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Test your hostage negotiation skills in ‘Detroit: Become Human’ demo
Detroit: Become Human is out at the end of next month, but you can get a taste of it today. The PlayStation 4 exclusive has a demo out today on the PlayStation Network Store (where else would it be?). It might look a little familiar if you've been paying attention to the game, too, centering on the hostage negotiation scene from the game's E3 debut two years ago. Last year, press at the show got to go hands on with this section, searching a glitzy Motor City high-rise apartment for clues and evidence before dealing with a rogue robot nanny holding a gun to his charge's head.
Ascape Audio and the economics of making headphones in America
Ascape Audio's home page proudly proclaims "Designed in Detroit," but at this point it's not helping business. "It hasn't made any goddamn impact," marketing director Dean Clancy said. "I want to put that in as many places as possible, because regardless of how it impacts our sales, I just want people to know we're doing it here," he said. "Designed in Detroit" they may be, but economics makes manufacturing Ascape's earbuds in the Motor City impossible. President Paul Schrems estimated it'd take at least $5 million to build a factory and staff it, so the company has offshore-manufacturing contracts for the wireless earbuds it designs in the D. "These things I wanna make are not made here," Schrems told me recently.
'Detroit: Become Human' will arrive on PS4 May 25th
Come May 25th you'll be able to explore David Cage's vision of the Motor City in Detroit: Become Human. When the game debuted in 2015, there wasn't even a release window, but with each successive trade show, the game's path toward your home became a little clearer. Last fall, Sony said the game would be out sometime this spring. Well, May is definitely in that window. What isn't? Spider-Man, which now seems likely to be one of Sony's AAA tentpoles for this autumn. If a choose-your-own-adventure tale replete with permadeath and a story about humanity's decline is a bit heady for you this time of year, there's always God of War which will be released on April 20th.
Why sneakerheads are leaving eBay for Detroit startup StockX
Buying a pair of new rare sneakers is harder than reselling them on StockX. To buy new, the Yeezy or Jordan gods have to smile upon you, giving you that winning raffle ticket at a local store or letting you beat the bots online. To resell, all you have to do is go to the StockX website and set a price. You don't take photos or haggle with potential buyers. Instead, you look at what price the shoes are selling for and list your pair at whatever amount you think someone will pay for them. Like a stock exchange, buyer and seller identities are kept from one another. StockX acts as a middleman, only releasing payment once it verifies that goods are authentic. It's this simplicity that has helped the company earn so many loyal users. StockX was founded in 2015 after Quicken Loans founder and CEO Dan Gilbert bought Campless -- an online repository for sneaker sales data -- from Josh Luber. As part of the purchase, Luber moved from his native Philadelphia to the Detroit metro area, taking up the mantle of StockX CEO and working from Gilbert's One Campus Martius building downtown. In a little under three years, the company has become the go-to source for buying rare high-end shoes and streetwear.
Detroit begins enforcing its new Airbnb ban (updated)
Detroit authorities are turning up the heat on Airbnb hosts, now that the city's new zoning rules are in effect. According to Detroit Metro Times, the local government has begun sending cease and desist letters to owners, particularly those renting out units in the R1 and R2 (single- and double-family properties) residential zones. Detroit approved an update to the city's zoning code in November, which makes it illegal to rent out homes and rooms in those residential zones, unless it's a secondary property.
The auto industry is head over heels for VR
Virtual reality and augmented reality are all over the North American International Auto Show floor. Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen are all using the tech to show off their latest cars and concepts. During the industry preview days (the show is open to the public through Sunday, January 28th) lines to try the experiences stretched around each booth. The value to prospective customers is directly tied to the quality of each experience, though, and that quality shifts dramatically from one automaker to the next. Instead of thoughtful experiences that work within VR's current limitations and are simultaneously informative and entertaining, more often than not, the VR implementations felt like cheap amusement park gimmicks with little regard for the user's comfort.
The most eye-catching cars and tech from NAIAS 2018 in Detroit
The North American International Auto Show's press and industry preview week is winding down, but the show is far from over. Next week the NAIAS opens to the public and if can't make it to the Mitten State yourself but still want a peek at what's tucked inside Detroit's Cobo Center, we've got you covered. HoloLens and VR? Check. A Chevy pick-up with snowmobile treads for tires? Mhrm. Same goes for a Mercedes G-Class Wagon trapped inside a brick of "amber" resin. Hell, we even got the Michelin Man to flex his muscles for a photo. There's a lot to see, so kick back, pour yourself a frosty beverage and peep the slideshow below on the biggest monitor available.
Explore PlayStation 4's 'Detroit: Become Human' next spring
At E3 this year we finally got to play the latest game from David Cage and Quantic Dream, Detroit: Become Human, but didn't have an idea of when we'd get to do so at home. That's changed a bit. Along with a powerful new trailer showing what happens when one of the game's androids witnesses domestic violence, now we know that the game will come out sometime next spring. That's soon!
Michigan's manufacturing past is fueling its tech future
Michigan's struggles have played out on the world's stage. Just after the turn of the century began what's referred to as the state's lost decade; the economy faltered, oil prices skyrocketed and the housing market crashed. Nearly a million jobs left the state between 2000 and 2013, many of them in manufacturing and the automotive industry. For a state of just under 10 million people, the impact was devastating: Unemployment was higher than the national average by more than four percent. Bailouts for Chrysler and General Motors were followed by Detroit's record-setting municipal bankruptcy, but through grit and determination, Michigan started clawing its way back from the brink. Now multimillion-dollar investments in the city from tech titans like Amazon, Facebook and LG make headlines with startling frequency, and a host of tech startups have begun to fill the gaps left by plant closures.
VW engineer sentenced to 40 months in prison for emissions cheating
Former Volkswagen engineer James Liang is taking the fall for his employers sins. Liang has been sentenced to 40 months in federal prison, and has been ordered to pay a $200,000 fine for his part in the German automaker's deception about diesel emissions. That fine is 10 times the amount prosecutors were seeking, according to Reuters. While his defense argued for house arrest considering he'd only "blindly executed" his marching orders out of "misguided loyalty."
Playing witness to an android riot in 'Detroit: Become Human'
I don't know when I'll get to play Detroit: Become Human again. The latest game from David Cage's Quantic Dream studio (Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls) conspicuously didn't have a release date, or, hell, even a release year when Sony showed off a brand new demo at its media briefing earlier this week. Behind closed doors I was shown an extended version of the stage demo and saw just how an android riot starts.
Class-action suit alleges GM cheated emissions test
Yet another automaker has potentially been caught trying to cheat on its EPA emissions tests. Following VW's "diesel-gate" SNAFU in 2015 and the Justice Department going after Fiat-Chrysler just last week, GM on Thursday found itself the defendant in a class-action suit over its alleged use of "defeat devices" similar to those used by VW.
VW's I.D. Buzz concept is a self-driving, electric microbus
As Volkswagen works towards rebuilding itself as an EV automaker, one great way to avoid losing diehard fans is to clean up and refresh a few of those old classics that won them over in the first place. While the company has teased electric reincarnations of the iconic VW bus before, the company's latest microbus concept, the I.D. Buzz, is the first to go all out with a fully autonomous driving mode.
Inside the factory building GM's game-changing Bolt EV
At CES earlier this year, GM CEO Mary Barra announced, to much fanfare, that the Bolt EV would have a range of over 200 miles, cost less than $30,000 (after tax credits) and ship by the end of the year. So far, two of those three proclamations have come true. Fortunately for would-be owners, though, the automaker insists it'll deliver on that last one too, promising that the car will begin shipping by the end of the month. Getting the Bolt out on the street isn't just important for Chevy, but also for the future of motoring, and it's all coming together in Detroit.
Uber plans Detroit facility so it can collaborate with automakers
Following last week's self-driving car news, Uber is preparing to open a new facility in Detroit. The ride-sharing company revealed a fleet of autonomous Ford Fusions a few days ago that are already taking passengers around Pittsburgh. Today, vice president of global vehicle programs Sherif Marakby said that the new outpost will be used to strengthen its collaboration with automakers that are headquartered in Michigan.
PS4's 'Detroit' couldn't have taken place anywhere else
"When you set your story in a specific city, it's a very sensitive thing to do," said David Cage, the director of the upcoming PlayStation 4 exclusive Detroit: Become Human. "You don't want to do it if you're not respectful of the place, of the people living there." Cage's next game with studio Quantic Dream deals with a near-future world where androids aren't a mobile operating system for your phone; instead they're "living" among us with hopes and desires of their own. Specifically? Transcending their circuitry and, as the name suggests, being human.
'Detroit: Become Human' is all about the decisions you make
The team that brought you Heavy Rain is back with the choose-your-own-adventure game Detroit: Become Human. During gameplay footage shown at Sony's E3 press conference, we saw an android detective faced with a myriad of decisions that need to be made to free a child hostage. Each choice created an entirely new scenario which should make for interesting gameplay. The demo also showed our robot cop solving crimes and dealing with the consequences of all its decisions.
Google's self-driving car project sets up shop in Michigan
The Google Self-Driving Car Project, as it is accurately named, announced via Google+ yesterday that it is building out a 53,000 square-foot technology development center in Novi, Michigan where it will "further develop and refine self-driving technology."
Comcast's gigabit internet makes its way to Atlanta
The slow march toward blazing fast internet is upon us, and Comcast is bringing its DOCSIS 3.1 gigabit service to a few more cities. Soon the fine people of Atlanta and Nashville will be able to (likely) pay through the nose for the ultra-speedy connectivity, with it opening up to those in Chicago, Detroit and Miami in the back half of the year. It's worth noting that good number of those are cities where the company has bandwidth cap tests in place.
The US wants self-driving cars, and fast
Just a day after a technology-heavy State of the Union comes news that the White House isn't done pushing us into the future. Reuters believes that Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx will head to Detroit tomorrow to talk about the administration's efforts to accelerate the development of self-driving cars. It's said that Google, which has been spearheading the project to build an autonomous vehicle, will also be in attendance at the event. The newswire mentions Mark Rosekind, head of the nation's traffic safety bureau, who has asked for a "nimble, flexible" approach to writing new traffic regulations. Details are still thin on the ground, but it looks as if Obama's "spirit of innovation" is alive and well. [Image Credit: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg/Getty]
