Category: Technology

It’s been seemingly confirmed that the successor Nintendo Switch will not release before March 2023.

This come from Nikkei, who said that there would be no new hardware released before March 2023, although it’s unclear if this came directly from the Nintendo President in which Nikkei were interviewing or just a determination that the outlet had made based on the interview.

Nikkei: there will be no new Nintendo hardware this fiscal year, which ends in March 2023. Not immediately clear whether that part of the article is from Nikkei’s own reporting or what Nintendo President, who Nikkei interviewed for the story, said. https://t.co/HJVqk9Kbef

— Takashi Mochizuki (@6d6f636869) August 4, 2022

It had been previously thought that the next Nintendo Switch would release in 1H 2023, due to the fact that Nintendo had ordered the parts some time ago and 4K dev kits had been with developers for well over a year now.

Obviously, we don’t know when Breath of the Wild 2 is releasing, and it had been long thought that that would be the perfect time for Nintendo to drop an improved Nintendo Switch utilizing a new NVIIDA chip that would likely make 4K visuals available through the use of DLSS technology.

Earlier this week, Nintendo announced that the Nintendo Switch had sold 111 million units and close to a billion units in software sales, which is absolutely huge, and no doubt Nintendo will be looking to continue that momentum with a successor at some point.

Of all the attempts we’ve seen to digitize card games and eliminate game night controversies over poorly shuffled decks and questionably dealt hands, the ReQTable is the most ambitious and easily the most awesome, with its ability to generate holograms of playing cards that appear to float in front of each player, all without revealing those cards to others. Add some virtual monsters, and you’ve got my editor’s childhood dream.

Most attempts to digitize board games and card games usually involve turning a giant touchscreen display into a table large enough for players to gather around. That’s the approach devices like Arcade1Up’s Infinity Game Table have taken, and while they ensure that no one can rage flip the digital game boards and playing pieces when they start losing, they make it hard to play games like Poker, where players need to keep their hands private. The Infinity Game Table’s solution is physical shields that you can place on the touchscreen to hide specific parts of it from others, but the ReQTable’s solution is to throw some very cool custom display technology at the problem.

Developed by researchers at the University of Tokyo and set to officially debut at the Siggraph 2022 conference taking place next week, the ReQTable improves upon existing holographic display technology called slit mirror arrays. These are able to generate images that appear to float in mid-air in front of the intended observer without the need for special glasses. With dual-sided mirror arrays, the technology can generate a pair of holograms, viewable from opposing sides, which in this instance allows one person sitting at the table to see the cards they’ve been dealt with, while the person sitting across from them only sees the generic card backs.

The problem with this approach is that the dual slit mirror arrays traditionally produce stray light and ghost images, which in the case of a virtual card game, gives players a glimpse of their competitors’ hands. The ReQTable solves this problem and eliminates the stray light and ghost images through the use of polarizers, which can selectively suppress light of a specific frequency, and view control films, which block light traveling in certain directions, as detailed in a recently published paper:

Dual-sided displays as light sources are placed under the dual SMAs. In this case, the light rays from the back of the dual-sided displays forms mid-air images for each of the users. The light rays from the display are linearly polarized by the first polarizer. Next, the rays that form the ghost images are reflected an odd number of times in the dual SMAs. Therefore, the direction of their polarization changes, and they cannot pass through the second polarizer. In contrast, transmitted light rays and light rays forming mid-air images are reflected an even number of times in the dual SMAs. Their direction of polarization is different from that of the rays that become ghost images. Therefore, they can pass through the second polarizer.

Playing a round of virtual poker is a fun demonstration of why this improved holographic display technology could be potentially useful, but there are countless other applications. One day, computer monitors might be replaced with holographic displays generated by a desk, and the technology developed for the ReQTable could allow multiple people to share the same desk while keeping their individual holographic screens private from each other. The technology also encourages additional human interactivity, because despite a holographic object appearing to float in front of everyone at the table, they can still easily see each other and physically interact without the worry of knocking anything over.

Not to mention, we could use it to play a very advanced version of a children’s card game.

Imagine if I told you there was a new immersive sim — think Prey, Dishonored, etc — but made by a team of just two people. And then imagine I told you it was really damn good. And now stop imagining, because it’s real, obviously. It’d be a weird intro if it weren’t. Ctrl Alt Ego is a PC game about being an unattached ego, able to leap between various electronic items aboard a vast space station, and it’s consumed my week.

I want to get the room’s elephant acknowledged as early as possible, so we can get on with what’s important: no, this game doesn’t look pretty. Its art is functional, rarely attractive, and no screenshot is going to sell the game. But that matters for about thirteen seconds, and then you get on with the business of enjoying the game itself. And it’s a heck of a game.

You are, as I say, some sort of noncorporeal entity, capable of leaping between specific electronic items on a space station. This includes an awful lot of stationary items, from communicative CAT cabinets and wall-mounted monitors, to security cameras and destructive monitoring DAD bots. But crucially, there are also a bunch of mobile robots on board the ship, most importantly one called Bug 22.

Bug 22 is your constant companion (well, vehicle, really) throughout the game, capable of being “printed” at any number of Printing Stations, and given an ever-expanding number of abilities as you progress. The range of these abilities is extraordinary, unlockable in any order you choose, and dramatically changing how you can approach the game’s challenges. You could give Bug a weapon straight away, and take a far more aggressive approach to getting past the station’s angry security. Or you could pick the ability to levitate, and as such reach otherwise impossible passages and materials. Or you could pick Shift, and have a sort of telekinetic ability to move objects. Or you could…

It’s utterly incredible just how differently almost every situation in Ctrl Alt Ego can be approached, based on the skills you’ve unlocked, and indeed just your personal predilections. The game is designed to be experimented with, and techniques that feel like they might break the game have most likely been considered and accounted for. This means you have that Prey-like freedom to improvise, and the incredible satisfaction of discovering that your madcap approach can work!

Screenshot: MindThunk / Kotaku

This is all the most interesting for the way you aren’t Bug 22. It’s just a useful vehicle, but can also be completely abandoned for great stretches, as you leap between other mobile bots like the dog-like PUPs, spend a resource called Ego taking over defensive bots like DADs, and later mobile murder machines called MUMs, and explore vast areas just by jumping your consciousness.

There’s SO much detail here, with every possess-able machine offering unique messages, all manner of story pouring in from whoever is talking to you through the CAT cabinets, piles of goals to complete in each of the game’s vast sections in any order you choose , by any means you improvise, all with a phenomenal degree of freedom.

It’s mystifying that something so free, so open, is the work of two people, total. Yo have managed to break it a couple of times, through some outlandish actions, but the majority of the time I’ve just been delighted to find out my cockamamy plan has worked out. It also offers that most crucial of immersive sim elements: the bit where a great plan goes to crap, and you’re flailing to survive. It’s a joy that Ctrl Alt Ego rarely has me wanting to reload in such moments, but instead to scramble, to try to improvise my way out of a sudden and overwhelming jam.

there are SW many elements I want to tell you about, little details that blew me away, discoveries about ways to get through situations, even core game elements, but I got to discover them all for myself, and you should too. This is a wonderful game to just dive into, deliberately opaque at the start, as you learn its systems for yourself.

Screenshot: MindThunk / Kotaku

It’s also a huge game, a solid 20 hours at least, constantly expanding and becoming more interesting throughout. I’ve not finished it yet, and can’t wait to see what it has to offer in its final hours. This is remarkably good, and importantly, would still be considered remarkably good if it had come from a team of 30. Honestly, if Arkane doesn’t immediately give its creators a job, then I don’t understand how the universe works.

This is in my GOTY list already, and I desperately hope that it can break through, get some wider attention, and not be unfairly held back by its more primitive graphics. You’ll be blown away. And for just twenty bucks, along with an hours-long demo, you may as well try!

This article originally appeared on Buried Treasurea site dedicated to highlighting fantastic unknown games by fantastic unknown indies, so please do considering helping the Patreon here.

After a month-long round-up, the Huawei Watch 3 Pro New ECG version was launched and the company has finally unveiled this new product at the HarmonyOS 3.0 launch event.

Unsurprisingly, the Huawei Watch 3 Pro New ECG version is launched with the latest HarmonyOS 3.0 operating system. Alongside you can also notice the independent taxis’ remote control of cars, golf course mode, and the WeChat watch edition.

Notably, it is the first smartwatch to use the HarmonyOS 3.0 operating system. On the other hand, the ECG or electrocardiogram feature let you enable to obtain accurate ECG data to support vascular health management, allowing users to actively prevent the risk of vascular disease.

Other hardware components include super battery life mode and its battery life is pretty good that can challenging and stressful task as there are a lot of options. Apart from the battery life, the Huawei Watch 3 Pro is launched with an eye-catching design, durability display quality, activity tracking features, and many more.

Huawei Watch 3 Pro’s New price starts at 2899 yuan for the fashion version and 3599 yuan for the premium version.

Huawei Watch 3 Pro New:

Huawei Watch 3 Pro comes in two versions – Fashion and Premium. This watch has a 140-210mm wrist circumference, and 64 grams of weight excluding the strap. The watch has a 1.43-inch AMOLED color screen with full-screen touch operations, including swiping, tapping and pressing, and holding.

The Watch case is made of titanium + ceramic, while the watch strap has a leather strap and titanium strap. This HarmonyOS 3.0-powered smartwatch has various sensors including Acceleration, Gyro, Geomagnetic, Optical heart rate, Ambient light, Barometric pressure, and Temperature Sensors.

The typical scenario of smart mode can be up to 4 days: factory default configuration, 2 hours connected to LTE network per day, 22 hours of Bluetooth connection to the mobile phone, heart rate always on, scientific sleep at night, ECG measurement 5 times /day, 60 minutes/week using App, Bluetooth 30 minutes/week for calls, 30 minutes/week for Bluetooth music, 90 minutes of average weekly workouts (with GPS on), notifications enabled (50 messages per day, 6 calls, 3 alarms), 200 screen-on sessions per day.

It is compatible with an iOS phone, the typical battery life in smart mode is 2.5 days.

Smart mode for severe scenarios up to 2 days: factory default configuration, turn on the screen display function, use a high-power watch face, connect to the LTE network for 4 hours a day, connect to the mobile phone via Bluetooth for 20 hours , always open the heart rate, use scientific sleep at night, and enable stress detection, Turn on the function of heart health and sleep apnea, use the App for 45 minutes/day (including 5 minutes/day for LTE calls, 5 minutes/ day for Bluetooth calls, 10 ECG measurements/day, etc.), 30 minutes/day for Bluetooth music, 30 minutes for exercise Minutes/day (GPS on), message notifications on (50 messages per day, 6 calls, 3 alarms) , 200 screen brights per day.

Typical scenarios of ultra-long battery life mode can reach 21 days: factory default configuration, long battery life is turned on, heart rate is always on, scientific sleep is used at night, Bluetooth calls are 30 minutes/week, average weekly exercise is 90 minutes (GPS is on), message notifications are turned on (50 messages per day, 6 calls, 3 alarms), 200 screen brights per day.

Oppo has been testing the beta version of the new ColorOS 13 internally, with only a few fans being allowed to join in. Now the company – along with OnePlus – are opening up the beta test to a wider audience.

The foldable Oppo Find N, the Oppo Find X5 and Find X5 Pro are invited to join in. Note that this is a limited test with slots for only 1,000 users. There will be several rounds, so if you don’t get in the first time, try again later.

The good news is that this is not restricted to China. Find X5 and X5 Pro owners in Australia, France, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, UAE and Vietnam can apply. Users in other regions who are interested in joining should keep an eye on the Oppo forums for further announcements.

The update process is pretty simple. First, back up your data. Second, you need to update your phone – to version A.20/A.22 for the Find N, A.20/A.21 for the X5 Pro and A.18 for the X5. Third, go to Settings > About device > Trial versions and fill in your data to apply for a slot in the public beta test. If accepted, ColorOS 13 beta will become available for download and installation.

But now here is why you may not want to install this update. It is a beta, meaning there is the possibility of bugs. In fact, Oppo already lists several known issues waiting to be fixed, eg the NFC on the Find N crashes occasionally, requiring a restart, the Find X5 series has issues where icons and some menus go blurry. Also, some apps don’t work with Android 13 yet, especially banking apps.

There is also the possibility that something goes wrong, which is why step 1 is backing up your data. With all of this in mind, you probably don’t want to run this on your daily driver. But if you do decide to go ahead and test drive the beta, this thread in the Oppo forums has detailed instructions.

OnePlus 10 Pro owners in China can also try ColorOS 13. The process is similar – you sign up through the About device screen (noting that there are limited spots available to beta testers). The same warnings about apps and features not working and the possible data loss apply.

Again, this is only for 10 Pro owners in China since the global version of the phone runs OxygenOS instead. OnePlus has already shown off the water-inspired look of OxygenOS 13.

Source 1 | Source 2 | Source 3 (in Chinese) | Source 4 | Via