Category: I-phone

One year after releasing a full remake of cult classic Destroy All Humans!, THQ Nordic plans to modernize its 2006 sequel as well. During its recent publisher showcase, the company announced Destroy All Humans! 2 – Reprobed (yes, that’s the actual name of the game). It’s coming out “soon” on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

Developer Black Forest Games is remaking the PlayStation 2 and Xbox title completely from scratch in Unreal Engine 4. The studio says the new game will feature local two-player split-screen co-op, and a “much larger” open world for players to explore. The 2006 original was game in the series developed by Pandemic Studios before the developer was acquired by EA in 2007 and subsequently shut down in 2009.

Apple is implementing a new COVID-19 testing policy for US employees who work out of its offices and retail locations. Moving forward, the company will require unvaccinated employees to get tested more frequently than their vaccinated counterparts. News of the development was first reported by The Verge, with Protocol later obtaining confirmation from Apple.

We've reached out to the company for additional information. 

The policy is the latest effort by Apple to push its employees to get inoculated against the coronavirus. Unlike Google, Facebook and several other tech companies, Apple has yet to mandate employee vaccinations. However, it has started asking employees to voluntarily disclose their vaccination status, according to a report published by Bloomberg at the start of September. This latest measure would likely put the company in compliance with upcoming guidelines from the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration that will require companies with more than 100 employees to either mandate immunization or provide weekly testing.

Niantic is discontinuing development on Catan: World Explorers. Announced in the fall of 2019, the studio had yet to release the game officially, and it was only available in early access in select markets outside of the US. Later today, Niantic plans to remove World Explorers from the App Store before shutting down the servers that power the game on November 18th, making it unplayable thereafter. With today’s announcement, the augmented reality title will not roll out to additional countries, and Niantic has removed all in-app purchases from the experience.

It’s not clear what exactly went wrong with development but it appears scope creep may have played a part in Niantic’s decision to cancel the project. “We had a vision for trading, harvesting and building up the world in seasonal play and resetting the board each month, just like you do for each new game you play at home,” the company said in a blog post spotted by Protocol. “But trying to adapt such a well-designed board game to a global, location-based Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game was a tough challenge."

Niantic notes that lessons it learned while working on World Explorers will go on to inform future projects. However, it’s hard to say what the cancellation will mean for the company’s other games. Following the runaway success of Pokémon Go, a variety of companies have partnered with Niantic to create similar AR experiences using their own properties. More notable examples include Hasbro and Warner Bros. Those same companies may now realize replicating the success of Pokémon Go may not be as easy as they initially thought it was.

A US district court has sentenced a man who unlocked 1.9 million AT&T phones to 12 years in prison. Muhammad Fahd continued the seven-year scheme to defraud the company even after learning of an investigation against him, according to the Department of Justice. At Fahd's sentencing hearing, Judge Robert S. Lasnik said he committed a “terrible cybercrime over an extended period,” with AT&T said to have lost $201.5 million as a result.

Fahd contacted an AT&T employee through Facebook in 2012 and bribed them to help him unlock customers' phones with "significant sums of money," the DOJ said. Fahd, a citizen of Pakistan and Grenada, urged the employee to recruit co-workers at a Bothell, Washington call center for the scheme too.

The DOJ says the employees unlocked phones for "ineligible customers," who paid Fahd a fee. In spring 2013, AT&T rolled out a system that made it more difficult for the employees to unlock IMEIs. Fahd then recruited an engineer to build malware that would be installed on AT&T's systems to help him unlock phones more efficiently and remotely. The DOJ says the employees gave Fahd details about the company's systems and unlocking methods to aid that process. The malware is said to have obtained information about the system and other AT&T employees' access credentials. The developer used those details to modify the malware.

AT&T claims Fahd and his associates unlocked just over 1.9 million phones through the scheme. The company says because of the unlocks, customers didn't complete payments on their devices, leading to the nine-figure loss.

Fahd was arrested in Hong Kong in 2018 following a 2017 indictment. He was extradited to the US and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in September 2020.

Grimore of Souls, the latest entry in the long-running Castlevania series of games, is now available as an Apple Arcade exclusive. While it’s not a new game per se, it’s one that most Castlevania fans haven’t had a chance to play yet. Series publisher Konami first announced the game back in 2018 before releasing it only in Canada in 2019 and then subsequently delisting it from the App Store.

Grimoire of Souls has something for Castlevania fans of all stripes. It features art and music from series veterans Ayami Kojima and Michiru Yamane. What’s more, you can play through the game using five different playable characters, including franchise favorites Simon Belmont, Shanoa and Alucard. There’s also support for co-op if you want to play with friends. You can download Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls on iOS, iPadOS, macOS and tvOS. An individual Apple Arcade subscription costs $5 per month.

Facebook has handed over virtual reality illustration and animation tool Quill to Iñigo Quilez, the developer who created the app. Quilez has formed a company called Smoothstep and rebranded the tool as Quill by Smoothstep, which is now on the Oculus Store.

The original Quill app will be removed from the Oculus Store on October 18th. It'll still work for those who downloaded it, but Oculus won't support the app any longer. Users will need to manually upload creators to Oculus Media Studio manually rather than through Quill as well.

Facebook says Quill content shared on Oculus Media Studio or Oculus TV will still be available on Oculus for now. The Quill Theater app will remain on the store — it will be renamed as VR Animation Player next month. The Oculus team also noted that Smoothstep has open sourced both Quill Theater’s IMM immersive content distribution file format (IMM) and an IMM player.

Quilez built the first version of Quill during a 2015 hackathon to aid production on Oculus Story Studio's VR short, Dear Angelica. The film was the first to be hand-painted completely inside of a VR environment. Other filmmakers have adopted Quill, with works createdusing the tool being screened at major film festivals such as Sundance and Venice.

Some major companies are expected to enter or push deeper into the VR and mixed reality space in the coming years, such as Apple and Sony. As such, developers of VR creation tools such as Quill have a big opportunity for growth in the medium term.

Boston Dynamics’ Spot has found itself a new job, and thankfully this time it doesn’t involve a potential battlefield role. Hyundai has started testing the robot at a Kia manufacturing plant in South Korea where it will be one of the tools the company uses to ensure the facility is safe for workers. The pilot represents the first public collaboration between the two companies since Hyundai acquired a majority stake in Boston Dynamics this past June.

You’ll notice the Spot featured in the video Hyundai released looks different from the robot we’ve seen in past clips. That’s because the automaker’s Robotics Lab outfitted it with what is essentially a backpack that features a host of enhancements, including a thermal camera, LiDAR and more powerful computing resources for handling additional AI tasks. The “AI Processing Service Unit” allows Spot to detect people, monitor temperatures and check for fire hazards. Additionally, a secure webpage allows factory personnel to monitor the robot remotely, and take over control if they want to inspect an area of the facility more closely.

According to Hyundai, the pilot will help it assess the effectiveness of Spot as a late-night security patrol robot before it goes on to deploy it at additional industrial sites. Automation, manufacturing and construction applications align with what the automaker said was its grand plan for Boston Dynamics when it bought the company.

The next time you get pulled over in Michigan, it could be by a cop in an electric SUV — at least if Ford has anything to say about it. The American automaker is stepping up its Police Interceptor program, which modifies existing models for use by law enforcement, typically with beefed up suspensions, brakes and added horsepower. 

The company has pitched the idea to law enforcement agencies in the UK, while the city of Ann Arbor, MI already has two such vehicles on order. On Friday, Ford announced that it, in short order, will deliver one of its Mustang Mach-E Interceptor prototypes — which appears to be based on the Mach-E GT variant — to the Michigan State Police as well, where it will undergo real-world testing to see if the EV can handle the rigors of police work.

Ford hopes to "use the pilot program testing as a benchmark while it continues to explore purpose-built electric police vehicles in the future" as part of its $30 billion multi-year investment in EV technology. 

Elektron might have a reputation for making expensive digital instruments, but it's hard to look past the Model lineup if you're in the market for a groovebox. The Model:Samples and Model:Cycles devices are currently on sale at both Amazon and Sweetwater. They're down from $299 to $249, making them an even better option for beatmakers, newbies and veterans alike.

Buy Elektron Model:Samples at Amazon – $249Buy Elektron Model:Samples at Sweetwater – $249

Elektron brought much of its knowhow to the entry-level Model:Samples in 2019. You can add your own samples via the microUSB port. In our review, in which we gave Model:Samples a score of 86, we called it a "best-in-class sequencer" with lots of controls and "tons of opportunity for happy accidents." However, we had reservations about the lack of onboard sampling and "mediocre" quality of the pads.

On the whole, though, it's a great groovebox. Given that Model:Samples cost $449 just a couple of years ago, $249 is an excellent price.

Buy Elektron Model:Cycles at Amazon – $249Buy Elektron Model:Cycles at Sweetwater – $249

Model:Cycles, meanwhile, is a more recent model. It too is a six-track sequencer, but it adopts some of the features of Elektron's Digitakt sampler. It uses FM synth sounds rather than samples. In giving Model:Cycles a score of 88, we found that it offers an "incredibly fun hands-on playing experience." We found the lack of filter and arpeggiator a little disappointing, but it's still a terrific groovebox. On its website, Elektron notes the two devices are on sale until September 30th.

When Google launched Android 11 at the end of last summer, it added a feature that automatically resets app permissions. If you don’t use an app after several months, the OS can revoke some of the permissions that the application asked you to grant when you first installed it. It’s a handy feature that’s unfortunately only available on a relatively small number of devices due to the fact most Android manufacturers only support their devices with platform updates for a couple of years. Thankfully, that’s about to change.

Starting in December 2021, Google will begin rolling out that functionality to all devices running Android 6 (Marshmallow) and above, the company announced today in a developer update. The feature will come courtesy of a Google Play services update the company will roll out to “billions” of devices. Once you have the new software installed on your device, apps that target Android 11 or higher will have the feature enabled by default. For those apps that were built for older versions of the OS, you’ll have the option to enable it manually.

This is one of those small quality-of-life updates that most Android users should be able to appreciate since it can be easy to forget all the permissions you may have granted to an app when you first installed it.  

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Biden administration plans to implement new measures to make it more difficult for hackers to profit from ransomware attacks using cryptocurrencies. As early as next week, the Treasury Department will reportedly impose sanctions and guidance designed to discourage organizations from using digital currencies to pay for ransoms.

Per The Journal, among the measures the agency is considering are fines and other penalties aimed at businesses that cooperate with hackers. Later in the year, the Treasury Department is also expected to implement new anti-money laundering and terror-financing regulation to limit further the use of cryptocurrencies as a payment method for ransoms and other illegal activity.

The incoming sanctions will reportedly single out specific traders and exchanges instead of casting a wide net and attempting to disrupt the entire crypto ecosystem. In addition to harming organizations that may have facilitated ransomware payments in the past, the hope is that sanctions will scare most cryptocurrency platforms from processing those types of transactions in the future.

“An action of this kind would be an aggressive, proactive approach to going after those who facilitate ransomware payments,” Ari Redbord, a former Treasury Department official, told The Journal.

The measures would be the latest attempt by the Biden administration to tackle the issue of ransomware attacks following a year in which they’ve increased in frequency and severity. After the Colonial Pipeline attack led to fuel shortages in parts of the US, the president signed an executive order that called for, among other things, improved information sharing between federal agencies. More recently, the Department of Homeland Security laid out mandatory rules that call on pipeline operators to appoint cybersecurity coordinators and report incidents to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Netflix has locked down several high-profile creators to TV and movie deals over the last few years, including Ryan Murphy, Shonda Rhimes, David Fincher and Game of Thrones duo David Benioff and Dan Weiss. The latest talent to join Netflix's stable is Dan Levy, the star and co-creator of Schitt's Creek who won four Emmys for the hit Canadian sitcom last year.

Levy's first Netflix project is a romantic comedy movie that he'll write, produce, direct and star in, according to Variety. He can't work on any shows for Netflix until his TV deal with Disney studio ABC Signature expires next summer.

Netflix played an important role in Levy's rise to stardom after it started streaming Schitt's Creek in 2017. “Netflix offered Schitt’s Creek a second home at just the right time and opened the doors to a whole new audience for us,” Levy said in a statement. “Watching the show thrive there has only enhanced my excitement about continuing to tell specific, meaningful stories with them in both TV and feature film.”

Levy has some other projects in the works elsewhere, including through his ABC deal. Hulu ordered a pilot last month for an animated comedy called Standing By from Levy and fellow Schitt’s Creek writer Ally Pankiw.

Finally, Apple announced the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max, Apple added the more advanced pro camera system ever on iPhone, 6.1 inches 13 Pro and 6.7 inches 13 Pro Max, Super Retina XDR display…

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Finally, Apple announced the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini, as the same size 6.1 inch and 5.4-inch sizes of iPhone 12 and 12 mini respectively. Other than the size, iPhone 13 has a smaller notch, the…

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When it was released in 2017 VCV Rack quickly became a hit. The free, open source virtual modular synth with thousands of modules to choose from (including recreations of popular physical ones) gave many of us a way to explore the world of Eurorack without dropping thousands of dollars on gear. And now, after a long and arduous road — VCV Rack 2 is nearly upon us. 

When it launches in November VCV Rack 2 will include a complete redesign of the UI, including a dark mode and a greatly improved browser. That last part is huge because, the library of nearly 2,700 modules is overwhelming to say the least. And chances are you're going to end up downloading a lot of them. Here you can filter by category or even just highlight your most used modules. And you can easily import, export and duplicate module selections. 

The big news though, is the introduction of a proper VST plugin so you can use VCV Rack in Ableton, Logic, or whatever your DAW of choice might be. Squeezing the power of an entire virtual modular synth into a plugin is no easy task. It took time and effort and VCV along with its founder Andrew Belt are hoping that some people will be willing to pay to keep the project alive. So, while VCV Rack will continue to be a free and open source application, the VST plugin will be exclusive to the Studio Edition and will include proper technical support (not just forums). 

VCV Rack 2 will be available in November for an introductory price of $99. Eventually that will go up to $149, but even then it's still cheaper than many virtual instruments with far less flexibility.