Month: February 2023
Delayed Suicide Squad shooter gets Xbox Series X and PS5 performance confirmed
The Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has been confirmed to be targetting 60fps on Xbox Series X and PS5.
Upcoming co-op shooter The Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League looks incredibly fast-paced and frantic, so it’s a good thing that the game is targeting 60fps on Xbox Series X and PS5.
Few specific details regarding different performance modes for The Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League for Xbox Series X and PS5 have been verified as of yet. Judging from the fact that the game is an always-online action game, it makes a lot of sense that graphical fidelity would be secondary to pushing performance to the max.
The Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League now coming on May 26 after being delayed from its original late 2022 release date. As confirmed in a recent FAQ on the game’s official website, the shooter will be “full cross-platform” so it won’t matter whether you’re playing on PC or consoles with your friends.
Also confirmed by developers Rocksteady, the team behind the Batman Arkham series, is that you will need an internet connection to play the game even in single-player. Unfortunately, there’s no couch co-op split-screen to speak of either. It isn’t shocking news, as few Xbox Series X and PS5 titles support this, but it would have been nice.
The new gameplay overview trailer shows off exactly how Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Deadshot, and King Shark will play. Unlike Rocksteady’s previous trilogy of games, the focus with these villains isn’t Freeflow hand-to-hand combat, but more conventional third-person shooting. Task Force X are seriously fast as they leap around the map and teleport with a varied arsenal of firearms capable of incapacitating the most famous superhero team ever penned to paper.
As we’ve seen before with always online games such as Marvel’s Avengers, there will be a battle pass system, but this will be “cosmetics-only” for outfits and emotes which is pretty standard fare in a title like this. There will be free and premium tiers so there’s not necessarily an incentive to spend any more money other than the initial purchase.
I must say that this news hasn’t been the most encouraging for me. As someone who adored James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad and the Batman: Assault on Arkham animated movie featuring these characters, it’s a shame that it looks to be a fairly by-the-numbers shooter.
The always-online requirement leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth as I have never been one to buy into games as a service. It’s safe to say that if you’re into these sorts of games and enjoy DC comics you may get a lot out of it though. If you were into last year’s Gotham Knights and want more of a Batman fix, then The Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League looks to satisfy that void.
Batman returns in new Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League
Europe’s music streaming antitrust case against Apple will now focus on ‘anti-steering’ clauses
Back in 2021, the European Commission issued antitrust charges against Apple after deciding that the company may be abusing its dominant position when it comes to music streaming apps. The commission sent the tech giant a Statement of Objections listing issues that it believes warrant further investigation. In it, the EU’s executive body outlined its issues with Apple, namely making developers use its payment system and preventing them from telling subscribers about alternative (and often cheaper) payment options outside of iOS apps. Now, the commission has announced that its antitrust investigation will only touch upon the second issue, or the “anti-steering obligations” Apple imposes upon developers.
Its revised Statement of Objections drops its position regarding the legality of the company making developers use its in-app payment system. It’s going all in on the anti-steering allegations instead, citing concerns that Apple’s rule prevents developers from notifying users about more affordable subscription prices elsewhere.
The commission said these anti-steering obligations imposed upon developers are “unfair trading conditions” in breach of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’). It explained that the obligations are “neither necessary nor proportionate for the provision of the App Store on iPhones and iPad,” that they’re detrimental to Apple users who’ll likely end up paying more, and that they negatively affect music streaming app developers “by limiting effective consumer choice.”
This particular antitrust case was a result of the complaint Spotify filed against Apple in 2019, wherein it accused the tech giant of having discriminatory practices designed to suppress competitors to Apple Music. If the commission decides that Apple has indeed broken antitrust laws, then it could prohibit the conduct that’s in breach of the rules — in this case, preventing developers from pointing users to external payment options — and could fine the company up to 10 percent of its annual turnover worldwide.
In a statement, Spotify welcomed the European Commission’s announcement, noting that regulators are “sending a clear message that Apple must play fair and let competition work”:
The European Commission has once again made it abundantly clear that consumers are the ultimate victims of Apple’s abusive and anticompetitive behavior—and putting a stop to it is a top priority. Apple’s anti-steering rules, which prohibit Spotify and other developers from telling consumers about deals or promotions through their own apps, mean that users are deprived of opportunities to save money and enjoy a higher quality service. That directly harms consumers. With each passing day, Apple continues to choke competition and smother innovation. The European Commission today is sending a clear message that Apple must play fair and let competition work. Momentum is on the side of consumers but they deserve final resolution—and soon.
Apple told The Wall Street Journal that it was pleased the scope of its case had been narrowed and that it hopes the commission “will end its pursuit of a complaint that has no merit.”This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/eu-music-streaming-antitrust-case-apple-focus-anti-steering-clauses-123405739.html?src=rss
Back in 2021, the European Commission issued antitrust charges against Apple after deciding that the company may be abusing its dominant position when it comes to music streaming apps. The commission sent the tech giant a Statement of Objections listing issues that it believes warrant further investigation. In it, the EU’s executive body outlined its issues with Apple, namely making developers use its payment system and preventing them from telling subscribers about alternative (and often cheaper) payment options outside of iOS apps. Now, the commission has announced that its antitrust investigation will only touch upon the second issue, or the “anti-steering obligations” Apple imposes upon developers.
Its revised Statement of Objections drops its position regarding the legality of the company making developers use its in-app payment system. It’s going all in on the anti-steering allegations instead, citing concerns that Apple’s rule prevents developers from notifying users about more affordable subscription prices elsewhere.
The commission said these anti-steering obligations imposed upon developers are “unfair trading conditions” in breach of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’). It explained that the obligations are “neither necessary nor proportionate for the provision of the App Store on iPhones and iPad,” that they’re detrimental to Apple users who’ll likely end up paying more, and that they negatively affect music streaming app developers “by limiting effective consumer choice.”
This particular antitrust case was a result of the complaint Spotify filed against Apple in 2019, wherein it accused the tech giant of having discriminatory practices designed to suppress competitors to Apple Music. If the commission decides that Apple has indeed broken antitrust laws, then it could prohibit the conduct that’s in breach of the rules — in this case, preventing developers from pointing users to external payment options — and could fine the company up to 10 percent of its annual turnover worldwide.
In a statement, Spotify welcomed the European Commission’s announcement, noting that regulators are “sending a clear message that Apple must play fair and let competition work”:
The European Commission has once again made it abundantly clear that consumers are the ultimate victims of Apple’s abusive and anticompetitive behavior—and putting a stop to it is a top priority. Apple’s anti-steering rules, which prohibit Spotify and other developers from telling consumers about deals or promotions through their own apps, mean that users are deprived of opportunities to save money and enjoy a higher quality service. That directly harms consumers. With each passing day, Apple continues to choke competition and smother innovation. The European Commission today is sending a clear message that Apple must play fair and let competition work. Momentum is on the side of consumers but they deserve final resolution—and soon.
Apple told The Wall Street Journal that it was pleased the scope of its case had been narrowed and that it hopes the commission “will end its pursuit of a complaint that has no merit.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/eu-music-streaming-antitrust-case-apple-focus-anti-steering-clauses-123405739.html?src=rss
Google Photos tricks like Magic Eraser are coming to your videos next
Google has strongly hinted that AI-powered editing tricks, like Magic Eraser, are in the pipeline for video shooters soon.
Google Photos AI tricks like Magic Eraser have just been opened up to all Google One subscribers, but now Google says it’s planning to bring them to the next frontier: your videos.
In the latest edition of the company’s Made by Google podcast, Senior Product Manager Zachary Senzer talks about how using AI to automatically edit videos, in a similar way to existing tools like Photo Unblur and Magic Eraser, is the next step for Google Photos. And that despite the challenges, there’s “lots of exciting stuff on the way” for those who shoot moving images as much as stills.
While Google isn’t ready to share any specifics yet, Senzer said that while the recent focus has been “on the the photo side, I’m personally really looking forward to doing more with videos”. Through Google Photos and YouTube, he added that Google has seen that “people are capturing and creating way more with videos than ever before” and that “there’s so much potential in the space to truly revolutionize what people can do with their videos”.
Exactly how Google plans to do this isn’t yet clear, but Google did just bring its HDR effect feature (below) to videos – and the likes of Photo Unblur and Magic Eraser give us a good guide. The latter would certainly be an incredible video feature, while automated cuts and convincing video bokeh (in a similar fashion to portrait modes) could both drastically reduce editing times and improve overall polish.
(Image credit: Google)
The reason why we haven’t seen those features is the huge amount of processing power required to apply local edits to videos, in comparison to photos. As the podcast host Rachid Finge remarks, “most videos have 30 pictures a second, so it must be at least 30 times harder to do that”. Zachary Senzer agrees that it’s “definitely harder”, but says that there are lots of “exciting’ video-related features en route.
Like Google’s photo-related AI features, it’s likely that these would initially be restricted to Pixel phones that have Google’s Tensor chip. Senzer says that for the Google Pixel 6 and Google Pixel 7 “we worked really closely with our AI researchers at Google to create machine learning models that run well on Tensor”.
Given the far greater demands of video editing, that would likely be the case again for future editing tricks – but the recent spread of Magic Eraser and Photo Unblur to all Google One devices shows that automated video editing in Google Photos could ultimately be available on non-Pixel phones, too.
Analysis: Video editing is about to get easier
(Image credit: Adobe)
While some of today’s best video editing apps, like Adobe Premiere Rush, Lumafusion and GoPro Quik do offer some automated video editing features, they don’t have the scale of Google Photos – or offer quite the same one-touch usability as photo tricks like Magic Eraser.
Google was keen to talk about its role as a democratizer of simple editing, for both photos and videos, in its Made by Google podcast, with Zachary Senzer stating that it wants to make sure any “everyday person can go in and get those really awesome photos and videos in just a tap without that expertise required”.
But while it certainly sounds like Google will bringing video editing tricks to Google Photos and Pixel phones in the near future, it isn’t the only company that’s excited about the potential of computational video.
Last year, Adobe’s VP and Fellow Marc Levoy – who previously pioneered Google’s computational photography modes for Pixel phones – said that computational video would be the next big imaging feature, adding that “for every magical new photographic experience feature companies have introduced on smartphones, there is an analogous feature one can imagine for video”.
Levoy also strongly hinted that Adobe would enter the mobile video recording space, too. “Adobe has created the most powerful video editing software apps in the industry (mainly Premiere and After Effects), but has been reluctant so far to enter the video recording space,” he said. “As mobile cameras get better, this becomes a natural next step,” Levoy added.
So whether it’s at Google I/O 2023 in May or Adobe Max 2023 later in the year, expect video to be the next big focus for AI-powered editing tools.
EU says Apple breached antitrust law in Spotify case, but final ruling yet to come
Illustration: The Verge
The EU has updated its antitrust case against Apple and the control it wields over music streaming services on iOS with potentially good news for complainant Spotify.
The European Commission, the EU body investigating the charges, says Apple breached antitrust laws by stopping rival music firms like Spotify from advertising where and how users could subscribe to their apps. This update to the case does not constitute a final ruling, and it’s now up to Apple to marshal a defense and prove the charges wrong.
Spotify first made a complaint against Apple in 2019, with the European Commission opening an investigation in 2020. The Commission issued an initial “statement of objections” against Apple in 2021, laying out the possible breaches of antitrust law. The Commission focused on two issues: that Apple forced developers to use its own in-app payments system for which it collects a fee (the “IAP obligation”), and that Apple stopped developers from advertising alternative ways to subscribe to their apps (the “anti-steering obligations”).
Today, the Commission has updated this statement of objections. It’s dropped the first charge, saying it “no longer take a position as to the legality of the IAP obligation,” and is focusing on the second. The Commission has also strengthened its language about this charge, declaring a “preliminary view” that “Apple’s anti-steering obligations are unfair trading conditions in breach of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’).”
For a time, Apple did not allow rival streaming services like Spotify to even include links in the company’s apps to their own subscription sign-ups. (Apple loosened this restriction in March 2022 in order to close an antitrust investigation in Japan.)
If found guilty, Apple could be fined up to $39.4 billion
Apple will now be able to respond to the EU’s charges. If it’s found guilty the company faces a fine of up to 10 percent of its annual global turnover. That would be a fine of up to $39.4 billion dollars based on Apple’s revenue in 2022 of $394.33 billion dollars. We’ve reached out to the company for comment and will update this story if we hear back.
In a statement from Spotify, the company’s general counsel, Eve Konstan, said: “Today, the European Commission sent a clear message that Apple’s anti-competitive behavior and unfair practices have harmed consumers and disadvantaged developers for far too long. We urge the Commission to reach a swift decision in this case to protect consumers and restore fair competition on the iOS platform.”
Last month, Spotify and other European companies urged the Commission to hurry up its investigation and take “swift and decisive action” against Apple. (Though in its own announcement today, the Commission notes “there is no legal deadline for bringing an antitrust investigation to an end.”) If delayed much further, the case is also likely to run into a whole new set of obligations Apple and others will have to abide by under the EU’s coming Digital Markets Act, or DMA. These will force Apple to allow third-party app stores and app sideloading on iOS for the first time.
Illustration: The Verge
The EU has updated its antitrust case against Apple and the control it wields over music streaming services on iOS with potentially good news for complainant Spotify.
The European Commission, the EU body investigating the charges, says Apple breached antitrust laws by stopping rival music firms like Spotify from advertising where and how users could subscribe to their apps. This update to the case does not constitute a final ruling, and it’s now up to Apple to marshal a defense and prove the charges wrong.
Spotify first made a complaint against Apple in 2019, with the European Commission opening an investigation in 2020. The Commission issued an initial “statement of objections” against Apple in 2021, laying out the possible breaches of antitrust law. The Commission focused on two issues: that Apple forced developers to use its own in-app payments system for which it collects a fee (the “IAP obligation”), and that Apple stopped developers from advertising alternative ways to subscribe to their apps (the “anti-steering obligations”).
Today, the Commission has updated this statement of objections. It’s dropped the first charge, saying it “no longer take a position as to the legality of the IAP obligation,” and is focusing on the second. The Commission has also strengthened its language about this charge, declaring a “preliminary view” that “Apple’s anti-steering obligations are unfair trading conditions in breach of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’).”
For a time, Apple did not allow rival streaming services like Spotify to even include links in the company’s apps to their own subscription sign-ups. (Apple loosened this restriction in March 2022 in order to close an antitrust investigation in Japan.)
Apple will now be able to respond to the EU’s charges. If it’s found guilty the company faces a fine of up to 10 percent of its annual global turnover. That would be a fine of up to $39.4 billion dollars based on Apple’s revenue in 2022 of $394.33 billion dollars. We’ve reached out to the company for comment and will update this story if we hear back.
In a statement from Spotify, the company’s general counsel, Eve Konstan, said: “Today, the European Commission sent a clear message that Apple’s anti-competitive behavior and unfair practices have harmed consumers and disadvantaged developers for far too long. We urge the Commission to reach a swift decision in this case to protect consumers and restore fair competition on the iOS platform.”
Last month, Spotify and other European companies urged the Commission to hurry up its investigation and take “swift and decisive action” against Apple. (Though in its own announcement today, the Commission notes “there is no legal deadline for bringing an antitrust investigation to an end.”) If delayed much further, the case is also likely to run into a whole new set of obligations Apple and others will have to abide by under the EU’s coming Digital Markets Act, or DMA. These will force Apple to allow third-party app stores and app sideloading on iOS for the first time.
Reddit App Now Lets You Search Comments on Posts Directly From the Search Bar
Reddit’s official app now provides users with the ability to search for comments within a specific post directly from the search bar.
After updating to version 2023.08.0 of the iOS app, when viewing a post, users can now search within the comments of that post, rather than all of Reddit. The developers describe it like so:
We’ve been listening to your feedback and you can now search comments within a post on desktop, iOS, and Android apps. So what does this mean? You don’t have to “cmd-f” on the post page anymore and you can search comment threads without expanding them. No more long scrolling sessions — quickly get to the parts of the conversation you’re looking for and jump in where you want.Reddit says the feature is now available on desktop, iOS, and Android. The tool builds upon the ability to get search results from replies to original posts, which Reddit introduced in April last year.
In addition, Reddit says it has improved its subreddit search algorithm so that it now delivers a larger number of and more relevant subreddits for most searches. Improvements have also been made to the autocomplete function, which should make it easier to search for communities without having to type in the exact name to find relevant results, according to the developers.Tag: Reddit
This article, “Reddit App Now Lets You Search Comments on Posts Directly From the Search Bar” first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums
Reddit’s official app now provides users with the ability to search for comments within a specific post directly from the search bar.
After updating to version 2023.08.0 of the iOS app, when viewing a post, users can now search within the comments of that post, rather than all of Reddit. The developers describe it like so:
We’ve been listening to your feedback and you can now search comments within a post on desktop, iOS, and Android apps. So what does this mean? You don’t have to “cmd-f” on the post page anymore and you can search comment threads without expanding them. No more long scrolling sessions — quickly get to the parts of the conversation you’re looking for and jump in where you want.Reddit says the feature is now available on desktop, iOS, and Android. The tool builds upon the ability to get search results from replies to original posts, which Reddit introduced in April last year.
In addition, Reddit says it has improved its subreddit search algorithm so that it now delivers a larger number of and more relevant subreddits for most searches. Improvements have also been made to the autocomplete function, which should make it easier to search for communities without having to type in the exact name to find relevant results, according to the developers.
This article, “Reddit App Now Lets You Search Comments on Posts Directly From the Search Bar” first appeared on MacRumors.com
Discuss this article in our forums