Category: Technology

Spatial audio is not entirely new. Forms of virtual surround sound processing have been around for decades. The difference today is that the technology behind the effect is getting good. Really good.

Apple Music introduced its take on spatial audio last year, meaning you could enjoy advanced surround sound on just a regular pair of headphones or earbuds (though it works best, of course, with Apple-based ones).

Now Netflix is ​​bringing the idea to your TV and movie viewing experience.

One reviewer on Tom’s Guide says that spatial audio “blew me away.” He was able to enjoy surround sound with a minimal number of speakers. And that’s the upside. You don’t need to install a bunch of new speakers to benefit from the enhanced cinematic effect. Instead, you can just use your existing speaker setup. Even your built-in TV speaker or soundbar will do the trick.

Netflix is ​​rolling out spatial audio for no additional charge — so existing subscribers, regardless of tier, can enjoy the feature. However, the catalog of titles is limited at launch. stranger things is one of the flagship shows that you can watch to enjoy expanded soundstages thanks to spatial audio. Rich, 80’s-inspired synthesizers would surely sound fantastic thanks to the additional processing.

I’m a firm believer that there’s absolutely no substitute for additional speakers and the immersion they can provide. A few years back I expanded my setup to support 5.1.4 Atmos. That means 5 regular speakers (front left, center, front right, rear left, rear right), a subwoofer and 4 ceiling Atmos speakers (2 in front and 2 in rear). I was fortunate that the ceiling speakers already existed and were wired in place when our home was built back in the 2000’s. The result is just incredible. And you can up-mix existing 5.1 material to take advantage of the additional Atmos speakers so things like rain, helicopter effects and most ambience effects will really take your home theater experience to the next level.

Still, adding speakers isn’t always a possibility. Cramped spaces, apartments and dorm rooms for instance; there, this sort of virtual spatial audio can be a blessing.

This software processing reminds of what we’re seeing with computational photography. Apple is a leader here, using software to improve the iPhone’s built-in camera. In the past cameras needed mostly hardware to take a great photo. That’s clearly no longer the case. Instead, software magic can do things that we never thought of before possible — automatically applying filters and backgrounds are simple examples.

I suspect most won’t be willing to pay extra for fancy photo/camera tricks or spatial audio for their music listening sessions. However, such features can be useful differentiators and a way for companies like Apple and Netflix to leverage them for marketing campaigns. Some will find these things more useful than others. It just depends on personal preference. Typically I like to hear a song in its native stereo (or even mono!) format. Often the spatial audio equivalent has an expanded soundstage, yes, but also tends to fatigue with its overtly echo-like reverb, even if subtle.

Regardless, if you’re a Netflix subscriber you should definitely give spatial audio a listen and see what you think. stranger things already sounds like the stuff of a fever 80s neon fantasy, now imagine all of that turned up to eleven.

Tip: per Netflix, typing “spatial audio” into the search bar and selecting a show or film that supports it in the search results.

A YouTuber built a PC out of a working toilet, creating what might be the first toilet capable of both handling your waste and playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. What a world we live in!

As spotted by Eurogamer, YouTuber Basically Homeless cut a deal with the electronics store Microcenter to create a gaming PC inside of an actual toilet, complete with all the plumbing and water that entails. It’s a wild thing, but not surprising. You see, for as long as we have had toilets and video games, many have tried to combine them. Even I have heard that siren’s call and attempted to poop and game at the same time. Countless others do so while playing games on their phones.

But Basically Homeless didn’t want to simply bring a Switch or phone or even a Steam Deck into the bathroom. Instead, he wanted to create a setup that would let him play 120hz FPS shooters with a mouse and keyboard while sitting on a toilet. And in his video of him documenting the entire process, I was shocked both by the end results and the lack of planning.

The way this thing works is one half of the tank contains all the toilet bits and bobs along with the water. Then he built a “Water Wall” out of plexiglass and glue. On the other side of the wall are all the computer parts. The idea was to keep them separate, letting you flush the working toilet while playing games. Also, built into the lid is a fan to help keep the PC cool.

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that the first time he connected the toilet to the water supply his hacked-together “Water Wall” failed and he ended up having to use a whole can of Flexseal inside the tank to protect the valuable PC electronics. However, now that he’s gotten everything working (including the RGB lighting), the finished PC/toilet hybrid is oddly impressive. Thanks to a large cutout in the front, you can see both the functioning toilet and the running PC.

According to Basically Homeless, he had to learn basic plumbing and how to cut porcelain to create this bizarre PC. The end result is both a conversation starter and a man who can now fix his own toilet. Truly a win, win situation.

Sony believes Microsoft buying Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard could convince people to buy Xbox consoles instead of PS5 machines.

In a filing to the Brazilian authorities, Sony revealed its thoughts on the pending takeover, claiming Call of Duty is so popular it could “influences users’ choice of console” if only available on Xbox consoles.

Microsoft has, thus far, indicated Call of Duty games will continue to be available on Xbox and PlayStation consoles for the foreseeable future.

Despite the takeover seems to have Sony spooked. In comments spied by ResetEra and translated by Eurogamer’s Portuguese site, Sony intimated it could never hope to rival Call of Duty.

Sony said: “Despite large budgets and resources, no other developer has managed to create a franchise to rival Activision’s Call of Duty, which stands out as a gaming category in its own right.”

“Call of Duty is heavily entrenched, so no rival – no matter how relevant – can achieve it,” the company said, when asked to comment on the transaction. “Call of Duty has been the top-selling game for nearly every year over the past decade, and for its genre, it’s overwhelmingly the best-selling game. It’s synonymous with first-person shooters and essentially defines that category.”

It concludes that Call of Duty “is so popular that it influences users’ choice of console, and its network of loyal users is so ingrained that even if a competitor had the budget to develop a similar product, it wouldn’t be able to rival Item”.

Sony ranks Call of Duty alongside the Star Wars, Game of Thrones and Harry Potter franchises globally and says that the first-person shooter has “no rival.” PlayStation consoles are definitely getting this year’s version of the game, which is a reboot of Modern Warfare 2, and Microsoft has promised to respect the agreement “into the future”

WhatsApp is back in the news for an issue related to security, but in an unusual way, but by statements in which they refuse to weaken the security of the service. This is a threat that is not the first time it has hit the media, but in the United Kingdom it could materialize if a new reform goes ahead and it would not only affect WhatsApp: any encrypted communications software is likely to be harmed.

It all comes down to the new online security law being prepared by the United Kingdom, and which includes provisions to “weaken” the encryption of applications such as WhatsApp. The excuse, of course, is not to spy on its citizens, as they have always liked to do, always in pursuit of security, but to stop certain crimes that are committed under the cover of technology. To unnerve the staff, the example used has been the abuse of minors.

According to the authorities, much of the pedophile material that circulates on the Internet does so, in effect, through communications platforms with end-to-end encryption, the most powerful known. And, of course, only by “weakening” that encryption can this type of crime be combated, one of the most rejected in society. This being the case, who would not agree to collaborate with such a laudable initiative?

Anyone who has half a brain and knows about the desire for surveillance and control of governments around the world, as has been demonstrated since the Internet became popular. Since Edward Snowsen slapped them in the face with the PRISM scandal, nothing has ever been the same.

Responding to questions from the BBC regarding the new security law in the United Kingdom, Will Cathcart, CEO of WhatsApp, could not have been clearer about it: they will not reduce the security of the service to please any government. Or what is the same, they will not “weaken” the encryption in favor of the intervention of the authorities. But for a simple reason, which is why I put the term in quotes: how do you plan to do it?

Of the parties pushing for it, and there are more apart from the government, nobody knows or dares to say how they would do it. Not to mention that it is not the first time that the governments of half the world have the same desire to break the encryption to spy on everything that moves. In this case, the stated intention would be to scan people’s private messages on WhatsApp for pedophile material, but how?

According to Cathcart’s declarations, it is understood that it would be a matter of implementing some method that would carry out this client-side scanning, the only one possible since only the sender and the sender can see the content of the conversation in end-to-end encrypted services. “Client-side scanning may not work in practice,” says Cathcart, without further details.

Until now, all the official initiatives that have taken place in this sense, that of breaking the encryption of communication tools, had revolved around introducing backdoors in the code and sharing them with governments, but, at least on paper, the developers have always refused due to the potential security risks that this implies (without going any further, the exploitation of these vulnerabilities by cybercriminals), let alone discovering the cake.

The complete response of the CEO of WhatsApp, however, is not at all optimistic for the users of the application and their rights: «And it isIf we had to reduce the security of the world, to meet the requirements in one country, that… would be stupid to accept, making our product less desirable to 98% of our users due to the 2% requirementssays Cathcart, who says he is willing to exit the UK market before that happens.

Would they give that much? What if the United States does the same? Would they also leave it aside? And Europe? Then it would no longer be 2% of the WhatsApp user base, but much more. Would all it takes to “weaken” WhatsApp encryption would be for more governments to claim it? It should be remembered that WhatsApp is owned by Facebook (Meta) and we already know how Mark Zuckerberg’s company spends it when it comes to respecting the privacy of its users, among other issues.

NieR: Automata spent the last week in the headlines, the result of a secret door that sent the community into a scramble. The mystery itself may have come to a sudden, surprising conclusion, but that doesn’t mean the base game it was part of should drop off your radar. In fact, it’s all the more reason to revisit what many herald as one of the best action-RPGs ever.

That recommendation goes for everyone, by the way, whether you’ve hit the credits a dozen times or have yet to see what’s endeared firsthand NieR: Automata to so many people. Developed by PlatinumGames and first released in 2017, NieR: Automata is an action role-playing game set 9,000 years in the future, wherein you play as a small contingent of battle-trained androids. It mostly focuses on hack-and-slash combat, but there are moments where it’s a straight-up bullet hell.

NieR: Automata‘s main gimmick—and what makes it stand out among a crowded field—is that it has multiple endings. Not just two or three alternatives either. All told, there are 26 different endings. Most of them are semi-serious at best (including one where you unequip an item that specifically says will kill you if you unequip it). But five are legit, which means you have to play through your campaign several times, from different perspectives, to get the whole plot.

NieR: Automata is a narrative tour de force in its own right, which may partially explain its recent cultural resurgence—again, because of that secret door.

For the past two months, dedicated members of NieR: Automata‘s online community were piqued by a player asking about a “church” that didn’t seem to match any known areas of the game. Some people called bullshit, but video evidence of the previously undiscovered area surfaced early last week. The door to the area, though, curiously seemed accessible only to one player.

After a week of frenetic, community-fueled speculation, it turned out the whole thing was a viral campaign for a new, potentially game-changing set of modding tools, whose designers say they’re planning on releasing the tools to the public soon. In other words, NieR: Automata is about to be home to some truly wild community creations.

That’s not all. In February, publisher Square Enix announced it’d produce an anime adaptation of NieR: Automata. (Details are currently scant.) Nier‘s story is branching and emotionally devastating, but it’s also deeply personal in the way only games can be. No matter how you end up at its ultimate conclusion, you probably got there by a different route than someone else. The only way to truly measure the anime against its source material is, y’know, to actually play that source material.

Also, c’mon: Though the release calendar is set to pick up steam soon, it’s dry AF right now. If you’re looking to slot something in the first spot of your backlog, you’d be hard-pressed to do better than NieR: Automata.

Some advice for newcomers, though: Juggle multiple save files, and beware the fish.

Devil Immortal‘s pay-to-win mechanics have been controversial since the game launched back in June. Now they’ve also apparently broken the game for at least one YouTuber who reportedly spent over $US100,000 ($138,820) on beefing up his Barbarian character. The player’s win rate is seemingly so good the game won’t even match him against other players, torpedoing his prospects of competing in the latest Rite of Exile end game event.

over the weekend, Devil Immortal YouTuber jtisallbusiness asked viewers if he should try to refund his $US100,000 ($138,820) account as a result of the issue. He claimed that he spent so much money immediately following the game’s release that he was able to easily overpower almost every opponent in the game’s PVP Battlegrounds mode. As a result, he had hundreds of wins and only a few losses, pumping up his MMR (match-making rank) so high it became impossible to queue with anyone else.

“I would say it’s probably around, somewhere around 48 to 72 hours somewhere in between that of only trying to queue for a Battleground and never being able to get one,” he said.

Jtisallbusiness contacted Blizzard about the issue almost a month ago, and said he was eventually told the problem would be addressed in a couple weeks. Now, however, his clan of him OneTimes is competing in the Rite of Exile to defend its Immortals title against other players as part of Devil Immortals elaborate endgame. The only problem is Jtisallbusiness can’t join them. Part of the questline requires participating in a standard Battlegrounds PVP match, but because of his matchmaking limbo he was unable to qualify.

“So basically I’m stuck as the clan leader in the Immortals clan not being able to queue us up for Rite of Exile at all,” he said. “I can’t do anything about it.” Adding to his frustration from him is the fact that he’s trying to make money off Devil Immortal as a streamer and content maker, an effort now seemingly stymied by his early spending spree (other videos are devoted to showing off his collection).

For many other players in the community, however, it’s a chef’s kiss moment for everything they hate about the game’s monetization. “Congratulations, you just ‘won’ in a p2w game,” reads one of the top comments on his YouTube video discussing the issue. “Can’t complain about that, you got what you paid for.” Others shared similar sentiments, and the video itself was downvoted thousands of times.

Players on Reddit, where links to it were being passed around, were equally unmoved. “I know it’s his money from him and people can do whatever they want with theirs but come the fuck on man. 100k?! On Devil Immortal?!” wrote one person. “When someone’s Devil character is worth close to my entire mortgage,” wrote another.

Blizzard and jtisallbusiness didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. It’s also not yet clear how the situation will affect the rest of his clan, which includes players he said have each poured thousands of dollars of their own into the game. Once the Rite of Exile is completed, the top 30 challengers are pitted against a single Immortal who is transformed into a raid boss. One thing seems certain: It will not be Jtisallbusiness.

Riot Games has confirmed today that its upcoming 2D fighting game, currently codenamed Project L, will be free to play.

This announcement was made in a video by executive producer Tom Cannon in a video posted to Twitter, where he also promised that whatever monetization the team ultimately implemented would be “respectful of both your time and your wallet.”

About to head off to Vegas for Evo, but before I do… pic.twitter.com/bQ9QoSwvpK

— Tom Cannon (@ProtomCannon) August 1, 2022

In the same video, Cannon confirmed that the team is currently finishing work on the game’s core mechanics, and much of the team has already moved onto features like competitive play and social systems, or designing champions.

One such champion was shown off briefly during the video, as well as in more detail in a subsequent blog post from associate game director Shaun Rivera. We got a closer look at concept art for Illaoi – a prophet of the Great Kraken – in Project L.

Illaoi was released in League of Legends nearly seven years ago, where she uses an artifact called the Eye of God to tear souls from the bodies of her opponents and judge their worthiness. Illaoi in Project L is a “powerful and charimatic spiritual leader” with a dominating physical presence that gives her a large hitbox, big and powerful attacks, and slower movement. She fights with her giant totem, but also is assisted by her tentacled god, Nagakabouros. There are lots of detailed tidbits about her design and gameplay from her in the blog.

Project L – Illaoi Champion Concept Art

Project L is an upcoming 2D assist-based fighter where each team has two champions. It was first announced back in 2019, and has reemerged more frequently in the last year with gameplay updates, including one more update promised later this year by Cannon.

Project L isn’t expected to release this year, but perhaps we’ll see it in 2023.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her de ella on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Wi-Fi 7 may not exist in devices today, but that isn’t stopping Intel from forging ahead with it. Intel is planning to introduce Wi-Fi 7 sometime in 2024 just as Apple turns to Wi-Fi 6E for its upcoming devices. Intel will be doubling down on Wi-Fi 7 development efforts over the coming year, according to Eric McLaughlin, Intel’s vice-president of wireless solutions.

“We are currently developing Intel’s Wi-Fi ‘802.11be’ in order to obtain the ‘Wi-Fi Alliance’ certification, and it will be installed in PC products such as laptops by 2024,” McLaughlin said in a press conference earlier today. “We expect it to appear in major markets in 2025.”

The newest and fastest Wi-Fi available right now is Wi-Fi 6E. It supports the 6GHz spectrum, which allows a ton more bandwidth over previous Wi-Fi 6. It quadruples the number of airwaves available and increases speed to 2.6GBps from 2GBps available on Wi-Fi 6. The technology was recently rolled out in late 2020 after a year of development and FCC approval in the United States. Apple has embraced Wi-Fi 6E for its upcoming devices, such as the iPhone 14.

But Wi-Fi 7 is an entirely different beast. Intel claims Wi-Fi 7 will stabilize 6GHz bandwidth while providing 5.8Gbps speeds. That’s blazing fast and more than double what’s available with Wi-Fi 6E. Furthermore, Wi-Fi 7 is future-proof as it will be ready to embrace an increase in bandwidth up to 7GHz, if and when the FCC opens it up in a few years.

“Wi-Fi 7 almost doubles the frequency bandwidth of 802.11ax (170 MHz) to 320 MHz and doubles the speed of Wi-Fi,” McLaughlin told reporters. “Since there is more than a year left before the release of 802.11be, there is still a chance that we could improve the processing speed even further.”

For context, the average Wi-Fi speed in the US in 2021, when connected to 1GBps broadband internet, was less than 20MBps. Most Wi-Fi routers and receivers utilize less than 50% of their capabilities for various reasons, such as multiple users on the same network, firewalls, and other bottlenecks. So, households and offices with high-speed internet connections are probably not getting the full speeds they are paying for due to Wi-Fi constraints.

Intel hopes to change that with Wi-Fi 7. High speed Wi-Fi can take advantage of high-speed internet and improves gaming, media streaming, video calls, and overall data processing speeds.

Qualcomm was the first company to talk about its plans for Wi-Fi 7 support earlier this year.

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