Category: Technology

A rare Ford XB Falcon John Goss Special has been discovered in an Australian farm shed and is bound to get local enthusiasts talking.

Sonos’s stock took an immediate fall after Google announced, that they were turning the screws on the wireless audio Company, after new legal action against the US audio Company for infringing on a number of Google patents were filed overnight.

Initially it was Sonos taking legal action against Google with Sonos winning the first round, now it appears that Google is set to go after Sonos who they have accused of an aggressive and misleading campaign relating to Google and the use of network audio technology.

Google claim that the wireless speaker company is infringing on a number of its patents around smart speakers and voice control technology.

A spokesperson for the big search and technology Company José Castañeda said the lawsuits are being filed to “defend our technology and challenge Sonos’s clear, continued infringement of our patents.” Castañeda said that Sonos had “started an aggressive and misleading campaign against our products, at the expense of our shared customers.”

Sonos who in the past has had no problems trying to nobble existing customers Sonos speakers in an effort to driver new sales, characterized the new lawsuits as an “intimidation tactic” and said they were intended to “retaliate against Sonos for speaking out against Google’s monopolistic practices,” allow Google to avoid royalty payments, and “grind down a smaller competitor,” Eddie Lazarus, chief legal officer at Sonos, told The Verge. “It will not succeed.”

It’s the latest volley in a back-and-forth battle over wireless speakers that has so far involved multiple lawsuits from Sonos, one lawsuit from Google, and one ruling in favor of Sonos that’s led to features being stripped from Google’s products.

These new lawsuits allege infringement of seven additional patents.

The initial lawsuit focuses on hotword detection and wireless charging, and the other revolves around how a group of speakers determines which one should respond to voice input.

Both lawsuits were filed this morning in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Google plans to file similar lawsuits with the US International Trade Commission in the coming days that will seek to ban imports of any infringing Sonos products, Castañeda told The Verge.

This could affect shipments to Australia if successful.

The legal skirmish started in 2020 when Sonos initially sued Google over multiroom speaker technology.

The two companies had partnered years earlier to make Google services work on Sonos’s speakers, and Sonos claimed that Google went on to steal its speaker tech to build the Google Home and other devices. Google countersued months later, claiming Sonos infringed on a number of its patents, too. Then Sonos sued again. Finally, in January — two years after the first lawsuit was filed — the US International Trade Commission ruled in Sonos’ favor, finding Google in violation of Sonos’ patents.

In response, Google has had to adjust features of some of its products. That included Google removing the ability to adjust the volume of a group of speakers at once — a pretty annoying change for owners of multiple Google speakers. Today’s lawsuits seem to be an attempt by Google to gain leverage on Sonos as the two spars over features.

During the past year Sonos stock has fallen 33% the Company is due to report their latest results next week.

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Super Punch Out, the 1994 SNES game released as a sequel to the 1987 NES original, is like its predecessor a singleplayer game. You play as Little Mac and fight your way through a succession of cartoonish boxing opponents, and every single battle is just you against the computer. Or it was, until now!

While messing around with the game recently, Unlisted Cheats “casually found some new cheats” for Super Punch-Out. Using the same two-button combo method as the cheats already known, they found two news ones, the first allowing you to just casually pick any of the game’s fighters — even the ones from Super Circuit — for a one-off bout:

At the title, hold Y+R, then press A or START. Following screen will appear instead or regular menus. Here you can select any character to fight a free single match. See, even fighters from SPECIAL CIRCUIT are available here. -> pic.twitter.com/Hh7AtPdTcK

— Unlisted Cheats (@new_cheats_news) August 8, 2022

That’s pretty cool, and makes you wonder why that was never an option in the first place (at least as an unlock after you’ve beaten the game). The second cheat discovered, though, is a lot cooler, because it lets someone plug a second controller in and control the opponent

Sorry! Completely forgot to mention! All combinations must be held on JOYPAD2! Then A or START on JOYPAD1!

— Unlisted Cheats (@new_cheats_news) August 8, 2022

But wait! It gets even better! Ace IGN Senior Editor Kat Bailey soon found, not only do these cheats work on the version of the game available on Nintendo Switch, but the second player can even pull off the opponent’s special moves:

I got this to work on Nintendo Switch. Amazingly, you can even do the special moves as Player 2. As Bald Bull I did the bull charge by holding Down + B https://t.co/cAfOdqzOkx

— Kat Bailey (@The_Katbot) August 8, 2022

This isn’t the first time a secret has lain dormant inside a classic video game for decades, but I can’t remember the last time the secret was so accessible — the cheats are pretty simply! — while also being so important. This isn’t unlocking a single level, or buffing your stats, this is basically adding an entire new game mode, while also doubling the player count and bringing the boxing game into the multiplayer arena after spending 28 years as a singleplayer experience.

(Note though that this isn’t the first time we’ve been able to play a Punch-Out! game in multiplayer, as the Wii game had a two-player mode, though it was only against a Little Mac clone, not the game’s roster of weird and wonderful AI characters).

If you’re one of the many shoppers trying to track down the best Samsung Galaxy A53 deals, you’re in luck: we’ve got all the best offers of the month collected below. If you’re unfamiliar, the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G is the latest in Samsung’s A series, a lineup of affordable smartphones that masterfully balance value with reliable performance and premium features.

Since it hit store shelves last Spring, the A53 has reigned as one of the best mid-range devices that money can buy, and it’s not unusual to find deals that make the cheap Android phone even cheaper. That said, given its newness, don’t expect a ton of straight deals (although we’ll place them below if we find them). Instead, you’ll mostly see offers from retailers and wireless carriers that require some kind of action on your part, such as adding a new line or trading in an older device.

If none of these deals pique your interest today, check back in later: we’ll be updating this list of deals about once a week. Looking for something a little more premium? We also have a regularly updated list of Samsung Galaxy S22 deals.

Samsung Galaxy A53 deals of the month

While you’re in the neighborhood, don’t forget to protect your new device with a quality Samsung Galaxy A53 case.

Apple released the iOS 16 beta 5 today and with it comes the long-awaited return of battery percentage to the status bar. Unfortunately, it’s ugly as hell and unreadable to boot.

Previously, battery percentage appeared to the left of the battery icon. However, Apple removed it starting with the iPhone X because there wasn’t enough space to cram it in thanks to the notch. To find out battery percentage, you currently have to swipe down to Control Center. In iOS 16, Apple’s “solved” that issue by having the figure appear within the battery icon.

(If you’ve updated to the latest version of the beta and don’t see it, that’s because it’s not enabled by default. To turn it on, you have to go to the Battery menu in Settings and flip on the Battery Percentage toggle The option also appears to be unavailable on the iPhone 11, iPhone 12 mini, and iPhone 13 mini. This might change with future beta releases, but they’s the breaks for now.)

It looks like an eyesore — something you’d see on a phone circa 2011. From a distance, it kind of looks like the number on a sports jersey, and not in a good way. However, I recognize that’s my personal aesthetic taste. My biggest issue is this new battery percentage figure also has functional problems as well.

Because the number appears within the battery icon, it has to appear fully charged at all times for readability. So even if you’ve got a paltry 10 percent battery left on your phone, the icon itself still looks full. In the few hours I’ve had this feature on, it’s admittedly caused my brain to short circuit. A full battery icon that reads 55? That just borks the visual cues we’ve all become accustomed to.

The whole purpose of the battery icon is to understand quickly, at a glance, how much juice you have left. Unfortunately, the “full” battery plus the teeny tiny numbers aren’t easy on the eyes. That’s especially true if you already have poor vision. It doesn’t help that it’s always been hard to read the status bar if you happen to use a light background. Of course, not everyone will have this issue. If you have 20/20 vision, it likely won’t bother you much. I happen to have severe astigmatism and nearsightedness, and a few Focus Mode lock screens with light backgrounds. I can’t tell you how many times I misread the 50 percent battery figure as 5G instead.

Screenshot: Victoria Song / The Verge

Compare all this to the depleting battery icon. While the numberless icon doesn’t tell you exactly how much battery you have left, it’s so easy to figure out a rough ballpark. It’s an intuitive design that hardly needs any explaining. It’s small consolation, but at least the battery icon still changes colors when you enable low-power mode or plug in your phone. The former turns the icon yellow, while the latter turns it green with a lightning symbol next to it. (Charging also happens to make the battery icon and numbers bigger, and thus, way more readable! Why not do this for the regular mode too?!)

It almost feels like Apple subjected us to this on purpose. The company is known for its meticulous control over product design — regardless of whether the changes it makes are what the people want. (RIP headphone jack.) Apple decided with the iPhone X that we didn’t need battery percentage in the status bar. It gave us what it deemed to be a satisfactory solution with Control Center. But we all clamored for Apple to restore battery percentage in the top right corner of our phones, and this is what we got.

I’ll likely go back to turning the battery percentage off. The depleting battery icon, after all, works in the vast majority of situations. And the next time my battery gets dangerously close to zero, I’ll heave a heavy sigh as I swipe down for Control Center, mourning what could’ve been.

The Avengers and every other Marvel hero set to assemble in Marvel’s Midnight Suns are taking a raincheck. The 2K and Firaxis Games tactical role-playing game starring Marvel’s cast of heroes is being delayed once more, likely into 2023.

Publisher Take-Two shared earnings results today. As part of the results, it quietly revealed that Marvel’s Midnight Suns is trading in its previous release date of October 7 for a launch window of “later this fiscal year.” This puts its current release date in the ballpark of late 2022 up until March 2023 next year. The delay goes extra for anyone not on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, with Xbox One, PS4, and Switch versions planned to be released even later.

The team cites the need “to ensure the teams at Firaxis Games and 2K deliver the best possible experience for our fans” as its reasoning behind its second delay. The delay moves it out of a busy holiday season, where it would have competed with Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, Overwatch 2, Bayonetta 3and Gotham Knights.

This isn’t the first time Midnight Suns have been put on hold. It was originally supposed to launch in March 2022 before being pushed back to October. The October 7 release date reveal came with its deeper trailer showcased during Summer Games Fest. This trailer showed off the Persona-like social link segments, more of the game’s battle mechanics, and heroes like Spider-Man, Magik, and Scarlet Witch.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns does not have a firm release date yet, but it should launch by next March — one year after its initial release date.

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EVO 2022 came with an assortment of hype moments over the weekend, including the most incredible “Cell Yell” I’ve heard since dragon ball fighter z‘s first season in 2018. Sprinkled throughout the tournament were a few announcements, too, such as the welcome reveal of rollback netcode for more fighting games. But perhaps most exciting was news that classic fighter Bridget is the next DLC character coming to Guilty Gear Strike. What’s more, in the day or so since, arcade mode footage revealed that Bridget has come out as a trans girl. Talk about a based W!

Bridget was first introduced in 2002’s Guilty Gear XX, presenting as a very cute boy who instantly stole the hearts of fans. Though born as one of two twin boys to a multi-billionaire couple, Bridget’s gender presentation of her was decidedly feminine despite their use of masculine pronouns. (Official reason: convoluted anime bullshit.) However, with Bridget’s official return of her as a playable character in strike as part of the game’s $US25 ($35) Season Pass 2, ArcSys has given them a “come out” moment where they announce they do, in fact, identify as a girl.

An adept yo-yo user, Bridget’s dialogue in strike shows her becoming comfortable in expressing her trans identity, telling deuteragonist Ky Kisuke and US Secretary of Defense (lol) Goldlewis Dickinson that, “[calling me] Cowgirl is fine. Because…I’m a girl!”

its official!

bridget is transgender!

you cannot comprehend how hard i screamed its not intentionally vague its loud and clear and of all people to show her that its GOLDLEWIS pic.twitter.com/7kIAOArToH

— moeblob (apoc) (@Marcanthony737) August 8, 2022

Yas, Queen, live your truth! We love to see it. In fact, plenty of folks online celebrated the reveal with fan art and memes. Somebody even created a mod for Bridget that sees them donning the blue, pink, and white colors of the Trans pride flag. It’s cool!

Not everyone was thrilled about Bridget’s trans-ness, though, which shouldn’t come as a surprise in this space. Ready to dismiss their identity wholesale, there are plenty of gross tweets decrying ArcSys giving us an actual trans character in strike. While there’s some nuance to the idea that the studio could be “erasing a character’s previous identity,” as one tweeter put itmost of the negative discourse oscillating around Bridget is framed as bad-faith arguments over grooming.

iwliterally am sobbing in the EVO arena rn? my favorite character of all time ;w;

so here is a drawing i got from daisuke a few years ago! the trans rights bridget pic.twitter.com/gL1LWGYCnL

— sharkparty@EVO💗 (@sharkpartyqq) August 8, 2022

being pointed out to me that bridget’s habit does have a similar symbol on it, bu instead of being the mars symbol it’s the trans symbol with the male and female branches removed pic.twitter.com/F6RKdWPq90

— Ada Basilisk, Haunted Doll VTuber (@ComfyBasilisk) August 8, 2022

https://t.co/DLDIT1zUsc pic.twitter.com/efY0pJghlf

— CHAR @ College Finals (@bennflynt) August 8, 2022

Kotaku you have reached out to Arc System Works for comment.

The negative response toward Bridget’s coming out is disconcerting to say the least. At a time when the US government is penning legislation aimed at attacking the queer experience, getting representation in the media — especially in games — should be seen as a boon. It reassures folks in our community that it’s OK to be who you are, and how you identify is both accepted and loved. As a nonbinary individual who sees a bit of themselves in the elegant “grim reaper” Testament, strike‘s first enby character, I’m absolutely living for Bridget coming into her own.

The next generation of graphics from NVIDIA and AMD Radeon promises to provide a significant improvement in performance (if the forecasts are true), but in Exchange for significantly increasing energy consumption. This obviously collides with increasingly prohibitive energy prices, so we’ll see if it pays off for companies to follow this strategy.

Last month we reported an NVIDIA AD102 chip, belonging to the Ada Lovelace generation, with a consumption of between 600 and 800 watts. The fact that the chip was mentioned and not the graphics card left the door open for it to be not the RTX 4090 Ti, but the next generation of the TITAN line. It seems AMD would have chosen to follow a similar path with its future RX 7000, which will be based on the RDNA 3 graphics architecture.

According to the YouTube channel RedGamingTech, the team responsible for Radeon would have increased the Total Graphics power (TGP) of the high-end Navi 31 chip from 375 to 405 watts, which represents an increase of 8%. But seeing the context in which we live, the AMD graphics division would have another more efficient SKU ready with a TGP of 375 watts.

On the other hand, RedGamingTech has published what would be the specifications of the presumed flagship SKU of the future generation of Radeon, which would have 84 compute units (CUs) or 42 workgroup processors (WGPs) and its name points to be 7950 XT instead of 7900XT. This information collides with others that mentioned 60 WPG or 120 CU, but even so a remarkable evolution is expected thanks to the fact that, at least in some models, the number of SIMD32 for each computing unit will rise from two to four.

The memory subsystem is another promising point of RX 7000. Thanks to an alleged deep review, V-cache would be added to the cocktail of technologies for increase the amount of Infinity Cache from 128 to 384 megabytesan improvement that would be triple in quantitative terms if fulfilled.

The improvements that Radeon’s RX 7000 line would introduce, if true, would result in that generation’s top-of-the-range graphics card doubling the performance offered by the RX 6950 XT. But you know, with these songs, as long as there is no release and many benchmarks to compare, it is better to take all these data with tweezers.

If AMD manages to comply with its roadmap, the RX 7000 graphics should start to see the light from the fourth quarter of 2022. NVIDIA is also around, but the green giant seems that it would only launch the RTX 4090 for this year, its Ti variant or both, to later roll out the rest of the Ada Lovelace catalog during the course of 2023.

F1 in recent years has enjoyed a boom in popularity thanks largely to Netflix’s fly-on-the-wall docuseries Drive to Survive, which has ushered in a legion of new fans to the racing series.

As a result, numerous Hollywood films about F1 are said to be in development, while the series now has a wider mainstream platform.

This popularity has also filtered through to F1’s Esports platforms, with more gamers getting involved in the yearly F1 releases from Codemasters and EA.

In F1’s latest move into the mainstream, Call of Duty developers Infinity Ward revealed on Sunday night that the Marina Bay Circuit in Singapore will be a playable six vs six-player map in its next game Modern Warfare 2.

While the full game is released on 28 October on Playstation and Xbox consoles, as well as PC, the first Beta trial for the game launches on Playstation for early access pre-orders on 16-17 September – where players can get their first taste of the map.

Ahead of the game’s release, all players on all platforms can experience the map in the final open beta on 24-26 September.

In a video teaser released by Infinity Ward, it appears as if the map will cover parts of Marina Bay’s pitlane and paddock complex – though no actual F1 branding is present in the clip, suggesting no partnership has been made with the series.

A brief statement from Infinity Ward on the new F1-inspired map read: “The Modern Warfare II Beta is set to feature a robust multiplayer experience going beyond the Core 6v6 experience with a variety of meticulously designed maps of various sizes, and an equally impressive set of Modes, Progression experiences, and other aspects that will be more thoroughly revealed at Call of Duty: Next.

“In addition, we revealed a fly-through of Marina Bay Grand Prix, where combat occurs within the main infield of an urban race circuit, one of the 6v6 Multiplayer maps confirmed for the Beta.”

This isn’t the first time motorsport and Call of Duty have collided.

Seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton appeared as a non-playable character in 2016’s Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, while at the Valencia Grand Prix in 2013 and 2014, three-time MotoGP world champion Jorge Lorenzo ran special helmet designs for Call of Duty: Ghosts and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.

This year’s Singapore Grand Prix will take place on 2 October, and will mark F1’s first visit to the country since the COVID-19 pandemic began two years ago.