Kalakshar US

Octopath Traveler 2 is a retro-styled RPG, set in another steampunk-esque fantasy world. Square Enix isn’t reinventing the turn-based RPG for this sequel, instead expanding and (mildly) correcting some of the weaker parts of the original. There are new battle dynamics and moves, a well-utilized day-and-night game mechanism, and shared stories that attempt to convey a connection between the eight narratives. But it’s still a casual one. If Final Fantasy XV was about four best buddies going on a road-trip, then Octopath Traveler 2 is more like an Uber Pool rideshare. There might be friendly small talk, but there’s still not enough of a meaningful connection between the eight protagonists.

Octopath Traveler 2 doesn’t offer any technical graphical upgrades I need to explain, although there seems to be a little more detail to both the sprites and environments. It’s still a pretty game. Half of the appeal is how games like this coax my memories of 16- and 32-bit games.

Having said that, the team behind this series has realized they can play with the scale a bit more: this is the Nintendo Switch, not a SNES. In some of the opening scenes for Hikari the warrior, characters rush past a crowd of 40 or so fighting in a desert. Developers Acquire and Team Asano have amped up the cinematic cutscenes a little more, too. Cameras will pan out and around your characters, as they brood on cliff faces, or as they’re forced to kill their abusive parents.

OP2 tries, only ever so slightly, to convey the idea that you’re on a collective journey. Once you’ve chosen your main character (who will be ‘locked’ into your party until you complete all five chapters of their story), you’ll bump into other travelers. Then you’ll be given the option to play through their origin story, or circle back to it at the local tavern at a time that’s suitable for you.

Occasionally there will be some minor banter elements, called “shared stories” where two characters will share a few scenes together. These often connect stories and offer up some rewards. Still, it’s a little too infrequent – and not enough to get the impression this is a team of heroes helping each other to save the world from various calamities – or become a global dance superstar. (Yes, that’s someone’s aim.)

Osvald, the scholar, starts his journey in prison, accused of killing his wife and child. He’s this game’s defacto black mag,e with an array of elemental attacks. Still, this time, given his gritty backstory, his path actions (abilities and interactions you can make with non-playable characters in towns, and generally any time outside of battles) aren’t your typical black mage traits. One is scrutinize, a risky way of gleaning information from characters, while the other is mug, where you can duel pretty much any NPC you come across, and steal their possessions if you win.

However, with eight characters, many path actions overlap. Castti, an item expert and apothecary, can inquire for the same information you can get from scrutinizing, without any risk – she just has to be a high enough level. Meanwhile, Throné, the thief, can steal during daylight hours, giving the same results of a mugging without the fight.

Alongside those skills, each character also starts with a unique talent, offering battle abilities or passive skills that others won’t be able to use, even after unlocking secondary classes.

Like the original, the battle system comes into its own once you can switch around job roles. To do so, however, you’ll need to find the guild for each job to unlock it. Some are easy enough to find – I came across two of the ‘secret’ jobs entirely by accident – while others are eluding me even now, 60 hours into the game, at roughly level 60 across my party. Where are you, hunter guild!?

More effort has been made to tonally differentiate the eight tales of Octopath Traveler 2 compared to its predecessor. With Temenos the cleric, who works as some sort of blasphemy hunter/mystery solver, gets a few scenes where he’s trying to solve crime scene mysteries. It’s not exactly Phoenix Wright, with all the clues there, twinkling away, waiting for you to walk up to them, but it helps to make the chapters feel different to the others.

Partitio, the merchant, likewise, has a story that feels like some whimsical K-drama, as this entrepreneur makes friends of enemies and travels the world striking deals. He gets an oddly bizarre montage of his final deal striking, hopping on ships and visiting a few secondary characters you probably already forgot. The aforementioned Castii starts the game with amnesia (ah that video game classic), and if there’s anything shared across most of the characters, it’s the sense that most of them are unreliable narrators. Rounding out the cast you have Agnea, the dancer, and Ochette, the hunter. (Not all eight will resonate with everyone, will they?)

Even the final chapters for each of the eight characters only results in a few extra banter scenes. I’m playing through the final chapters for each character, and if it’s anything like OP1, this will probably unlock a true final area, dungeon and boss. At this point, I doubt all the themes and story will coalesce into a satisfying conclusion — there’s been some allusions to a ‘shadow’, but that’s true of 90 percent of all RPGs. /I’ll be happy with another challenging boss.

The battle dynamics follow the same formula of the last game: you aim to break the enemies’ defenses through applying elemental and weapon weaknesses. Break them, and they’ll stop attacking — or reset the charge-up to their high damage abilities – allowing you to do increased damage, or carefully heal and prepare for the next part of the fight. Once again, you’ll be able to boost attacks as a battle continues, augmenting damage or extending the length of strengthening spells and other boons.

The sequel adds latent powers, a limit-break styled super attack unique to each character. For some, this allows them to handily perform two actions at once, while others will deal augmented damage or supercharge spells and physical attacks. This was how I found my favorite characters and they seemed to stick around the squad longer. (Thank you for your service, Throné.)

Day and night affect the entire game, and thankfully it’s an easy trigger button that you can tap at any time outside of a battle. There are benefits to fighting during night, depending on the characters. Throné and Temenos offer debuffs and buffs at the start of nighttime fights, although it seems like fights are generally tougher than during the day. You will also come across different enemies depending on the time of day. This transition will also move NPCs around the town, or make them disappear entirely. The music also thoughtfully segues between the two states, which is a nice touch. Yet again, OP2 has a polished soundtrack, filled with orchestral bangers and several battle-theme earworms.

OP2 builds on the strengths of the first game, with lots of non-linear options to the story, with enough of a difference between chapters to break it all up. However, there still isn’t quite enough cohesion between the travelers and the tales they weave.

Octopath Traveler 2 launches on Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 and Steam on February 24th.

 

Tesla has denied that it terminated employees at its Buffalo, New York Autopilot facility in response to a new union campaign. Days after workers at the facility sent a letter to company chief Elon Musk stating their intention to unionize, the campaign’s organizers accused the automaker of illegally terminating employees in retaliation. In a blog post, Tesla called their accusation a “false allegation” and said that those who were let go lost their jobs because of their own doing. 

The company explained that it conducts performance reviews every six months and that workers are graded 1 to 5 for each cycle. It “helps them calibrate their work,” Tesla wrote, and they will be let go if they fail to meet their performance expectations. These reviews are apparently conducted everywhere Tesla has a facility, with the most recent cycle covering July 2022 through December 2022. Tesla said it identified the people who will be let go on February 3rd, over a week before organizers sent their letter to Musk, and that managers were told way back in December that low performers will start exiting the company on the week of February 12th.

Moreover, the company explicitly stated that 4 percent of the employees on the Autopilot labeling team was let go due to their poor performance reviews. (Tesla said it only learned in hindsight that one out of the 27 impacted employees is part of the union campaign.) They received prior feedback, Tesla said, but “they did not demonstrate sufficient improvement.” If you’ll recall, the union organizers in Buffalo are in charge of labeling data for Autopilot. They previously told Bloomberg that they’re fighting for better pay and working conditions that reduce production pressures. 

The workers said Tesla monitors their keystrokes to determine how much time they spend on each task and how many hours they spend working in a day. They’ve reportedly been skipping bathroom breaks, as a result. But in Tesla’s response, it said that time monitoring is only there “to calculate how long it takes to label an image,” so “there is nothing to be gained by delaying bathroom breaks.” The report that Tesla pressures its employees is “categorically false,” it added. Tesla didn’t mention anything regarding the employees’ complaint about not having a voice in the company’s though: Workers previously said that talks of forming a union began after management shut down an internal chatroom where they can air their grievances. 

 

T-Mobile has quite the offer for subscribers who are also soccer fans. The carrier will offer its customers a year of Major League Soccer Season Pass to watch in the Apple TV app. Usually $99 annually, the service broadcasts “every live regular-season match, all MLS Cup playoff matches and the Leagues Cup.” Additionally, there are no blackouts — a concept that fans of the three most popular American sports leagues may have trouble processing.

The offer will be available in the T-Mobile Tuesdays app starting February 21. Once the deal is live, T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile subscribers can download the app and sign in with their phone numbers to claim the offer.

T-Mobile has offered some enticing deals through the years in its Tuesdays app, but this one stands out from much of the typical fare (like a free Frosty from Wendy’s). In addition, it’s an opportunity for MLS and Apple TV+ to expand their reach while giving T-Mobile a carrot to lure subscribers from competing cellular providers.

The Apple TV app isn’t limited to Apple devices; you can also install it on Roku, PlayStation and Xbox consoles, Chromecast, Amazon Fire devices, Android TV, cable streaming boxes (including Comcast, Cox and Verizon) and smart TVs from Samsung, Vizio, Sony, LG and Panasonic. You can also tune in using a browser at the Apple TV+ website.

 

Microsoft has formally approved a way to run Windows 11 on ARM-based Macs, if not in the way you might hope. In a new support article, the company has “authorized” using Parallels Desktop 18 to run the ARM versions of Windows 11 Pro and Enterprise on M1- and M2-based Macs. If you need Windows for work, you can theoretically use the virtual machine without angering your IT manager.

As you might guess, there are limitations. You can’t run 32-bit ARM apps, in part because Microsoft is deprecating 32-bit software for all ARM Windows builds. Devices won’t work unless they have Windows 11 ARM drivers. You can’t use anything that depends on another layer of virtualization, such as Android apps, the Linux sybsystem and Windows Sandbox. Don’t expect to run some games, either, as anything that requires at least DirectX 12 or OpenGL 3.3 won’t work.

It’s been possible to run Windows 11 in Parallels on ARM Macs since 2021, and it even ran reasonably well. You needed to use an Insider preview of the OS at the time, though, and Microsoft said at the time that it didn’t plan to support new Macs. The sanctioned approach clears up licensing headaches, and Parallels Desktop 18 now lets you download and install Windows 11 with little effort.

As The Vergeexplains, it’s not certain how Microsoft has changed the licensing — until now, it only licensed ARM versions of Windows directly to PC vendors. We’ve asked the company for comment. Parallels says you can buy either an individual Windows 11 Pro license or go through your employer’s usual purchasing process.

This won’t satisfy users who want native Windows support like they had with Intel-based Macs running Apple’s Boot Camp. You won’t get the performance or compatibility you would on a PC built for Windows on ARM. It may be the closest you get short of a collaboration between Apple and Microsoft, though, and it might do the trick if there’s a must-run Windows productivity app.

 

Snap says it has hit a new milestone, as Snapchat now has more than 750 million monthly active users. The company also noted recently that 375 million users hop into the app every day. While that’s a far cry from the 2.96 billion monthly and 2 billion daily active users Facebook has, Snapchat’s audience numbers are trending upwards. Snap said at an investor day event that it sees “a path for Snapchat to reach over 1 billion people in the next two to three years.”

Breaking those figures down a little, most of Snapchat’s audience is outside of North America, where it now has more than 150 million monthly active users. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said the app reaches more than three-quarters of 13- to 34-year-olds in more than 20 countries and users post more than 5 billion snaps every day. The Snapchat+ subscription service, meanwhile, has more than 2.5 million members just over seven months after it went live. More than 300 million people use the Snap Map every month too.

These are much-needed signs of positivity for Snap after a rough 2022. The company’s stock plummeted by over 80 percent between late 2021 and middle of last year, when it laid off around 1,300 employees. It also ditched its Pixy selfie drone after four months.

 

Disney plans to scale back its streaming content as cost-cutting hits the entertainment giant. Marvel Studios will reportedly see the first and perhaps biggest cuts under CEO Bob Iger’s second stint leading the company. Marvel head Kevin Feige echoes the sentiment, saying the company plans to release fewer shows on Disney+ while spacing them out more. According to Iger, Disney wants “the quality on the screen, but we have to look at what they cost us.”

“The pace at which we’re putting out the Disney+ shows will change so they can each get a chance to shine,” Feige told Entertainment Weekly earlier this week. Disney’s Marvel output over the last couple of years has been staggering. It released three movies and three television series in 2022, which followed the four films and five shows it put out in 2021. The company initially announced five Disney+ series for 2023, but season two of Loki and the new Secret Invasion starring Samuel L. Jackson are reportedly the only two that are still “sure bets” to arrive this year.

“I do think one of the powerful aspects of being at Marvel Studios is having these films and shows hit the zeitgeist,” Feige said. “But we want Marvel Studios and the MCU projects to really stand out and stand above. So, people will see that as we get further into Phase 5 and 6. The pace at which we’re putting out the Disney+ shows will change so they can each get a chance to shine.” When pressed about whether the pacing change would mean spacing them out or releasing fewer shows, he replied, “Both, I think.”

Meanwhile, Disney eyes Star Wars’ return to the big screen. Although the franchise has been busy on Disney+ with live-action series The Mandalorian, Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Book of Boba Fett, the franchise has been missing from theaters since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker. Disney will reportedly unveil new film plans at Star Wars Celebration in April. However, the franchise won’t escape the company’s renewed fiscal responsibility. “Lucasfilm may ramp up, but it will have to abide by the same fiscal discipline as the rest of the company,” a source told The Hollywood Reporter.

The cost-cutting will also affect Disney’s big-screen animation plans after the division’s struggles in 2022. Pixar’s Lightyear underperformed, while Disney Animation’s Strange World was a box-office disaster. As a result, the company is reportedly considering longer theatrical windows for its future animated features to encourage families to return to theaters. Upcoming animated projects include Elemental and Wish.

However, industry insiders don’t necessarily foresee the far-ranging cuts as omens of bigger concerns looming for Disney or its streaming service. “You can have ten mediocre shows, or you can have five great shows,” an agency partner told The Hollywood Reporter. “People will still stay on Disney+.”

 

American politicians are split on many aspects of social networks’ content moderation policies, but they might find common ground on setting those policies. A bipartisan group of senators led by Brian Schatz and John Thune has introduced the Internet Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency Act (Internet PACT), a bill that would set “clear” content moderation policies they consistently enforce. The amendment to the Communications Act would require that online services explain their moderation in an “easily accessible” usage policy, and share biannual reports with anonymized statistics for content that has been pulled, downranked or demonetized. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) would also lead development of a voluntary framework to set industry-wide practices.

The Internet PACT Act would also amend the Communications Decency Act’s Section 230 to require that “large” platforms pull content within four days if deemed illegal by courts. Those big services would need systems to handle complaints and appeals, and users would need to be notified of any decisions regarding their content within three weeks. Smaller providers would have “more flexibility” in addressing complaints and illegal content, according to the senators.

The bill would also bar companies from using Section 230 as a shield when the Justice Department, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and other national regulators engage in civil actions. State attorneys general could enforce federal civil laws when used against online platforms, while the Government Accountability Office (GAO) would have to study the viability of an FTC-run program for whistleblowers from within online platform companies.

The measure theoretically addresses longstanding complaints from both sides of Congress. Democrats have argued that social media giants aren’t consistent in applying their policies, and carve out exceptions for accounts that spread hate or misinformation. Republicans, meanwhile, have accused social networks of censoring conservative views while giving creators little chance to respond.

There’s no certainty the Internet PACT Act will become law. The bipartisan support may help, though. Whether or not the proposed Section 230 amendments will satisfy politicians is another matter. Both Democrats and Republicans have previously called for large-scale reforms, but the changes here would be relatively limited. They would, however, pressure companies to act quickly on illegal content.

 

Apparently those Super Bowl ads finally did the trick. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced on Thursday that Tesla is recalling nearly 363,000 of its vehicles because the Full Self-Driving software may cause a crash. Specifically, the NHTSA cites a risk to “exceed speed limits or travel through intersections in an unlawful or unpredictable manner increases the risk of a crash.” 

In all, the recall impacts 362,758 vehicles. They include, according to the announcement, “certain 2016-2023 Model S, Model X, 2017-2023 Model 3, and 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles equipped with Full Self-Driving Beta (FSD Beta) software or pending installation.” 

The NHSTA initially launched its investigation into Tesla’s much-hyped Full Self-Driving system back in August, 2021 following years of fatal highway accidents and terrifying social media posts documenting the software’s seemingly self-destructive behavior. Initially it was just an engineering analysis looking into why Teslas kept chasing parked firetrucks but, last June, the agency upgraded that defect probe, enabling it to demand a recall from the company over this issue, which is how we ended up here. 

“We’re investing a lot of resources,” NHTSA acting head Ann Carlson told reporters in January. “The resources require a lot of technical expertise, actually some legal novelty and so we’re moving as quickly as we can, but we also want to be careful and make sure we have all the information we need.”

Tesla will release an OTA update, free of charge to its customers to rectify the issue, Reuters reports. This recall follows a litany of similar corrective actions taken throughout 2022 for everything from funky tail lights to overheating infotainment systems to noisy seat belt chimes — even that gimmick Cyberquad for Kids got the regulatory hook. 

 

Tile is giving its customers a new option to make its trackers harder for thieves to detect. But since doing so also makes it easier for stalkers to track others without their consent, the company requires verification with a government ID and biometric info to activate the feature. And if someone gets caught using them to stalk, Tile’s terms and conditions will slap them with a $1 million penalty.

The rise in popularity of Bluetooth trackers after Apple’s AirTag launch has highlighted the seemingly zero-sum balance between theft and stalking prevention. Stalking prevention measures, like emitting a sound when the tracker is following someone who isn’t its owner, can make it easier for thieves to recognize they’re being tracked (and quickly dispose of the accessory). But if you remove those protections to make theft deterrence more effective, creeps will have an easier time stalking their exes or anyone else unlucky enough to be their target.

“The bottom line is that a good locating device is also a good stalking device,” said Life360 (Tile’s parent company) CEO Chris Hulls in a Medium blog post on Wednesday. “It is almost impossible to fine-tune alerts in a way that balances the need for accuracy with timeliness. Likewise, it is nearly impossible to make notifications or alert sounds noticeable enough in any practical environment — it is often hard to hear an AirTag beep in a silent room let alone a bar or club where a stalker might be present.”

Tile’s solution tries to find the sweet spot. The Anti-Theft Mode feature will make the devices invisible to Scan and Secure, the company’s in-app feature that lets you know if any nearby Tiles are following you. But to activate the new Anti-Theft Mode, the Tile owner will have to verify their real identity with a government-issued ID, submit a biometric scan that helps root out fake IDs, agree to let Tile share their information with law enforcement and agree to be subject to a $1 million penalty if convicted in a court of law of using Tile for criminal activity. So although it technically makes the device easier for stalkers to use Tiles silently, it makes the penalty of doing so high enough to (at least in theory) deter them from trying.

Apple AirTag

Hulls believes the approach is superior to Apple’s solution with AirTag, which emits a sound and notifies iPhone users that one of the trackers is following them. (Android users need to download a separate app to receive similar alerts.) “We did our own limited internal testing (view results here) to see how quickly AirTags would trigger an alert when following someone who was not their owner, and the results were disappointing,” said Hulls. The CEO says the company’s studies, using the latest AirTag software, show that tracked participants received their first “an AirTag is moving with you” alert within one to 24 hours of walking or driving — and sometimes not for several days.

Hull says Tile will “make public, to the greatest extent legally possible, all data about any instances of misuse of Tile devices that have been Anti-Theft enabled. Finally, while I am highly confident that the numbers will prove our thesis true, if we find we are wrong, we will reverse course and publicly acknowledge our mistake.”

 

Now that the Safe Connections Act (SCA) has become law, the Federal Communications Commission is taking steps to help domestic violence survivors leave their partners’ phone plans. The agency has proposed rules that would require carriers separate the line for a survivor within two business days of a request. Another proposal would also have carriers hide contact with abuse hotlines from consumer-facing call and text logs.

The FCC also hopes to use the Lifeline or Affordable Connectivity Program to support survivors enduring financial hardships for up to six months. Separately, providers are teaming with the National Domestic Violence Hotline to ensure survivors leaving a family plan will get in touch with someone who can offer support from experts on abuse.

The proposals are entering a public comment phase and may be modified when they take effect as required by the SCA. As they are, though, the measures theoretically provide survivors additional safety when leaving abusive relationships. They can quickly exit a plan managed by an abuser, and will be less vulnerable if they call a support line or need financial aid to stay connected. That, in turn, may help them reclaim independence while staying in touch with supportive friends and family members.

If you are experiencing domestic violence and similar abuse, you can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline by phone at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or by texting “START” to 88788.