Month: May 2022

Apex Legends’ newest playable hero, Newcastle, is a departure from earlier Legends in two areas: First, that he’s a defensive Legend, a type currently outnumbered 2:1 by offensive types on the Apex roster. And second, that the defense he supplies is less about his personal protection, and more about keeping his team safe.

Devan McGuire, a Respawn Entertainment designer responsible for Newcastle’s kit, explained in a media deep dive last week that Newcastle evolved from a prototype the team had sketched out in 2020, realizing that their lineup didn’t have many defensive types. But that kit, called Axiom, stayed on the drawing board because developers felt “it was a pretty selfish kit overall, and didn’t really take into account any of the team aspects.”

But when the writing team reached out about their plans to bring in Jackson Williams, the brother of Bangalore, as a playable character, McGuire spotted an opportunity to rework that Axiom Legend kit, and infuse it with a little more purpose.

“Jackson was meant to be more of a protector to his family, to his squad, bring them home,” McGuire said. “And that aspect of valor and heroism, from that protector, mixed with the shielded elements of the kit that was on the table, created this fantasy that really, really clicked, and the idea of a knight in Apex was something that we realized just made so much sense.”

All of that informs the Passive, Tactical, and Ultimate skill that Newcastle brings to the Apex Games. Fans have already seen the Stories from the Outlands cinematic explaining Jackson Williams’ personal background and how he adopted the mantle of Newcastle, and why he’s in the arena. McGuire’s preview session explained what he’ll be doing there.

“This guy needed to be someone who could leap into the fray, heroically, to protect the squad,” McGuire said. “He’s somebody who’s gonna lead that charge, shield their advance, and he’s gonna be a guy who would leave no man behind.”

With that in mind, Respawn’s designers started with Newcastle’s passive, called Retrieve the Wounded. That’s the wrist-mounted Revive Shield he carries, which can protect himself and a teammate from incoming fire while he revives them. Retrieve the Wounded goes a step further by allowing Newcastle to drag the downed teammate as they are being revived, moving both to better cover if it’s available.

“Being able to pull your teammates out of the fire and into cover, as you revive them, has huge potential,” McGuire said. “No other character could do that in Apex. And the shield that you have to protect them with gives you the confidence to make those plays, to take those risks, not just throw yourself out there and not be able to do anything while you’re getting shot at.”

In-game, the Revive Shield is powered by the personal Knockdown Shield that Newcastle carries, which means Newcastle players who find higher-level Knockdown Shields out in the playing field will ramp up their passive’s effects commensurately. “We found that this actually breathed a lot of new life into an underused and underappreciated item in the game, as a loot item,” McGuire said. For a squad with Newcastle on it, “pinging that is very important; you can invest in your potential safeguards in the future.”

Newcastle’s Tactical ability is his Mobile Shield. This energy field is movable and highly effective cover. McGuire touted its tactical versatility, from helping players advance together, safely; to covering a retreat; to warding off a surprise flanking maneuver.

“While it’s out in the open, Newcastle can press this tactical button again to redirect its position to a new position on the map,” McGuire explained. “that means you can turn a corner within a building, you can pull back, if you’re out in the open and need to retreat back to cover, or third-party kind of shows up on the fly, you can rotate the shield around to defend that open flank.” Because the Mobile Shield is energy based, it deflects fire but allows the team to charge through it.

The Mobile Shield is destructible, in a way, in that it has a top and bottom half that can be brought down separate from each other. “[That gives] some situational choice for opponents who feel they need to burn down the shield to get to Newcastle,” McGuire said. “So you can burn down the top, and go for those head and body shots, or you can burn the bottom and go for those exposed legs, which will do less damage overall, but [they] might be forced to abandon the shield out in the open.”

Finally, Newcastle’s Ultimate, Castle Wall, is where the writers’ leaping-into-the-fray motivation and personality for Newcastle really manifests. With the Ultimate, players can jump great distances and then powerslam Newcastle’s shield into the ground, bringing up a massive energy barrier that knocks back enemies. Additionally, if they try to push through it, they are slowed and take damage in doing so.

But it’s that leaping ability that really expresses Newcastle as a character, McGuire said. “When you bring that helmet visor down, and you pull up the Ultimate, you have this auto-locking mechanic on your allies,” he said. “You can put a lock onto them, provided they’re not buried in a bunker or something.” Leaping to a target-locked teammate gives Newcastle’s jumps more height and more distance.

“You can imagine a character being out in the open […] you can react to that, rescue them, come in there and give them a fighting chance to get them back in the game, and that’s what that heroic Saviors movie is all about,” McGuire said, referencing the lore trailer for Season 13 that dropped last week.

Newcastle will be the fifth defensive Legend (to nine offensive) and McGuire said he straddles a line with the two support-class Legends: Lifeline and Loba. McGuire and the designers felt this kind of roster imbalance made Season 13 the right time to bring a versatile, defense-oriented hero to the game, to keep players engaged with something other than an assault specialist.

“Maybe the Internet has seen some of these prototypes that explore into [new] spaces, see the roster that’s on the table, see the offensive Legends that exist, and we want to bring [Defensive and Support] class structures up,” McGuire said later. “We want to have players that are going to play in those fields. This is our first step to addressing that particular problem overall.”

Newcastle will be available when Season 13: Saviors launches on May 10, and is unlockable from the base game with digital currency, either 12,000 Legend Tokens (earned in-game), or 750 Apex Coins, which can be acquired in a $9.99 bundle of 1,000, the smallest amount sold in the game.

343 Industries has removed a fan favorite glitch in Halo Infinite, which finally let players freely drive the giant Pelican transports around the map. Fans are furious .

Shortly after the game’s release in late 2013, fans found that they could take over the Pelican , which is normally driven by a main story NPC, and make their own gadgets with it. This glitch required no mods, and seemed more like an abandoned feature accidentally left in the game.

When players call in a vehicle at one of the game’s many forward operating bases, and the Pelican comes to drop it off, players can hoist themselves onto the Pelican’s roof, and hold the vehicle button to get inside. The Pelican will remain empty if they stop playing and start again. With the exception of the turret, the Pelican can be driven all across the map as a normal flying vehicle.

But as of Halo Infinite‘s most recent update, the glitch is gone. And a Reddit post this week that specifically calls out the removal of this glitch has over 10,000 upvotes and 700 comments at the time of this writing.

“They patched it,” wrote Reddit user u/Sim0x24. The campaign has ended the Pelican’s use as a pilot for whatever reason. Driving vehicles like the Pelican or the Phantom was my childhood dream since Halo CE, and except Reach and Halo 4, you’ll never pilot it. 343, I’m not even mad, just … why?”

Frustrated commenters in the body of the post echoed their sentiment. And while there are some legitimate reasons 343 may have solved this issue — perhaps it’s an intended feature for a new content update, the glitch is tied to a far more serious bug, or it was an accident — it does hurt to see this go.

Lifelong Halo fans (myself included) have had a weird obsession with the Pelican since early on in the series. I personally remember scouring magazines ahead of Halo 3‘s release, hoping an interview would mention the ability to pilot one. And with Halo Infinite‘s massive open world, this was the game where players who’ve waited years could finally live their true Pelican pilot life. But not anymore.

Hopefully the Pelican will return to Halo Infinite‘s campaign someday, maybe with a functional turret and the ability to acquire it without glitching. Fans are sad today that the beloved and accidental toy was taken from them.

IO Interactive has some good news and some bad news for Hitman 3 fans. Let’s start with the bad news: Freelancer, the solo mode that was set to offer an array of new assassination campaigns for players and a customizable safe house for Agent 47, won’t make its previously announced release window of spring 2022. Instead, it’s now scheduled to arrive “in the second half of 2022,” the studio announced Thursday.

Hitman 3’s phenomenal sales — the game generated record-breaking revenues and profits for IO within its first few months on the market, making 2020-21 the most successful fiscal year in the company’s 23-year history — have given IO the luxury of pushing back the Freelancer mode, according to the studio. “We’re able to give our team that extra time to tighten the bolts and make sure that the mode is as close to our ambitions as possible,” IO said in a blog post.

Describing the Freelancer mode as “quite expansive and involving,” IO said, “We see HITMAN 3: Freelancer as the next evolution of Hitman and an entirely new way to engage with the world and characters that we’ve built into the World of Assassination over the last 7 years.” The studio announced in January that the World of Assassination trilogy, which began in 2016 with the franchise reboot Hitman, has garnered more than 50 million players.

As a result of the Freelancer delay, IO has shuffled the timing of some of the other items on its 2022 calendar — and here, the news is mostly good. The first new map since Hitman 3’s launch in January 2021 is now coming ahead of schedule, in July. It’s called Ambrose Island, and the island in question appears to be a tropical one, as you can see in the screenshot above. As usual, IO is offering limited details at this time, but said that the mission set there “takes place before the events of HITMAN 3 and fills in a few gaps from the World of Assassination storyline.”

Hitman 3’s next patch was previously scheduled for April and will now be released on May 24, so players will have to wait a bit longer for fresh content. But on the plus side, that v3.110 update will bring ray tracing support to the Windows PC version of the game, in addition to adding new content such as a contract and unlockable weapon in the Elusive Target Arcade mode. For more on what’s on the docket for May, check out the schedule in the image below.

Image: IO Interactive

Drunk driving kills one person every 52 minutes in the US – which is a good reason for Apple to be exploring a Car Key breathalyzer feature, which would refuse to unlock your car if you’re over the legal alcohol limit.

The US Patent & Trademark Office has today published an Apple patent application for this functionality …

Car Key

We first exclusively discovered Apple’s Car Key feature back in early 2020, before it was officially announced later the same year.

CarKey uses NFC technology to communicate with the car, enabling devices to function as a true car key. Users must place the iPhone on top of the NFC reader in the car during the initial process, and then CarKey will be available in the Wallet app. [Once configured], CarKey works automatically without the user having to unlock the phone or open any app.

It requires an iPhone XR or later, or an Apple Watch Series 5 or later. Support for the feature was initially limited to certain BMW models, but other carmakers are slowly adopting it. You can read more about it here.

Drunk driving

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) outlines the severity of the problem.

Every day, about 28 people in the United States die in drunk-driving crashes — that’s one person every 52 minutes. In 2019, these deaths reached the lowest percentage since 1982 when NHTSA started reporting alcohol data — but still 10,142 people lost their lives. These deaths were all preventable […]

Approximately one-third of all traffic crash fatalities in the United States involve drunk drivers (with BACs of .08 g/dL or higher). 

The NHTSA recommends a five-point plan to US drivers:

1. Plan your safe ride home before you start the party, choose a non-drinking friend as a designated driver.
2. If someone you know has been drinking, do not let that person get behind the wheel. Take their keys and help them arrange a sober ride home. 
3. If you drink, do not drive for any reason. Call a taxi, a ride-hailing service, or a sober friend. 
4. If you’re hosting a party where alcohol will be served, make sure all guests leave with a sober driver.
5. Always wear your seat belt — it’s your best defense against impaired drivers.

Car Key breathalyzer patent application

Apple’s patent application describes how the Car Key feature could be enhanced to require communication with a breathalyzer. If the reading is too high, Car Key could either refuse to unlock the car doors, or allow entry but prevent the car from moving.

In some embodiments, if a user attempts to remove the temporary restriction on the secure credential prior to the predetermined time period lapsing, one or more unlocking criteria must be satisfied before the temporary restriction can be removed. For example, the one or more unlocking criteria can include one or more biometric criteria (e.g., a blood alcohol level below a threshold value). In response to detecting input, electronic device displays notification instructing a user to breathe into a breathalyzer (e.g., a breathalyzer that is in wireless or wired communication with device) […]

Electronic device receives biometric information indicating that the user’s blood alcohol level is 0.00, which falls below the threshold value. Based on the determination that the user’s blood alcohol level satisfies one or more biometric criteria, electronic device displays indication and removes restrictions on the secure credential. 

In contrast, electronic device receives biometric information indicating that the user’s blood alcohol level is 0.08, which does not fall below the threshold value. Based on the determination that the user’s blood alcohol level does not satisfy the one or more biometric criteria, electronic device displays indication, and maintains restrictions on the secure credential. 

Low-cost wireless breathalyzers have been available for many years – I reviewed a keyfob-size one back in 2014.

It’s possible in the US for someone convicted of drunk driving to be required to have a breathalyzer fitted to their car after they have served a driving ban or prison sentence, which doesn’t allow the vehicle to be started unless the reading is well below the legal limit. As Car Key becomes a standard feature, this tech could make it much easier to impose such conditions on all those convicted.

We of course add our usual patent disclaimer: Apple patents a great number of ideas, most of which never make it into products – but I very much hope this one does.

Via Patently Apple

A joint research paper by Nvidia and Stanford University describes a technology that could be key to the difference between the bulky Apple VR headset we’re expecting to see in late 2022/early 2023 and the type of thin Apple Glasses likely to launch several years later.

One of the key challenges facing any true glasses-like AR device is the physics of display optics …

With a conventional virtual reality headset, you have a relatively small display, which you want to fill the view of the person wearing it, so that requires enough distance between display and eye-piece for the necessary magnification. This, as the researchers note, requires bulky headset designs.

A major barrier to widespread adoption of VR technol- ogy, however, is the bulky form factor of existing VR displays and the discomfort associated with that [PerkinsCoie 2019, 2021]. This problem stems from the magnifier principle of VR display optics, in which a lens enlarges the image of a small microdisplay. This design necessitates a relatively large distance between microdisplay and lens, making today’s VR displays bulky and uncomfortable to wear.

One solution to this is a “pancake lens” – a very flat lens design used in military headsets like night vision goggles. But pancake lenses don’t offer the type of image quality required for extreme close-up use like AR and VR, and – crucially – they cannot generate 3D images.

Nvidia and Stanford researchers propose a different solution: holographic images.

We propose a holographic near-eye display system that offers 2D or 3D image presentation to each eye with a device thickness of just a few millimeters.

This not-to-scale diagram gives an indication of how this reduces the depth required. The depth of the prototype is just 2.5mm thick.

Holographic images come with their own image-quality problems, though. But just as Apple uses computational photography to offer features like Portrait Mode for photos and Cinema Mode for videos, researchers say they could do the same to fix the image quality.

We propose a holographic near-eye display system that offers 2D or 3D image presentation to each eye with a device thickness of just a few millimeters. Our system builds on recent ideas that use artificial intelligence techniques to improve the image quality and accelerate the computation of computer-generated holograms (CGH) (e.g., [Peng et al. 2020; Shi et al. 2021]). With our design and experimental prototypes, we hope to stimulate new research and engineering directions toward ultra-thin all-day-wearable VR displays with form factors comparable to conventional eyeglasses.

The team does acknowledge that real-life applications are some time away yet. In the prototype, the glasses themselves contain only the display tech. As TNW notes, everything else is external.

It’s also important to note that the images you see of the ultra-thin VR glasses show a wearable prototype. As Jonghyun Kim — Senior Research Scientist at Nvidia — puts it, these are a “working demo, although the driving board, power, and the light source were detached for the conceptual photo.”

That’s why we see the ribbon cables running from the top of the prototype device.

We’re expecting Apple’s first AR/VR headset to look like a more stylish version of existing devices like the Oculus Quest 2 and HTC Vive, but to be much more expensive. The first-gen device appears likely to be pitched more at developers than consumers.

Apple Glasses are further ahead, and little is known about these as yet. We’re unlikely to see these before 2025, if then.

Three months after its latest update, the writing app Ulysses is now in version 26 with a handful of new features for those who are using the software to publish blog posts from it. Here’s what’s new for the Mac and iOS versions of the app.

For the Mac app, Ulysses 26 adds a permanently visible counter in the editor. In addition, it optimizes the flow for publishing blog posts, brings a dedicated publishing button and publishing preview, as well as a modernizes the WordPress integration using the WordPress REST API.

The iOS version of Ulysses also shares three of the news announced for the Mac app. Here are them:

• Optimized the flow for publishing blog posts
• Added a dedicated publishing menu and publishing preview
• Modernized the WordPress integration using the WordPress REST API

Ulysses is an app that helps you focus on your writing more than anything. It syncs between all your devices, and it’s one of the easiest ways to jump from your iPhone to your iPad, and then to the Mac to continue a project.

With update 25 launched in February, Ulysses on iPad and iPhone started to support third-party font apps like Creative Cloud or iFont. Whether users have these apps installed, they are able to make use of the provided fonts in the Ulysses editor for writing, which means you can have that specific font you love in all your projects.

Ulysses is a free app that offers a subscription plan to unlock all of its features. A monthly subscription is $5.99 and a yearly subscription is $49.99. Students can use the app at a discounted price of $11.99 per six months. The discount is granted from within the app.

For existing subscribers, Ulysses 26 is a free update through the App Store.

What do you think of these new features? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

In early 2020, Apple joined the FIDO Alliance, an open industry association created to reduce the interoperability of authentication methods and reduce reliance on traditional passwords. Now Apple, Google, and Microsoft have committed to expanding support for the FIDO Standard, moving toward a universal “passwordless” sign-in method.

The new standard, which was created by FIDO and the World Wide Web Consortium, aims to allow apps and websites to offer a unified and secure login option across different devices and platforms. As the alliance pointed out, authentication that relies solely on passwords is more susceptible to security breaches, as many people have easy passwords or reuse them across services.

The three companies believe that while improvements in password management and two-factor authentication have made digital life safer, there’s still more they can do to protect users.

Both Apple, Google, and Microsoft already provide support for the FIDO Standard, but the current implementation still requires the user to log into each app or website on each device before enabling a passwordless sign-in method. That’s why they will now expand support for this new sign-in standard in their products.

Users will soon be able to access their FIDO credentials on all their devices without having to re-register for each account. Authentication will also work regardless of platform or web browser. More importantly, FIDO credentials will be offered as a single sign-in option, without the need for a password or recovery method.

Another addition to the standard is the ability to authenticate a new device using another nearby device that already has the credentials.

The benefits of FIDO

By replacing regular passwords, the new FIDO standard makes users less susceptible to phishing attacks, since authentication relies on biometrics stored on the user’s device, rather than a shareable password. It also eliminates the need for authentication codes sent via SMS, which can be spoofed by hackers.

When it comes to Apple platforms, apps and websites can already let users authenticate with Face ID or Touch ID instead of using a regular password. It’s worth noting that this technology is different from iCloud Keychain, which only uses biometrics to auto-fill your password and not replace it.

There are no details on when expanded FIDO support will arrive on Apple platforms, but we will likely hear more about it at WWDC 2022 in June. Google says it is working to make the technology available across Chrome, ChromeOS, and Android products, while Microsoft has said that it will build support across its apps and services.