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iOS 14 might let you scroll through apps in a list view
Apple appears to be working on a new homescreen option for iOS 14 that will allow users to view their apps in a list format. Leaked code, obtained by 9to5Mac, suggests that the list format will let users sort their apps with several filters.
Google Podcasts gets a much-needed personalized recommendations tab
The Google Podcasts app just got a recommendations tab. The new feature will suggest individual episodes, rather than full shows. That could make it easier to discover content if you don't know where to start, and it may help track people you like across different shows. As an added perk, you won't need to subscribe to the show to listen to the episode.
YouTube lets you hide channels from your recommendations
No matter how advanced algorithms get, none will understand your YouTube viewing preferences better than you. With that in mind, YouTube is adding a few new features that will give users more control over which videos appear in their homepage and Up Next suggestions. The changes will roll out beginning today on Android and iOS, and they'll arrive on desktop soon.
Spotify is testing podcast suggestions for your commute
In the past couple months, Spotify has doubled down on its podcasting efforts. It's invested hundreds of millions and acquired Gimlet, Anchor and Parcast. One thing the company lacks is a way to recommend podcasts to its audiences. But, according to The Verge, that could be changing. An early test shows podcast recommendations alongside personalized music suggestions in a new feature called Your Daily Drive -- hinting that Spotify wants to secure a spot in your commute.
Facebook's 'M' AI assistant will help you choose a movie
Facebook had grand plans for its in-Messenger AI assistant, M, when it was launched in 2015. While the service hasn't quite yet lived up to the hype, the company is continually rolling out new features in a bid to make using it a fun experience, and to make it easier to get things done. From today, users in the US will see three new suggestions when using the app.
Facebook’s AI suggestions come to Messenger in the UK
According to Facebook, chatbots were going to change the way we get things done. Users were meant to be able to to buy flowers, order fast food and check in with their bank without ever having to leave the Messenger app. The company quickly dialed back its enthusiasm, admitting that they were somewhat overhyped, but its core technology, M, still underpins Messenger today. Most of that functionality has been limited to the US, but this week Facebook has brought what it calls "M Suggestions" to the UK, allowing users to enjoy recommendations from its AI-powered personal assistant.
Facebook Messenger's AI assistant helps you save links for later
Two months ago, Facebook finally rolled out M, its AI-powered personal assistant, to the general public. Well, sort of. Instead of the limited edition of M that would answer your every beck and call (it had a lot of human help), the public version of M has to be triggered with certain words. A few features at launch include suggesting stickers to use in conversations or prompting an Uber ride if M detects you need to get somewhere. Today, Facebook is adding even more M suggestions to the mix: a "save it for later" function, birthday wishes and call initiations.
Facebook is using your Instagram feed to suggest new friends
Notice some familiar faces popping up in Facebook's "People You May Know" section? Well, there's a reason for that. Zuckerberg & Co. recently began serving up suggestions for prospective connections based on your Instagram feed. It's no surprise that Facebook would pull data from the filter-driven app, especially from folks who've linked the two -- it does own the photo software after all. And as we've heard a few times before, Facebook likes its apps to share info. Of course, if you're like me, you use the two social networks for entirely different reasons (food pics and keeping up with old pals, natch). Facebook confirmed that it "recently" began pulling data from Instagram based on who you follow, but wasn't too keen on elaborating further.
The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar ain't doing so good
If you somehow missed it, last week the WildStar team announced that the game will be squishing into megaservers to help bolster populations. What the hell happened? Contrary to what the developers would like you to believe, this is not good news. It's especially bad news if you're part of the roleplaying community, as you're about to get shoved into a server configuration that's almost specifically designed to prevent you from roleplaying outside of a handful of shared plots, but it's bad news for everyone. And it's bad news for the game when server merges are a reasonable reaction after less than three full months of operation. We all know that the game launched to good reviews, and it's far too early to say, "Well, it failed." At the same time, this is not a sign of a robust and vibrant future. This is the first stage of an organized retreat, and it doesn't inspire confidence. So what, exactly, took place that brought the game from the high of its launch to server mergers today?
The Nexus Telegraph: Preparing for WildStar's launch
When you read this, dear reader, you will be less than two weeks away from early access to WildStar. Unless you've come here just to let everyone know you don't want to play the game, in which case you might want to find slightly more joyous hobbies? Just a thought. The obvious thing to do pre-launch, of course, is to reserve your name, but that didn't work out for everyone so well, and I'm betting that if you were going to do that by now, you would have done it. (Still have a little time if you haven't, though.) What else can you do? Open beta is over. It's just getting into the meat of the game and maybe taking a day or two off of work first, right? Obviously not; there's more stuff you can do to prep yourself for the launch psychologically and otherwise. So step into my metaphorical office, and I'll give you some suggestions about things to do before the game starts and once early access kicks off.
Storyboard: Breaking game mechanics for the sake of roleplay
Sometimes your max-level character in World of Warcraft is supposed to still be a student. Sometimes your Trooper in Star Wars: The Old Republic is an expert at hand-to-hand combat with a techblade that you can't wield. Sometimes your Final Fantasy XIV is a gunsmith in a world where guns clearly exist but aren't available to players. Sometimes you've found something that the game itself is directly at odds with in your roleplaying. I'm not talking about lore; I'm talking about the game mechanics. And while I've brushed up against this before, I've never actually talked about how to deal with situations that the game mechanics explicitly forbid. You are X, and the game tells you that you cannot be X. So what do you do? I can assume you can get over the point of saying that you're something that's slightly at odds with the game mechanics, but how do you explain the fact that your character should be something that the game won't allow?
Storyboard: Sharing the spotlight
We roleplayers tend to be a little... self-centered. Kind of the nature of the game, seeing as how you're creating a persona and then trying to flesh out an entire life story for that persona. It's natural that you'd want to be on the center stage a little more often. The problem here is obvious. Heck, you can see it in day-to-day life. If only one person thinks, "I'm the star," everything flows fine. If everyone thinks that, you're surrounded by a screaming cacophony of people who all think that their individual problems are more important than anyone else's problems. You have a band full of lead guitarists and no one on drums, a full team of pitchers without anyone at second base. You need to learn how to step away from the spotlight. To let someone else be important for a bit. To give up the spotlight and be the supporting cast for a while. So how and why do you do that? I'm glad you let me assume that you asked.
The Mog Log Extra: Tips for a Final Fantasy XIV beginner
We're all kind of beginners with the new version of Final Fantasy XIV. Some of us have high-level characters already, but none of us has years of experience with the game. At best, you have memories of how things worked in the last beta test or two. But there's still a difference between having a character from version 1.0 dripping with high-level items and having a fresh guy or gal stepping off the boat into Limsa. Fortunately, the game's tutorials now do a solid job of introducing you to how the game works. But there are still some tips and tricks to consider, and it's with that in mind that I present this column. If you're new to the game completely or even just an occasional dabbler in the previous beta tests, here's some advice to help you out during your first steps.
Storyboard: That was a poor decision
Having a new kitten in the house is sort of like watching a slideshow of poor choices. My kitten knows, for example, that the older cat of the house doesn't want to wrestle all the time because she's made this clear in the past. And he knows that right now she's not happy to see him, as evidenced by the fact that she moved somewhere else when he entered the room. Despite all of that information, he still runs right up to her and pounces on her, then acts completely shocked when she smacks him to the ground and hisses with anger -- as if this outcome was not only unexpected but somehow cruel. I've talked before about the importance of making bad decisions with a character, but it's hard to gain the necessary immersion in a character's mind to make decisions that are meant to be believable while still missing the forest for the trees. So instead of offering positive advice, I want to give advice on how to make dumb and short-sighted choices that will later explode in your character's face due to poor reasoning. Think of them as reverse life-hacks.
The Mog Log: Returning to your Final Fantasy XIV friends
Despite my best efforts, I was unable to throw open the doors and start demonstrating the wonders of Arcanist with my time in Final Fantasy XIV's open beta. I know, I'm disappointed too. I can offer a summary of what I saw from a glance at the abilities of the class, sure, but that's a little more speculation than I want to lay on people in lieu of real playtime. (The short version is that it looks interesting, and yes, there's a cure in there.) Instead, I'm going to offer some advice to my fellow players coming back into the game with older characters. Think of these not as strict guidelines but as suggestions, tips to make the path through beta and early access just a wee bit easier. I spent most of phase 3 preparing for the launch along these lines, and it might make the transition a bit more gentle for everyone.
The Mog Log: FFXIV lessons from Final Fantasy XI
Final Fantasy XIV is in the final push to launch now, with phase 4 right around the corner and early access shortly after that. This is good news for me, since it means I can get back to actually playing the game that I write about every week after nearly a year. And, you know, the game is pretty awesome, so that's a bright point as well. It also means that the future isn't what it used to be. The relaunch has been The Future for a very long time, but now the relaunch is The Almost Right This Second, and The Future consists of patches and expansions and new classes and the like. All good things, all welcome, and all things that could take a few lessons from Final Fantasy XI. I've said before that Final Fantasy XIV was designed to fix some problems from Final Fantasy XI that it never was going to have, but that's not what I'm talking about. Instead of talking about preventing players from leveling consistently or hunting the possibility of RMT with McCarthy-level vigilance, let's look at some simple lessons to internalize in the future.
Storyboard: Grieving in character
Grief is not the same as being sad. Being sad is something I've discussed before, and it's a temporary emotional state. Grief is a filter, something that colors your whole perception and pushes you into a holding pattern of regret and sorrow. Real grief colors even things you do that make you happy so that even as you're smiling and laughing there's a pall over what you do. It's the way you feel when you lose a parent. Or a lover. Or a nation. Or almost anything profoundly important that you can lose, that you weren't ready to lose, that you don't know how to exist without. The point is that it's a very important human emotion, one that is going to come up in roleplaying. But it's also a problematic one because you have to convey what is in large part an internal sensation externally. So how do you get the sense of grief across without just making your character into a constant font of moping?
Weotta iOS local discovery app goes nationwide, Google Ventures approves
Finding things to do and places to go has never been easier thanks to services that neatly pull all the options together. Weotta hopes to be another weapon in your discovery app arsenal after expanding its coverage to the whole of the US, having initially been limited to 40 cities. As the company's CEO told Forbes, the free iOS app uses "phrase extraction and natural language processing" to source its local suggestions from the nooks and crannies of the internet. That same wizardry is used to steer its rating system, which is based on what's said about a venue or event rather than aggregating numerical scores. It'll learn your likes and dislikes, tailoring recommendations as it gets to know you better, but you can discover what's happening in the area for yourself using the search feature. Via Facebook Connect, the app will also tell you what's popular among your peers. While Weotta is only available for iOS, it's attracted funding from Google Ventures, which is a recommendation in itself that suggests you give it a whirl.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: How Champions Online could get its groove back
It's hard to be a fan of Champions Online right now. The game has not been in a good state for pretty much any of its life cycle, but as I've discussed previously, its woes have really come into focus lately. It's been a long time since the game really sat down and advanced any sort of story, and it's been even longer since the game offered players something new in the endgame. When Cryptic has two other games with lots of ambition and promise, Champions Online is left looking like the unwanted sibling. Part of the problem is the fact that CO currently has a skeleton crew working on it and a minimal budget. I suspect (without having hard numbers) that it's at the same sort of uneasy place as Vanguard was for a long while -- making just enough money to justify its continued operation while not making enough money for additional development staff. So with all of that in place, what can the game do to prop itself up a bit more without requiring a huge infusion of additional money? How can Champions Online get its act back together?
Storyboard: Villainy afoot
I really thought this was a topic I had revisited on a few occasions, but apparently the only time Storyboard has discussed villainy was back in the column's infancy when I was still properly finding its voice. (Not that I feel that project has ever stopped, but that's another matter.) And it's an interesting topic for many reasons because villainy as a concept really gets put through the wringer in RP to begin with, especially if you tend to let morality be muddled into a few million shades of gray like I tend to. The thing about villains in roleplaying is having a character solely meant as A Villain generally doesn't work as well, simply because no real people are as malicious as that might require. Instead, you wind up with several people serving as the villains in a particular timeframe. So we need to define what we mean by villains, what role they can play in roleplaying, and what the pitfalls are in the first place.
