Month: May 2022

Apple is expected to announce a new generation of the iPad Pro in 2022. There are certain features likely to come with the new iPad Pro, even though it has been months since there were rumors. Read on as we round up four of them that we expect to see on the 2022 iPad Pro.

MagSafe support

MagSafe compatibility is one of the most important features on both the iPhone and the MacBook Pro. For the 2022 iPad Pro, it seems Apple could finally adopt this technology to the tablet.

While it was first believed that the company would make an entire glass back for this device, it seems this is not the case anymore, as the iPad Pro would be way more fragile and heavy. According to 9to5Mac sources, Apple is planning to make a bigger logo on the back of the iPad with a glass finish. This would help power be transmitted through the tablet.

miniLED and LCD options for the 2022 iPad Pro

When rumors about the 2022 iPad Pro started, it was believed that both of the tablets would feature a miniLED screen. Now, analysts Ross Young and Ming-Chi Kuo said that Apple will keep the LCD technology for the smaller 11-inch iPad due to high costs of production.

“Apple is taking share with just a single product for the rest of this year in this category. While it was previously thought that Apple would also introduce MiniLEDs to the 11″ iPad Pro, we no longer believe that is the case, at least not this year. Apple is reportedly targeting its MiniLEDs on larger and more expensive displays,” said Kuo in March.

Improved battery life

9to5Mac is able to confirm that Apple is working on a new iPad Pro with a larger battery, as some users complain that the Magic Keyboard causes excessive battery drain.

With that, although Apple always promises a 10-hour battery life, this would mean this iPad could handle more demanding tasks for longer – or, at least, more time connected with the Magic Keyboard and the Apple Pencil.

The M2 chip is coming to the 2022 iPad Pro

After Apple surprised everyone with the addition of the M1 chip on the iPad Pro, it’s likely for the company to add an upgraded version of this processor to the upcoming 2022 iPad Pro. Naturally, this iPad would feature the M2 chip.

9to5Mac sources corroborate that this new iPad will feature this new processor. It should be faster than the M1, but it will not beat the M1 Pro, Max, or Ultra chips.

Wrap-up

These are four features we expect to see on the 2022 iPad Pro. This tablet is expected to be available in September or November. With iPadOS 16 being announced a few weeks from now, it will also help us take a closer look at what this iPad could feature.

Are you excited about this upcoming iPad? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Related:

• iPadOS 16: Here’s what we know so far about new features, supported devices, and more

On May 11, “Robot Operating System 2: Design, Architecture and Uses in the Wild”, a paper on the open-source Robot Operating System 2.0 (ROS2) authored by Steven Macenski of Samsung Research¹ America (SRA), was published in the Science Robotics journal, one of the most prestigious journals in robotics research.

Steven Macenski, Samsung Research America

In his recent paper, Macenski introduced ROS2’s architecture and current state-of-the-art technologies along with its various use cases in ground, sea and air. Especially, Macenski covered the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s VIPER² Lunar project which will be launched by November in 2023, with respect to its ongoing ROS2-based simulation, operation and ground-based perception technology. The paper clearly and thoroughly explains the technologies of ROS2, an open-source software development kit for robotics applications, so many researchers and developers can refer to it in future work.

While collaborating on the development of robotics software technologies in ROS2, Macenski represents Samsung Electronics as an Open Source Maintainer responsible for the review and approval of source code as well as regular releases. He also participates as a board member of the Technical Steering Committee (TSC), ROS2’s top decision-making body. More notably, Macenski has won the annual Best Developer Award for ROS2 for two consecutive years since 2020. The TSC includes more than 20 major companies around the world, including Samsung Electronics, Open Robotics, Toyota, Intel, Wind River, iRobot and Bosch.

For his Science Robotics paper, Macenski teamed up with research luminaries in ROS2, such as the CEO of Open Robotics Brian Gerkey and ROS2’s guru-level developer Tully Foote.

¹ Samsung Electronics’ advanced R&D hub, which leads the development of future technologies for its Device eXperience division

² Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) is a lunar rover developed by NASA and is currently planned to be delivered to the surface of the Moon in November 2023.

Dolby invited podcasters earlier this year to create their shows in Dolby Atmos for an immersive experience. Now Dolby has announced that Wondery is the first podcast platform to deliver audio content using Atmos technology.

Dolby Atmos, as you may already know, is a surround technology that enables three-dimensional sound, so that listeners get the feeling that the sound is coming from different directions. Although this technology is well-established in the market, it has only been recently extended to smartphones and other devices.

Now listeners have the opportunity to enjoy favorite shows in three dimensions thanks to Dolby Audio. And the first podcast platform to support this audio format is Wondery, which is owned by Amazon.

Premium podcast station Wondery will now be presenting its award-winning podcast series via Dolby Atmos. Wondery+ subscribers can now fully immerse themselves into their favorite episodes and connect in an even deeper way to the story. Wondery+ is now available.

Wondery’s podcasts can be accessed through a monthly subscription of $4. 99 or an annual subscription of $34.99. The network has popular and exclusive shows such as Blood Ties, Jacked, Iowa Chapman and the Last Dog, and Daphne. Wondery+ podcasts can also be found on Apple Podcasts. However, Dolby Atmos is available only through Wondery for iOS.

Dolby suggests that Atmos will soon be available on more podcasting platforms. However, there is no information about the specific platforms. Since Apple Music is already compatible with Dolby Atmos, as are the latest AirPods and iOS devices, it’s likely that Apple Podcasts will soon get support for surround audio – or as Apple calls it, Spatial Audio.

More details on how to prepare your podcasts for Dolby Atmos can be found on Dolby’s website.

I was a confused but earnest novice when I went to Elden Ring I cleared out Stormveil Castle after much death and despair; so I set out to adventure, and shortly found myself atop a tower, next to a chest. Someone who had come here before me had helpfully left a message: treasure ahead!

I opened the chest, got sucked through a portal, and woke up in a nightmare region of the game, full of misery. That was when something clicked. I felt as if I were in during the FromSoftware experience.

Elden Ring is one of the biggest titles of the year, with over 12 million copies sold as of March 2022. The game has proven to be both a commercial and critical success, and while developer FromSoftware filed off some of the harshest edges from previous titles, it’s still very familiar for long-term fans of the studio. FromSoft has worked on many of the same design concepts and mechanics for many years. Eldenring ‘s popularity is due to the large fan base that the Japanese developer built through previous releases. And it’s this very same community that not only got me hooked on Elden Ring, but also fueled my interest in both playing FromSoft’s previous games and digging deep into their lore.

Image: FromSoftware via Polygon

FromSoftware is perhaps best known for the Dark Souls series. Demon’s Souls, a 2009 release that would later be remade as a PlayStation 5 launch title in 2020, was a cult hit. The Dark Souls trilogy would be released over the 2010s, along with Victorian gothic horror Bloodborne in 2015 (hence the term “Soulsborne” many fans use, a way to casually refer to the developer’s catalog). FromSoft also released the Sengoku-era adventure Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice in 2019, which departed from familiar elements like the persistent, troublesome Patches.

Dark Souls also impacted game design more broadly, with “Soulslike” becoming a shorthand for identifying a certain game ethos and set of mechanics. Soulslike games can look nothing like FromSoftware’s majestic and terrible environments. But creators of games like Tunic have cleverly learned from FromSoftware and interpreted the developer’s mechanics through their own lens.

I’m a player who enjoys digging into the lore and uncovering little details about the world. At first, I missed much of this in Elden Ring, until I began paying attention to the flavor text on item descriptions. Much of the world is up for debate, spread across little riddles and unreliable narrators. The world is open for interpretation and discovery. There’s no codex or world building guide, nor dialogue trees that provide technical details.

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco

Many of FromSoft’s games share similar gameplay cores: There’s punishingly difficult combat, until the player puzzles out the specific attack patterns and enemy movement styles. But it was the characters and world-building that really intrigued me, and got me interested in the entire FromSoft canon. The antagonists are usually deeply tragic. They can be cheerful sun-loving warriors that eventually fall into madness or frenzy, or they could be desperate monster-hunters who find themselves in the hands of unspeakable eldritch terrors.

There is very little information available about the world of FromSoftware. It’s given out in vague dialogues and description of items. A FromSoftware game follows an internal consistency to its design and logic, even when the developer experiments with larger aspects.

This consistency and breadth have made the game a favorite among gamers. For years, this was almost a plague; there was the persistent stereotype of the “git gud” gamer who would parry away all criticisms or concerns about Soulsborne games with one adage: Simply be better at video games. This conversation still persists — and we will likely see debates on whether FromSoftware games should have easy modes until the inevitable heat death of the universe — but it has faded away over time to allow for a more accessible, welcoming fan experience.

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon

Peek at the Elden Ring subreddit, and you’ll see players sharing the repeated trials and tribulations of fighting Starscourge Radahn, or sharing gifs of their terrible, comically inept deaths at the hands of birds or suspicious-looking cliffsides. For every person who claims using a summon or a shield isn’t the “real” way to play the game, dozens more celebrate the wild strategies — like intense incantations, blood builds, or good ol’ cheese — they used to survive.

Elden Ring was the first FromSoftware video game that I played. It’s partly because of the strong sense of identity FromSoftware users had. I had witnessed friends go through the cycle of frustration and fury, slow realization, and triumphant vengeance over boss fights. I had seen people share gorgeous fan art of FromSoft characters, or share their lore theories on social media. I also gained a sense of the communities built around these franchises.

FromSoftware games encourage collaboration and rely heavily on communication between players. This could be through messages in the game or by gathering with creators to share their ideas and interpret the lore. There’s a shared vocabulary and understanding among the developer’s fans, and they work together to understand the worlds FromSoft crafts. There are local legends as well that can inspire fan work, such as Let Me Solo Her. This player exists to simply be summoned to a world of an ally to defeat its toughest boss, even though she is bugged and does ridiculous amounts of damage.

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco

Elden Ring fans have also already created tons of fascinating projects around the game’s lore and setting. Developers have created Elden Ring demake trailers and Game Boy adaptations. Players joke about the game’s difficulty and assign their own challenges by playing the game on a Fisher Price controller or going for a legendary nine-minute speed run. There’s also, of course, an incredible amount of fan art.

While the popularity of the game is quite surprising, savvy observers can see it from far. FromSoft fanatics held vigils after any game conference in which Elden Ring wasn’t shown or presented. For a while, they went completely feral and made up their own lore, including bosses like “Glaive Master Hodir.” And when an additional trailer was finally released in 2021, giving more insight into Elden Ring‘s lore, fans immediately rallied around a favorite character: the humble Pot Boy.

Elden Ring had a similar hold on me. After Elden Ring, I was hooked; I had never been into the idea of “getting good,” but I was absolutely down to explore games like Bloodborne, picking up the game and devouring it myself — along with digging into fan-made resources like Redgrave’s novella “The Paleblood Hunt,” a 90-page dissection of Bloodborne‘s themes, enemies, and characters, or scouring videos of enemy models to get a full sense of their designs.

Elden Ring was a way for fans to get in touch with the community. However, they were scared by the tough bosses and “get good” dialog. But FromSoftware’s fans have championed the games for years, sharing the best bits on social media and hyping up subsequent releases. It’s worth noting that Elden Ring‘s success owes a lot to those concerted efforts, in-jokes, and analyses. I’m already looking forward to prospective DLC that adds more riddles for fans to pore over, but I imagine I’ll be going through new game plus as well, doing a victory lap around the Lands Between.