Category: Technology

The Switch just leaped over both the Game Boy and PlayStation 4 to become the third best-selling console of all time. The console has sold 122.55 million units overall as of the end of 2022, Nintendo announced in its earnings report, so it’s is now behind only the DS and PlayStation 2 in lifetime sales. 

That’s the only silver lining in a darker cloud, though. Switch unit sales for the nine-month period ending December 31st dropped to 14.91 million from 18.95 million the year before, and revenue declined 5.6 percent for the fiscal year ending in March. Game sales also fell by 4 percent over the same period, with the new Pokemon Scarlet/Violet titles unable to offset the decline. As a result, the company has lowered its fiscal year forecast from 19 million to 18 million units with 5 million fewer games — continuing a downward trend from last year.

Nintendo attributed the decline to the ongoing semiconductor shortage, with the lack of consoles affecting software sales too. However, Sony set a new sales record for PS5s last quarter with 7.1 million sold, up 82 percent year-over year. 

Nintendo’s issues likely boil down to its aging hardware, as well. Buyers are going for the latest OLED model, with the older Switch and Switch Lite models seeing a decline. The Switch is now relatively underpowered compared to the latest Xbox Series and PS5 consoles, and Sony and Microsoft are also pouring money into games and subscriptions. 

Nintendo said last year that the transition to its next console is “a major focus for us,” and it could start becoming more urgent soon. It’ll be interesting to see if the Switch can hang around long enough to become the best selling console of all time, but Nintendo will have to sell around 33 million more units to surpass the PlayStation 2. 

 

Elon Musk may have to think of a lot more ways to make Twitter Blue appealing to potential subscribers if he wants the subscription service to be a major source of revenue. According to The Information, only 180,000 people in the US have been paying for a Twitter subscription by mid-January, and that’s apparently around 0.2 percent of the website’s monthly active users. The publication said it saw the information on a document, which also revealed that 62 percent of the company’s paying users is from the US. That means Twitter has approximately 290,000 subscribers worldwide. 

Twitter Blue costs $8 a month for users who pay via web — or $7, if they pay for an annual subscription — and $11 for those who pay via Apple’s or Google’s app stores. Since the latter option gives the tech giants a cut of subscribers’ payments, Twitter still only gets $8 a month from users overall. With the current number of paying users, the website is only set to earn $27.8 million a year from its subscription services. That said, Twitter has only just relaunched Blue in mid-December last year after a bumpy initial launch a month before that. It’s bound to rack up more subscribers, though it remains to be seen if it can achieve the level of growth Musk wants to see. 

As The Information notes, Musk told Twitter employees last year that he wants half of the website’s revenue to come from subscriptions. Since the company has to pay over $1 billion a year in interests alone from the loans Musk took out when he purchased the website, the executive is aiming to take in a revenue of $3 billion for 2023. Twitter has to have quite a lot of subscribers to earn half of that from Blue. One avenue the company is considering to earn more from its subscription services is to offer a higher-priced membership tier that allows users to browse the website with zero ads. Twitter is also reportedly planning to charge businesses $1,000 a month for their gold verification badges and an extra $50 a month for each account affiliated with them. 

 

On Safer Internet Day (and with Valentine’s Day fast approaching), Tinder is starting to roll out some new safety features and updates to some others. Users will now be able to take advantage of an incognito mode, which Tinder says is a “step up” from hiding your profile completely. Only folks that you Like will see you in their recommendations. That should give you more granular control over your visibility.

In addition, you can block profiles that pop up in your suggestions. So, that could mitigate some awkwardness if you spot an ex or someone else from your life, such as (shudder) a family member. This follows a feature that allows users to block others based on their phone number.

There’s another new safety feature called long press reporting. If you receive an offensive message or unwanted picture, you can tap and hold to swiftly report it. Tinder says that it hopes this will encourage more people to report bad behavior so it can take action against users who are breaking the rules.

Meanwhile, Tinder has made some changes to features called “Are You Sure” (which asks folks to reconsider before sending a message with potentially harmful language) and “Does This Bother You,” which encourages users to report inappropriate conversations. Tinder says the features will detect more language that it deems harmful or inappropriate, including hate speech as well as sexual harassment and exploitation. The company says that, since it added “Does This Bother You,” it has received 46 percent more reports of messages containing harmful language.

Along with these updates, Tinder is rolling out a series of Healthy Dating Guides in collaboration with No More, a campaign to end domestic violence and sexual assault. The guides are designed to help users spot red flags and protect themselves at every stage of the relationship. Starting on February 8th, Tinder will also start running a campaign called Green Flags, which is about highlighting safety features and the steps people can take to safely date online.

 

Apple’s App Store policies require that the Chrome browser on iOS uses the WebKit engine rather than the usual Blink, but that isn’t stopping Google from indulging in a “what if” scenario. The Register has noticed that Google recently started work on an experiment that would port Blink to iOS. The project is limited to the stripped-down “content_shell” app rather than Chrome, and the Chromium team working on the effort stresses that it’s not a “shippable product.” It’s only meant to test graphics and input performance, the company says.

In a statement, a Google spokesperson told Engadget the Blink port is only a “prototype” that’s part of a larger open source initiative. It won’t be available to the public, and the company will “continue to abide” by Apple’s rules.

It’s not clear why Google wants to test Blink on iOS in the first place, though. If Apple’s policies stay firm, Google won’t be allowed to release any Blink-based software. Only those experienced enough to compile and run content_shell may get a taste of the experience.

The timing may not be coincidental, though. The US government wants Apple and Google to open up their platforms, giving users ways to install apps that aren’t governed by first-party store policies. Rumors have also swirled that Apple may allow third-party app stores on iOS to please European regulators. If Apple ever loosens its approach, Google’s head start on porting Blink could help it switch Chrome’s web engine relatively quickly.

A change like that could shake up browser competition on iOS. Apple’s WebKit requirement theoretically aids security by limiting the avenues for web exploits, but it also gives third-party browsers fewer ways to stand out — they can’t use custom engines that might be faster or more feature-laden than Apple’s Safari. As on Android or the desktop, an alternative browser would offer more than just a different interface.

 

A Minecraft mad scientist has recreated The Legend of Zelda inside the blocky sandbox game without any third-party mods or resource packs. Fan and YouTuber C1OUS3R, who has also made Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Bros. inside Minecraft, took nearly a month to craft the Zelda tribute.

The developer used command blocks, custom textures and other in-game features to recreate the 1986 NES classic. “I use Blockbench to create a flat version of Link from all sides so I can rotate it to make it look like he’s facing every direction,” C1OUS3R explained in a making-of video. “I would make a Voxel model like I did in the previous video games, however, it’s pretty much unnoticeable and takes 30 times longer, and I don’t really have the time for that.

“I then overlaid this model over a carved pumpkin which is one of the items you can wear on your head in Minecraft. I then make the player invisible to make it look like you’re controlling Link. Then by using the data packs function folder, which is just command blocks in written form, I’m able to detect which way the player is moving based off armor stands and rotate the model to make it look like it’s moving. I then simply animate the textures, and boom. You have a controllable Link.”

C1OUS3R said on Reddit (viaKotaku) they will release the playable creation, which runs through the first boss fight, once their YouTube video gets 5,000 likes. (It has over 500 at the time of publication.) The developer says they want to eventually release an entire gaming engine inside Minecraft. “It’s much easier to understand rather than something like Unity. I believe Minecraft has the ability to really help people get into game development.”

 

When Twitter introduced its curated “For You” tab at the start of this year, the feature shipped with an oversight. If you closed the Twitter app or web client after switching to the platform’s reverse chronological “Following” timeline, both would default back to the For You feed after you came back. At the end of January, Twitter took an initial step to address that oversight, tweaking the web client to remember the tab you left off at before closing your tabs. At the time, the company said a similar fix was “coming soon” for Android and iOS. That fix is now available.

Today’s change won’t bring back Twitter’s old “twinkle” button, but it does let you stick to your preferred timeline. And if you primarily use Twitter to follow real-world events, it should make it easier to use the app for that purpose. Notably, the change to Twitter’s interface coincides with the company’s recent decision to cut off third-party clients. That move led to apps like Tweetbot shutting down, leaving the official client the only way to access Twitter.

 

Following a rocky release, it looks like Overwatch 2 is starting to hit a stride. On Monday, Blizzard detailed all the content that’s coming with the game’s latest season, and there’s plenty here for fans to be excited about. To start, season three will introduce the franchise’s first crossover event. Starting on March 7th, players will have the chance to earn cosmetic items inspired by One-Punch Man, the popular superhero series created by Japanese manga artist One. Specifically, one of the skins sees Doomfist recast to look like One-Punch protagonist Saitama.

If One-Punch Man means little to you, thankfully there will be plenty of other skins you can earn this season. After season two took inspiration from Greek mythology, season three will feature cosmetics themed around “Asian mythology.” Players who complete the latest premium battle pass will earn the new Amaterasu Kiriko skin. As the name suggests, the skin is inspired by the Japanese Shinto goddess of the sun. What’s more, Blizzard says it has listened to player feedback and made it easier to earn cosmetic items. The season three battle pass will feature 10 additional free reward tiers for players to unlock. Blizzard is also bringing almost all of the skins it released during the availability of the original Overwatch to Overwatch 2’s in-game store, and tweaking the price of those skins to make them cost fewer credits.

On the gameplay front, players can look forward to a new Control map modeled after the Antarctic, a location that has important significance to Mei. With Valentine’s Day around the corner, Overwatch 2 will celebrate the holiday in not one but two ways. First, it’s adding a limited-time game mode that will see everyone in the match play as Hanzo. Second, Blizzard is finally giving fans something they’ve been waiting to get for a while. On February 13th, the studio will release Loverwatch, a dating sim you can play until the 28th through your browser. This “non-canon” text-based experience will allow you to woo either Mercy or Genji. Unlock the secret ending to earn a special Player of the Game highlight reel for use in Overwatch 2.

 

People in Pakistan can once again use Wikipedia, three days after the country blocked the website over content that regulators deemed “sacrilegious.” As TechCrunch notes, prime minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered officials to unblock Wikipedia after determining that the ban was “not a suitable measure to restrict access to some objectionable contents/sacrilegious matter on it.” Sharif’s office said in a statement that the “unintended consequences of this blanket ban” outweighed the “benefits.”

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) “degraded” access to Wikipedia last Wednesday, warning the site’s operators that they had 48 hours to remove certain content or face repercussions. Wikipedia apparently demurred and the PTA blocked the site in Pakistan on Friday.

Meanwhile, Sharif is establishing a cabinet committee to “explore and recommend alternative technical measures for removal or blocking access to objectionable content posted on Wikipedia and other online information sites, in view of our social, cultural and religious sensitivities, on the touchstone of proportionality.” The committee is also being tasked with offering other suggestions aimed at “controlling unlawful content in a balanced manner.” 

Sharif asked the committee to provide the cabinet with recommendations within one week. That doesn’t give the committee members much time to fully assess and analyze the many, many considerations that go into content moderation.

 

Sony is preparing to release its next-gen virtual reality headset for PlayStation 5 on February 22nd. While there have been suggestions that demand for $550 PlayStation VR2 isn’t quite what the company expected, Sony has tried to assuage fans’ concerns and answer any lingering questions they might have in a lengthy FAQ.

The company reiterated that players will have more than 30 games to choose from during the launch window, which it defines as the first month. Among those are Horizon Call of the Mountain (a VR spin-off of the Horizon games), and VR modes for Resident Evil Village and Gran Turismo 7, which will both be free for folks who already own those games.

Users won’t automatically be able to play games from the original PS VR on PS VR2. As Sony explains, “PS VR2 is designed to deliver a truly next-generation VR experience, with advanced features such as haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, inside-out tracking, eye tracking and more. Due to this new approach to playing games in PS VR2, PS VR games are not compatible with PS VR2.” However, several developers have created PS VR2 versions of existing games and some are offering free upgrades.

Meanwhile, Sony says there are more than 100 games in development for PS VR2. Physical disc editions of some games will be available.

There are three main ways you can use PS VR2, but it’ll be important to check the compatibility for each game. That’s especially true if you don’t have enough free space for the roomscale mode, which requires a minimum play area of two square meters (6 ft 7 in × 6 ft 7 in). The standing and sitting modes require a play area of one square meter (3 ft 4 in × 3 ft 4 in), but you’ll need to make sure you have enough space to move your arms and the Sense controllers around. You can set up virtual boundaries and receive warnings from your headset when you get close to the edge.

Unlike with PS VR, you don’t need to plug in a camera to your PS5 to use PS VR2. You can, however, film yourself while playing by connecting a PS5 HD Camera. There’s the option to broadcast your footage as well. Although the PS5 only supports one headset at a time, friends and family who are in the room with you can watch what you’re doing in-game in a 2D format on your TV.

There’s a cinematic mode that allows users to view non-VR content from their PS5 while wearing the headset, which could come in handy if someone wants to use the TV for something else. The downside is that you won’t be playing 2D games or watching media in 4K. Cinematic mode is limited to a resolution of 1080p with HDR, although the refresh rate will max out at 120Hz.

You also won’t need a TV to use PS VR2 after the initial setup. So, if you wanted, you could use your PS5 and PS VR2 on the train if you don’t mind lugging them around and annoying fellow passengers. You could even take it on a camping trip if you were so inclined.

The FAQ touches on some other key points, including accessibility. All the accessibility features that are available on PS5 will be present on PS VR2, except for the Zoom function. There are parental controls too.

 

You might not have to wait long to see how Microsoft and OpenAI deepen their relationship. Microsoft has confirmed plans for an event tomorrow (invitations were sent out last week) at its Redmond headquarters at 1PM Eastern. The company will only say that chief Satya Nadella will share details on some “exciting projects,” but it’s expected to show its integration of ChatGPT into Bing and other uses of the conversational AI technology.

Microsoft is already heavily invested in OpenAI’s ecosystem with a DALL-E graphic design app and a natural language programming tool. ChatGPT is coming to Azure cloud services, too. The rumored Bing feature may be its most prominent OpenAI collaboration yet, however. Rumors suggest Microsoft’s search engine will use ChatGPT for conversation-style answers to questions. You might get exactly the information you need rather than cards and a list of search results.

Microsoft first invested in OpenAI in 2019, and backed the startup again in 2021. Last month, it committed to a “multibillion dollar” deal that’s unofficially believed to be worth $10 billion over several years.

The news comes shortly after Google offered a first look at Bard, its take on a ChatGPT-style service. While Google eventually plans to make Bard public, it’s starting out by offering a limited version to a handful of trusted users before scaling up. The firm wants to be sure Bard meets high standards for “quality, safety and groundedness” to avoid some of the ethical and factual problems seen with OpenAI’s product.

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