and “no significant prior watch history.” The change will provide a more streamlined browsing experience, showing only the search bar and guide menu.

“Starting today, if you have YouTube watch history off and have no significant prior watch history, features that require watch history to provide video recommendations will be disabled — like your YouTube home feed,” the company wrote in a blog post today. “This means that starting today, your home feed may look a lot different: you’ll be able to see the search bar and the left-hand guide menu, with no feed of recommended videos, thus allowing you to more easily search, browse subscribed channels and explore Topic tabs instead.”

YouTube says the changes will appear “slowly, over the next few months.” The company describes the move as making “it more clear which YouTube features rely on watch history to provide video recommendations and make it more streamlined for those of you who prefer to search rather than browse recommendations.”

YouTube says, once the change rolls out to your account, you can change your watch history settings to switch views at any time. The toggle is in a dedicated section on the My Google Activity settings page.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/youtube-will-show-a-minimalist-home-page-if-your-watch-history-is-turned-off-204126043.html?src=rss 

After months of testing, Google has announced that all group chats that have RCS enabled in its Android and Wear OS Messages app now have end-to-end encryption (E2EE) enabled by default. That should help keep prying eyes away from your chats as only the group participants will be able to read your messages, as long as they’re not sharing screenshots or showing their phone to someone next to them (there’s not much you can do about that, unfortunately).

Google notes that RCS will now be enabled by default for new and existing users, as long as they haven’t previously switched off RCS in their settings. So, maybe make sure that no one in your group has opted out of RCS before you start sharing your most private information.

E2EE has been available in one-on-one chats for some time and enabling it for group conversations is a welcome move. However, Android and iOS don’t exactly play nicely together on this front. Google has been trying in vain to get Apple to support RCS, but the latter is quite content with using its own iMessage service for encrypted messaging. So, you’ll only be able to embrace E2EE chats if every member of your group is on either Android or iOS, unless you opt to use a third-party app like Signal.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-says-all-group-rcs-chats-are-now-fully-end-to-end-encrypted-200337049.html?src=rss 

Valve announced today that it’s offering “certified refurbished” Steam Deck units. The renewed devices shave around 20 percent off the prices of their new counterparts, allowing you to pick one up for cheaper than Steam Summer Sale prices. The consoles include the same one-year warranty as new models. In addition, Valve announced that GameStop is now selling Steam Deck refurbs in select stores, although its models are “refurbished at GameStop facilities and will come with their own warranty.”

At the time of publication, Valve has all three Steam Deck tiers in stock. The 64GB model costs $319, the 256GB variant is $419 and the 512GB one is sold for $519 — the same systems in new condition retail for $399, $529 and $649, respectively.

Valve says it thoroughly tests each unit before certifying it for resale. “Every device goes through a complete factory reset, software update, and an extensive examination involving over 100 tests at one of Valve’s facilities,” the company wrote. “Among the tests are all controller inputs, the audio system, the screen, and internals. Battery health is also assessed to ensure proper functionality and longevity.”

The company cautions that the renewed units “may have minor cosmetic blemishes,” but it promises “a reliable, high-quality gaming experience at a lower cost.” In addition to offering the same warranty as new consoles, the refurbished models include a power supply (also refurbished), carrying case and quick-start guide. Valve says refurbished Steam Deck stock is limited “and may fluctuate over time.” The company recommends checking its refurbished stock regularly if they’re sold out.

Meanwhile, GameStop’s refurbished Steam Decks are also available today. They’re sold in select retail locations for “up to 20% less than new models” and are only available for customers with a GameStop Pro membership, which costs $25 annually.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/valve-begins-selling-refurbished-steam-decks-for-around-20-percent-off-201808966.html?src=rss